ing, as in these 'Dialogues of Search,' with some young noble of the rising generation, whose character is hardly formed and whose heart is still fresh and pure, the manner of Socrates entirely changes, and his voice softens; he lays aside that terrible "irony" of his; he adapts his questions to the youth's comprehension, encourages and sympathises with his attempts to answer, and uses the easiest language and the homeliest illustrations to explain his meaning.
We may take first the Dialogue entitled Laches, in which Courage―the instinct of a child and the habit of a man―is discussed. The speakers bear historical names. There is Lysimachus, the son of Aristides, and Melesios, son of Thucydides (not the historian, but a statesman contemporary with Themistocles); but the genins of the fathers has not in this case been inherited by their sons, who are plain respectable citizens of Athens, and nothing more. They are conscions, however, of their own degeneracy, and complain that their education had been neglected, and that their fathers had been so much engrossed in affairs of state as to have neither time nor inclination to act as tutors to their own children. "Both of us," says Lysimachus, "often talk to our boys about the many noble deeds which our fathers did in war and peace―but neither of us has any deeds of his own which he can show. Now we are somewhat ashamed of this contrast being seen by them, and we blame our fathers for letting us be spoiled in the days of our youth when they were occupied with the concerns of others; and this we point out to the lads, and tell them that they will not grow
