all reserves and managements in respect of others, and the passion so far took the turn of a frenzy, that being one day asked, why he spoke ill of every one? "It is," says he, "because I am not able to do them ill, though I have so great a mind to it." Such extravagant declarations of his general enmity made men deal with him as with the creature he affected to be; they no more spoke of him as belonging to the species he hated; and from henceforth his learned speeches or fine remarks could obtain no other title for him, but that of The Rhetorical Dog.
While he was in Macedon he employed his time in writing, and reciting what he had written in the schools of sophists. His oratory (says Dionysius Halicarnassensis) was always of the demonstrative kind, which concerns itself about praise or dispraise. His subjects were the most approved authors, whom he chose to abuse upon the account of their reputation; and to whom, without going round the matter in faint praises or artificial insinuations, he used to deny their own characteristics. With this gallantry of opposition did he censure Xenophon for affectation, Plato for vulgar notions, and Isocrates for incorrectness. Demosthenes, in his opinion, wanted fire, Aristotle subtlety, and Aristophanes humour. But, as to have reputation was with him a sufficient cause of enmity, so to have that reputation universal, was what wrought his frenzy to its wildest degree; for which reason it was Homer with whom he was
