SOURCE: Anselment, Raymond A. “Socrates and The Clouds: Shaftesbury and a Socratic Tradition.” Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 2 (April-June 1978): 171-82.

[In the following essay, Anselment discusses Shaftesbury's views on the impact of Aristophanes' The Clouds on the trial, imprisonment, and execution of Socrates.]

Among the many eighteenth-century reactions to Shaftesbury's Characteristics the issue of Aristophanes' role in the condemnation of Socrates provoked considerable controversy. Shaftesbury had cited Aristophanes' attack against the philosopher to argue that Socrates' reputation and philosophy were enhanced rather than diminished after he had been “most abominably ridiculed, in a whole comedy writ and acted on purpose.”¹ Critics of the Characteristics, however, were not always willing to agree that truth and virtue can “stand the test of ridicule” unscathed. Though many believed “The Comedy inscribed the CLOUDS is an execrable attempt to expose one of the wisest and best of Men to the Fury and Contempt of a lewd Multitude,” they also conceded that “it had but too much success.”² Their contention that Aristophanes' satiric comedy led directly to the charges brought against Socrates had considerable support by the mid-eighteenth century; indeed Shaftesbury's apologists were hard pressed to minimize the damaging influence of The Clouds.³ But in the process of establishing the relationship between Aristophanes' comedy and Socrates' trial both sides considered Shaftesbury's statement out of its original context. The perplexing allusion to Socrates in A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm originates in the complex, even contradictory views concerning the philosopher's fate current in the early eighteenth century. Shaftesbury's understanding and use of a tradition important to the history of ideas are valuable guides to the essay's controversial interpretation of the lore surrounding Socrates and The Clouds.

The traditional source for Shaftesbury's position is apparent in the text of his essay. When he proposes that Socrates benefited from Aristophanes' ridicule, Shaftesbury does not allude to Plato's Apology and its ambiguous attitude towards The Clouds. Instead A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm relies upon a later, less reliable account in Claudius Aelian's Varia Historia (ca. 200 A.D.) and concludes, “He was not only contented to be ridiculed; but, that he might help the poet as much as possible, he presented himself openly in the theatre; that his real figure (which was no advantageous one) might be compared with that which the witty poet had brought as his representative on the stage. Such was his good humour! Nor could there be in the world a greater testimony of the invincible goodness of the man, or a greater demonstration, that there was no imposture either in his character or opinions” (I, 23-24). According to Aelian's version of events, Anytus and Meletus hired the “trifling fellow” Aristophanes to impugn the reputation of Socrates. The play was performed, and its success was immediate: Aristophanes received great popular acclaim while Socrates was made the source of much derision. But the object of this ridicule was not daunted. “To abolish and blot out all dubitations, and wauering opinions out of the mindes of the straungers,” Socrates appeared publicly at the theater and stood throughout the performance of The Clouds “so that there coulde be no choyse but the eyes of the people must of necessitie passe and perce unto him, standing in the ful face of the multitude. So little did Socrates set by the canckred natures of the Atheniens, and the spightfull practises of Aristophanes.”⁴ Although Aelian does not specifically state that Socrates triumphed, later Varia Historia reintroduces the issue of the philosopher's presence at the theater as proof that verbal attacks against just men “vanishe lyke smoke in the ayre.”⁵

Other classical sources further support Shaftesbury's idea of Socrates' good-humored response to Aristophanes' ridicule. Plutarch's often translated The Education of Children introduces the philosopher's demeanor as a paradigm of the wise man. To a questioner who asked whether he felt indignation about the abusive treatment in The Clouds, Socrates supposedly replied, “No indeed; … when they break a jest upon me in the theatre I feel as if I were at a big party of good friends.”⁶ Another anecdote recorded in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers demonstrates even more emphatically Socrates' affability. “We ought not to object, he used to say, to be subjects for the Comic poets, for if they satirize our faults they will do us good, and if not they do not touch us.”⁷ While neither of these accounts suggests to the same extent Shaftesbury's image of Socrates' triumph, Laertius' life quotes passages from The Clouds to show that the comic writers “in the act of ridiculing him give him high praise.”⁸ Even if Shaftesbury were not already familiar with this or the other classical traditions, he would have found them along with a translation of Aelian's account in Thomas Stanley's influential The History of Philosophy (1655).

Indeed the extent of this tradition is further apparent in a contemporary eighteenth-century commentary on Socrates' attitude towards comic writers. Joseph Addison's essay on ridicule in the March 27, 1711 edition of the Spectator might well have had Shaftesbury in mind when it remarks upon a passing reference to comic poets in the Phaedo. Socrates' assurance that at this moment of his death even these detractors will forego criticism prompts Addison's comment, “This Passage, I think, evidently glances upon Aristophanes, who writ a Comedy on purpose to ridicule the Discourses of that Divine Philosopher: It has been observed by many Writers, that Socrates was so little moved at this piece of Buffoonery, that he was several times present at its being acted upon the Stage, and never expressed the least Resentment of it.”⁹ The essay mentions no sources perhaps because Addison assumes the knowledge is commonplace and perhaps because the generalization is intended to emphasize the departure from tradition in the next sentence. “But with Submission,” Addison continues, “I think the Remark I have here made shows us that this unworthy Treatment made an Impression upon his Mind, though he had been too wise to discover it.”¹⁰ Addison's belief that he offers new insight into the matter may explain the subsequent eighteenth-century reactions to Shaftesbury's statements. Quite simply, A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm depends upon an established understanding of a Socrates impervious to jest while Addison's essay heralds a reassessment of Aristophanes' play that would bolster the positions of later critics who had misgivings about ridicule.

The tradition based largely upon Aelian's account, however, is more complex than Addison implies. Although Varia Historia limits its narrative to the origin and initial impact of The Clouds, by the seventeenth century many commentators agreed with Thomas Stanley that in the ridicule of Socrates recounted by Aelian lay “the occasion of his death, but begun many years before.”¹¹ The connection between Aristophanes' satiric attack and the trial of Socrates depends upon the central figures of Anytus and Meletus. By making them the instigators of the accusations in The Clouds, Aelian overlooks alternative motives for Aristophanes' ridicule and tacitly agrees with Plato's Apology that these men were Socrates' primary enemies. Several centuries later Eunapius explicitly links The Clouds with the trial of Socrates: “When they saw that the audience in the theatre was inclined to such indulgence, certain men set up an accusation and ventured on that impious indictment against him; and so the death of one man brought misfortune on the whole state.”¹² Thomas Magistros' medieval argumentum to the text then gives additional weight to the two accusers and thereby adds to the legacy inherited by later ages. In the seventeenth century Palmerius could look back upon these commentators and conclude that the “claque” led by Aelian “seem to signal that this comedy came forth a bit before the accusation and condemnation of Socrates. For if it were the preparation, the prologue of the accusation, they reasoned that that which aroused that drama could be reestablished with fresh objects of hatred.”¹³

Their deduction, however, does not trouble Palmerius. He and the other prominent scholars later included in Ludolph Kuster's 1710 edition of Aristophanes' plays express important reservations about Aelian's reliability. Evidence from the play and its scholia indicate to them that at least twenty years elapsed between the production of The Clouds and the public condemnation of Socrates. Men bent on prejudicing the Athenians would not, in their opinion, postpone the opportunity to capitalize upon the play's success; therefore many of these influential authorities discount Aelian's version of the play's inception.¹⁴ Besides suggesting that Aristophanes actually wrote the comedy as part of a long-standing general dispute between philosophers and comic poets, they and others point to passages in the play that appear to praise the character of Socrates. In addition, Plato would not have included Aristophanes favorably in The Symposium if the playwright were any sort of threat to Socrates. Indeed Aristophanes' failure to win the prize suggests to some that Aelian greatly exaggerates the play's initial success.¹⁵

Shaftesbury's familiarity with these arguments remains, of course, conjectural. While Kuster's edition appeared after the publication of A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, the modifications of Aelian were readily available in earlier editions of Aristophanes and in various seventeenth-century commentaries. Shaftesbury would also have had the opportunity to read François Charpentier's La vie de Socrate in one of the three editions issued before the English translation of 1712. Charpentier includes many of the criticisms raised by the supporters of Aristophanes against the authority of Aelian and, more important, anticipates Shaftesbury's position. For when all of the objections have been considered, Charpentier concludes, “This is a Truth which all the Authors confirm; he regarded this dangerous Invention of Aristophanes with contempt, and was no more mov'd at it.” He then further adds, “Thus too Aristophanes and his Party found themselves mistaken, thro' the constancy of Socrates, and only furnish'd him with an occasion to render himself more illustrious, by the very Design which they had concerted to ruin his Reputation.”¹⁶

Shaftesbury could not, however, disregard the growing belief that Aristophanes' ridicule ultimately destroyed Socrates. Even before Voltaire and the eighteenth century popularized this notion, the harmful effect of Aristophanes' comedy was commonly established. By the last decades of the seventeenth century the fate of Socrates illustrated to many the ease with which truth can be obscured. Earlier in the century Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy assures readers that Socrates laughed and remained unconcerned when ridiculed: “Socrates still kept the same countenance. Even so should a Christian soldier do, as Hierom describes him, march on through good and bad reports to immortality, not to be moved: for honesty is a sufficient reward; … naughtiness will punish itself at last.”¹⁷ When Richard Allestree, however, turns to the example of Socrates in The Government of the Tongue (1674), the optimism is noticeably missing. Allestree contends that “bare honesty” cannot sustain itself when stripped of its adornments. “Thus the enemies of Socrates, when they could no otherwaies suppress his reputation, hired Aristophanes a Comic Poet to personate him on the stage, and by the insinuations of those interludes, insensibly conveied first a contemt, then a hatred of him into the hearts of the people.”¹⁸ Walter Charleton also agrees that the example of Socrates illustrates the consequences of malignant wit. In Two Discourses (1675) Aristophanes' “most inhuman persecution of the Divine Socrates” is described by Charleton as a malicious attempt “to render that best and wisest of Mortals odious to the base Vulgar.” The instigators Anytus and Meletus “not long after by false accusations robb'd the innocent Philosopher [sic] of his life, and the world of its richest Treasure.”¹⁹

Despite evidence disputing both Aelian and the harmful influence of The Clouds, many commentaries on drama increasingly contribute to the growing belief that Aristophanes was responsible for the death of Socrates. Plutarch had established in general terms the abusive quality of Aristophanes' plays, and Renaissance classicists such as Daniel Heinsius and Ben Jonson point to the ridicule of Socrates as an instance of dramatic wit “invented for scorne and laughter”;²⁰ but the late seventeenth century finds even greater significance in Boileau's recognition that “A Socrates himself, in that loose age / Was made the pastime of a scoffing stage.”²¹ For the first time discussions of drama assert with conviction “that Aristophanes's Plays did not a little contribute to the death of the famous Socrates by exciting the People against him” and maintain that “the credit that Aristophanes had among the Athenians, which was powerful enough to ruine Socrates, is singly sure sufficient.”²² To many Aristophanes was destructive, not merely abusive, and the persecution of Socrates at the hands of the satirist offers a commonplace example of ridicule's destructive power.²³

An exception, such as Thomas Rymer's A Short View of Tragedy (1692), finds itself with the unenviable task of criticizing the venerable philosopher. Rymer's suggestion that Socrates may have been injudicious in his criticism of the old religion and his characterization of Aristophanes as a moderate reformer reveal the unorthodoxy of the survey's famous pronouncements on Othello. His additional argument that Socrates was not arraigned until some twenty years after the comedy's performance might appeal to some but not all of the “Many … offended with Aristophanes as accessory to the death of Socrates.”²⁴ A 1701 translation of André Dacier's The Works of Plato Abridg'd expresses so strongly the damaging effects of Aristophanes' calumny that its author finds distinctions based on time irrelevant. “His Comedy of the Clouds had such an absolute influence upon the People, that it mov'd them to receive the Accusation brought against this Philosopher more than twenty Years after, branding him for a profligate Wretch that introduc'd new Deities.”²⁵ Dacier's pronouncement carries more than the usual weight accorded a man of his stature, because it emphasizes Socrates' own admission. When Socrates alludes in the Apology to Aristophanes' caricature of the philosopher swinging in a basket, Dacier adds in a footnote, “Socrates treats the Calumnies of Aristophanes and his first Enemies, as if it were a just Charge formally presented upon Oath.”²⁶ By focusing on the philosopher's statement, Dacier avoids issues involving the credibility of later accounts such as Aelian's. The motive and dates associated with The Clouds do not concern him, since its devastating effects are so demonstrable.

They are also apparent to writers involved in a late seventeenth-century controversy that anticipates A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm. Shaftesbury's interest in the limits of religious toleration and the effectiveness of ridicule also forms a central concern of a dispute involving the future bishop of Oxford, Samuel Parker. One of the divine's critics, John Owen, objects to Parker's endorsement of dialogue and ridicule against enthusiasts unwilling to conform to his Erastian vision of religious polity, and he supports his misgivings with the example of Socrates. Relying heavily upon Aelian, he recalls the events familiar to many of his contemporaries and warns, “By these means, and through these advantages, they ceased not until they had destroyed the best and wisest person, that ever that City bred in its Heathen condition, and whereof they quickly repented themselves.”²⁷ His fear that all religion could be made to appear similarly ridiculous—an objection later shared by many who reacted to Shaftesbury—is not easily dismissed in Parker's response. Although he tries to minimize the criticism, Parker does not dispute the harm Aristophanes inflicted on Socrates. In a response later followed by Shaftesbury's eighteenth-century supporters, he first argues that the single defamation of an honest individual should not prevent all ridicule of obvious wrongs. Another argument proposes that Aristophanes never “design'd any appearance of Truth”; his audience was meant to laugh at the discrepancy between the grave philosopher they actually knew and the buffoon they saw suspended in the basket.²⁸ Before he turns the tables on Owen, rejecting the parallel between Socrates and the Nonconformists and suggesting the philosopher fell “A Sacrifice to the Zeal and Fury” of the Nonconformists' Athenian counterparts, Parker comes close to Shaftesbury's apparent position. Despite his admission at one point that an unscrupulous wit can make any individual appear ridiculous, he refuses to relinquish the belief, “if Men Publish Sense, all the World can never make them ridiculous; if Nonsense, they make themselves so. And no Gaggs, nor Lime-twigs can disable them from defending their Books against any Adversary, but either a bad Cause, or an ill Management; … so if they are lime-twigged with Ink and Paper, 'tis with Rods of their own laying; and if they are exposed in a Fools Coat, 'tis with one of their own making.”²⁹

The conflict in Parker's position represents the tension in early eighteenth-century attitudes towards Aristophanes' ridicule of Socrates. When Shaftesbury wrote A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm he could rely upon a long tradition to support his assertion that The Clouds actually enhanced Socrates' reputation. But the arguments against his optimistic view of Socrates' fate were also strong. In fact the objections raised later in the eighteenth century are not original. By the Restoration the growing emphasis on the philosopher's mistreatment results, at least in part, from a reassessment of ridicule. While many contemporaries of these decades note the increasing popularity of wit, considerable misgivings are voiced about its misuse. The more “amiable humor” of the next century has growing support, and a reaction against intemperate and misguided ridicule is apparent. Shaftesbury surely recognized the concerns of his age expressed in the greater attention given to Aristophanes, yet he sweeps them aside in his faith in Socrates' ability to withstand attack.

The reference to Socrates at the end of a section dealing with “right” or “good” humor confirms Shaftesbury's contention that this manner affords the fullest protection against enthusiasm and is the “best foundation of piety and true religion.” Socrates' invulnerability to Aristophanes' mockery illustrates that wit separates the “truly serious” from the merely ridiculous, and his reaction to ridicule demonstrates the proper attitude. Both points are implicit in the next paragraph, and in the essay's immediate concern, the freedom to ridicule religion. Socrates' “invincible goodness” proves by analogy “true” religion's similar unassailability, and his genial nature represents the only way to deal with criticism. Each of these principles is underscored in the conditional statement, “provided we treat religion with good manners, we can never use too much good-humour, or examine it with too much freedom and familiarity” (I, 24). The freedom to ridicule religion, however, assumes secondary importance. Although A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm never mentions Socrates again, he remains a model for Shaftesbury's primary interest, the good-humored manner that ensures truth. The rest of the essay explores the way to avoid undesirable enthusiasm.

Here Shaftesbury relies upon an undisputed tradition. His ideal of conduct presupposes the widely admired Socratic injunction, nosce teipsum. A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm insists that criticism of others begins with one's self. “For to judge the spirits whether they are of God, we must antecedently judge our own spirit, whether it be of reason and sound sense; whether it be fit to judge at all, by being sedate, cool, and impartial, free of every biassing passion, every giddy vapour, or melancholy fume” (I, 39). Shaftesbury's contemporaries recognized that the man who professed his own ignorance therein actually displayed the “great Sense and Probity” necessary to challenge the “Fabulous” nature of Athenian faith and return it to a “Standard of Natural Religion.”³⁰ Indeed the man Shaftesbury acknowledges elsewhere as the world's greatest philosopher had been long considered a very religious, even Christian teacher. Appropriately an essay that defines divinity as the love of the public and the promotion of universal goodness turns to Socrates as the model of behavior best suited against the modern enthusiasts who threaten disruption. One of Benjamin Whichcote's Moral and Religious Aphorisms aptly describes Shaftesbury's rationale: “It is a pregnant argument, that Wisdom hath not governed the world: that many have more readily received pretending Enthusiasm and Prescience, with sacred regard; than wisest Laws and best Reasons. Socrates overthrew Enthusiasm and Superstition; when he taught men to receive no Doctrine, against or without Reason.”³¹

The characteristic expression of conduct founded upon reason and self-knowledge is good-humored raillery. Although Shaftesbury does not fully discuss its nature until An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, the figure of Socrates represents the ideal. As an acknowledged originator of both ridicule and philosophy, Socrates typifies the unpretentious, easy pleasantness that for Shaftesbury is good humor. Cicero believes “Socrates far surpassed all others for accomplished wit in this train of irony or assumed simplicity,” and he recommends this blend of humor and seriousness for both public statements and “the conversation of gentlemen.”³² Later satirists pressed to defend their ridicule commonly cite the example of Socrates, and by the early eighteenth century “the Droll” offered a well-established precedent for banter suited to grave matters.³³ When Shaftesbury lauds the philosopher's attitude and then recommends a genial outlook characterized by wit as well as self-awareness, he advocates a conduct many recognized. René Rapin summarizes it in the description of Socrates found in Reflections upon Philosophy: “he preserv'd an Air of Pleasantry in treating of the gravest Subjects; and his most serious Meditations never rob'd him of his good Humour. As 'twas his constant Intention not to speak like a Wit, but like an honest Man, so there was always somewhat just and noble in his very Trifling, and his Raillery. He pretended to no Accomplishment, and was capable of All.”³⁴

Rhetorically two different traditions influence Shaftesbury's emphasis on Socrates' genial reaction to criticism and his discussion of good humor in criticism. But since the first tradition involves disagreement about the harmful influence of The Clouds, its questionable nature obscures the essay's stronger focus on Socrates' admirable behavior. Perhaps Shaftesbury intentionally runs this risk, even though he must have been familiar with the objections raised about Aristophanes' comedy, because he wants to exploit with maximum rhetorical effect the precedent Socrates provides for the essay's ideal of behavior. Shaftesbury finds, after all, considerable support for his suggestion that the philosopher benefited from the ridicule; and, in any case, he is not reluctant to interpret tradition for his own ends. This is apparent in his later, though similar use of the parallel figure of Christ as an illustration of ideal religious conduct.

In contrast to the morose, angry attacks of some religious leaders, Miscellaneous Reflections lauds the “festivity, alacrity, and good humour” apparent in the “pleasant manner” of Christ's teaching: “'tis not more vehement and majestic in his gravest animadversions or declamatory discourses than it is sharp, humorous, and witty in his repartees, reflections, fabulous narrations, or parables, similes, comparisons, and other methods of milder censure and reproof” (II, 231). Some justification for this characterization may be found among the Cambridge Platonists Shaftesbury admired, but the description is by no means conventional. The traditional view, generally attributed to Chrysostom, is very explicit: “Yea, for He also wept, both over Lazarus, and over the city; and touching Judas He was greatly troubled. And this indeed one may often see Him do, but no where laugh, nay, nor smile but a little; no one at least of the Evangelists hath mentioned this.”³⁵ When controversialists in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries rely upon Christ's example as a sanction for their religious satire, they commonly invoke illustrations of this harsh, uncompromising disposition. Their image of Christ whipping the money lenders from the temple justifies a ridicule quite unlike the good-humored with Shaftesbury envisions.³⁶

Like the earlier impression of Socrates, the essay's view of Christ entertains a provocative position which enables Shaftesbury to find the ideal embodiment of humor in one of the two greatest individuals of his civilization. Later critics who attack his use of Socrates but not his impression of Christ ignore both the general direction of A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm and the insistence upon “good manners” or interpret its allusion to the ancient philosopher in terms of Shaftesbury's later An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor. When John Brown, for example, criticizes the latter essay's statement “One may defy the world to turn real bravery or generosity into ridicule” with the example of Socrates, he overlooks the contexts of the essays as well as their careful qualifications. From his understanding of the role Aristophanes plays in the death of Socrates and from his own sense of experience, Brown sees entirely different results from conflicts between ridicule and truth.³⁷ Others who share his views argue that the ridicule of Socrates confirms only the great precariousness of truth. Shaftesbury, in their opinion, uses tradition selectively, and he oversimplifies the degree of dangerous distortion actually inherent in ridicule.

These criticisms, which do not take into account the conditions Shaftesbury imposes upon the freedom to ridicule, are not entirely to the point. Near the beginning of A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm Shaftesbury recognizes that not all people equally appreciate ridicule: “The vulgar, indeed, may swallow any sordid jest, any mere drollery or buffoonery; but it must be a finer and truer wit which takes with the men of sense and breeding” (I, 10). Like Swift who appeals in A Tale of a Tub to “Men of Wit and Tast,” Shaftesbury suggests he addresses a similarly select audience. Rhetorically the essay flatters its readers and then appeals to their judgments to confirm its characterization of them. The strategy admits only one response to the essay's fundamental questions, “For what ridicule can lie against reason? or how can any one of the least justness of thought endure a ridicule wrong placed” (I, 10)? With an ironic turn befitting an admirer of Socrates, Shaftesbury challenges his audience to act as reasonable individuals. Although the essay may seem to advocate the ideal rather than the practical, Shaftesbury is not unaware of reality. Rather he encourages his readers to examine the values of their civilization and to act accordingly. He offers them a pattern of reason and good humor that conforms to the actions of Christ and Socrates.

The historical accuracy of his models remains secondary. Prior to the introduction of the controversial example of Socrates, the essay describes a mythic, golden age of “natural humanity” in which both reason and wit are freely balanced against enthusiasm and superstition. This Athens of Socrates might well fulfill the essay's opening promise to entertain its readers “with a sort of idle thoughts, such as pretend only to amusement,” but the ambiguous seriousness does not obscure Shaftesbury's ironic treatment of those who have lost sight of this ideal in their obsession with eternal life and the “saving of souls.” Contemporaries consumed with their own religion and unwilling to tolerate other beliefs only drive civilization further from the era of Socrates. Towards the revival of this desirable, even mythical world Shaftesbury offers his vision of good humor. The ideal of Socrates may well be based upon disputed tradition, and the present, fallen world may well frustrate the imitation of this model, but similar difficulties also challenge the established religion. As the carefully defined and qualified manner of his essays indicate, Shaftesbury has no illusions about the obstacles confronting his ideal. Contemporaries who considered Socrates and Christ divine martyrs, however, would agree with him that even death is not defeat. The quest for truth, the means and not merely the end, motivates Shaftesbury's advocacy of good humor. For him Socrates embodies an ideal which, like its Christian counterpart, requires its own act of faith.

Notes

1. Anthony Ashley Cooper [Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671-1713], A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm in Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), ed. John M. Robertson (New York, 1964), I, 23. Hereafter cited in the text.

2. Thomas Blackwell, Letters Concerning Mythology (London, 1748), 262.

3. Thomas B. Gilmore, Jr., who surveys the later, eighteenth-century reactions to Shaftesbury's allusion to Socrates, concludes, “Every argument intended to disprove the disastrous effect of Aristophanes' ridicule on Socrates was weak or inconclusive”—see The Eighteenth-Century Controversy Over Ridicule As A Test of Truth: A Reconsideration, Number 25 of Georgia State Research Papers (Atlanta, Georgia, 1970), 24.

4. Claudius Aelianus, A Registre Of Hystories, trans. Abraham Fleming (London, 1576), The second Booke, 17 v.

5. Ibid., The fifth Booke, 63 v.

6. Plutarch, The Education of Children in Moralia, trans. Frank C. Babbitt (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), I, 10.

7. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R. D. Hicks (Cambridge, Mass., 1942), I, 167.

8. Laertius, I, 157.

9. The Spectator, ed. Donald F. Bond (Oxford, 1965), I, 98.

10. Ibid.

11. Thomas Stanley, The History of Philosophy (London, 1665), III, 30.

12. Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers, trans. Wilmer Cave Wright (New York, 1921), 381, 383.

13. Jacobus Palmerius [Jacques Le Paulmier de Grentemesnil], Exercitationes in Optimos Fere Auctores Graecos (1668), 729. Translated by Reuben R. Lee.

14. Palmerius remains the most influential proponent of this position.

15. See, for example, the commentary by Kuster and the selections he includes from Frischlin, Petit. Palmerius, and Spahn in Aristophanis Comoediae undecim, Graece et Latine (1710).

16. François Charpentier's The Life of Socrates (1668) is included in the edition of Xenophon's The Memorable Things of Socrates (London, 1712). The passages quoted are from page 28.

17. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Floyd Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith (New York, 1927), 551.

18. Richard Allestree, The Government of the Tongue (London, 1674), 131.

19. Walter Charleton, Two Discourses (London, 1675), 130.

20. Ben Jonson, Timber, or Discoveries in Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, ed. J. E. Spingarn (Oxford, 1957), I, 59. Jonson relies upon Heinsius; Plutarch's judgment is made in his comparison of Aristophanes and Menander.

21. Nicolas Boileau, Art of Poetry, trans. William Soame (1683) in The Art of Poetry, ed. Albert S. Cook (New York, 1926), 204.

22. François D'Aubignac, The Whole Art of the Stage (London, 1684), 47; James Drake, The Antient and Modern Stages survey'd (London, 1699), 60.

23. See, for example, Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (London, 1691), I, 444; George Farquhar, A Discourse upon Comedy (1702) in Critical Essays of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Willard Durham (New York, 1961), 271.

24. Thomas Rymer, A Short View of Tragedy in The Critical Works of Thomas Rymer, ed. Curt Zimansky (New Haven, 1956), 173.

25. André Dacier, The Works of Plato Abridg'd (London, 1701), II, 3.

26. Ibid., II, 12.

27. John Owen, Truth and Innocence Vindicated (London, 1669), 50.

28. Dryden earlier makes this distinction in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy; it is also developed by eighteenth-century supporters of Shaftesbury.

29. Samuel Parker, A Defence and Continuation of the Ecclestiastical Politie (London, 1671), 176.

30. Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (London, 1698), 37.

31. Benjamin Whichcote, Moral and Religious Aphorisms. Collected from the Manuscript Papers of The Reverend and Learned Doctor Whichcote (London, 1753), #1085.

32. Cicero, De Oratore, trans. E. W. Sutton and H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), III, 403.

33. Among the most famous of the many satirists who cite Socrates are Erasmus in his Letter to Martin Dorp, defending the Praise of Folly, and Milton in his response to Alexander More, Pro Se Defensio. For a significant statement by a writer not directly involved in satire see Isaac Barrow's sermon on Ephesians 5:4 in Several Sermons Against Evil-Speaking (London, 1678).

34. René Rapin, Reflections upon Philosophy in The Whole Critical Works of Monsieur Rapin (London, 1706), II, 353. This Socratic ideal is central to Shaftesbury's works; see, for example, John G. Hayman, “Shaftesbury and the Search for a Persona,” Studies in English Literature, 10 (1970), 491-504.

35. Chrysostom, Homily VI. Matt. II. 1, 2 in The Homilies of S. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of Matthew in A Library of Fathers (Oxford, 1843), 88.

36. See, for example, Thomas Edwards, Gangraena (London, 1646), 210; Samuel Parker, A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie (London, 1670), vii; John Edwards, Some New Discoveries (London, 1714), 186.

37. John Brown, Essays on the Characteristics (London, 1751), 56ff. Eighteenth-century criticisms of the Socratic allusion are relevant if Socrates represents for Shaftesbury proof that ridicule is a test of truth. But modern critics now generally agree that Shaftesbury never explicitly makes this famous statement in any of his essays; A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, in any case, is not as narrowly focused as its eighteenth-century critics suggest.