• Lord L. Well obferved, my friend, and with your usual afperity; but I fhall foon return the compliment with another accufation against you in the court of criticism, for repetition and tautology. Some of our learned doctors fay, you frequently labour under a ples thory of wit, a kind of overflowing of the fatiric gall, which gives an ugly tinge to your complexion; when you get hold of game you run it down till you are out of breath: your branches, to fay the truth, are sometimes rather too luxuriant.

Luc. My faults I fear are but too numerous, and fo, my Lord, are the images you make use of to illuftrate them; the whole, however, amounts to no more than that I am apt to be too entertaining, and, when I am in a merry mood, know not where to stop. The plethora of wit, and an overflow of good fatire, I muft beg leave to obferve, are diforders which you moderns feldom labour under: you should, nevertheless, have fome pity on those who do.

Lord L. This may be wit, but it is not argument. And now, my dear Lucian, to be a little more ferious, I must proceed to a heavier charge, and which you will not, I fear, so easily get over; and that is,

Want of decency,

which, as my friend Pope well obferves,

is want of fenfe.

There are certain liberties, which all the wit in the world, or, which is nearly the fame thing, all the wit and humour of Lucian, can never palliate, or excufe. I could point out fome paffages of this kind, but, at prefent

Luc. If any fuch there are, and fuch, perhaps, there may be, I wifh, my Lord, with all my heart, that they had never been written, I guess, indeed, at what you allude to, and must fairly confefs, I bave loaded my afs's panniers with a little too much falt: but, to fpeak in the language of the friend you just now quoted, when we get upon our hobby-horfe (and then, you know, the afs was mine), there is no knowing what lengths he may carry us.

Lard L. But this is not the only ride you have taken: what think you of the Egars, which you cannot deny being the author of? • Luc. There, indeed, I stand self-convicted: but the age I lived in, and the manners of thofe licentious times, muft mitigate my crime. The fubject of that little tract was then as common a topic of difcourfe, and thought as innocent a one as it has fince been, and, perhaps, to this day is, in modern Italy; but this, your Lordship will fay, is a poor plea in my favour.

Lord L. But an indifferent one, indeed: the groffnefs and obscenity, fo often to be met with, not only in your works, but in many other ancient authors, is to me the more extraordinary, as, whenever you chufe to throw a veil over ideas of the loofer kind (inftances of which might be given in the piece I just now mentioned), you do it in a manner more elegant than we generally find amongst the chalter writers of modern ages: how it has happened, I know not; but we are certainly much more nice in this point than you used to be.

Luc. Which, by the bye, my Lord, is no irrefragable proof that you are a whit more virtuous; for, as our friend Voltaire has pret

tily

tily obferved, "la pudeur s'eft enfuié des Cœurs, et s'eft refugiée fur les levres:" he adds alfo, which, I think, is going too far, in ftill tronger terms, and lefs to your credit, that "plus les mœurs font depravés, plus les expreffions deviennent mefurées; on croit regagner en langage ce qu'on a perdu en vertu.'

• Lord L. You come off pretty well, as you generally do; but, now we are upon this head, let me afk you one queftion: Did you write what are ufually called the Meretrician Dialogues, or Dialogues of the Harlots, which your enemies have attributed to you? I hope they are the production of fome other pen.

:

Luc. By Hercules, every one of them they were written, I affure you, by one of thofe pretenders to wifdom, whom I fo feverely ridiculed; on purpose, I suppose, to bring down my character on a level with his own.

• Lord L. This, indeed, was always my opinion; for they are' as dull as they are lewd, as void of wit and humour as of decency, and just as entertaining as would be a detail of the conversation between abandoned courtefans in a modern brothel.

Luc. They are fo. Apollo forbid I should ever have ftained my papyrus with fuch ribaldry! Upon the whole, my Lord, with all my loofenefs and immorality, if you will needs judge from what I left behind me, I am not fo bad as fome folks think me: fetting afide my writings, I could appeal to my life, which is the fairest teftimony, for my real character.

Lord L. Of that, as well as of your works, we have had various, and even contradictory accounts: never could I fit down to read the dull hiftory of it in the balderdash Latin of a Dutch biographer. I should be infinitely obliged to you, therefore, if, whilft we ramble across this pleasant meadow, you would indulge me with a little sketch of your life from your own mouth.

Luc. That I will, with all my heart.

"Lord L. " And brief, good Lucian, for I am in hafte."

Luc. Know, then, my dear Lord, my family, I must confefs, none of the nobleft, was originally Grecian, and came from Patra in Achaia, from which place, for fome prudential reafons, not neceffary to be here mentioned, they retired to Samofata, a city of Commagene in Syria, on the Euphrates, which had the honour, for fo I know your Lordship will call it, of giving birth to your friend Lucian.

Lord L. And an honour it certainly was; for who, but for this fortunate circumftance to immortalize it, would ever have heard of Samofata? as I do not remember to have read that it ever produced any man of wit or genius except yourself. I have often, indeed, wondered to find you, in feveral parts of your works, mentioning, as if you were proud of it, the place of your nativity.

Luc. I will tell you, my Lord, why I did so because I knew my enemies, of whom I had always a fufficient number, would certainly take notice of it, if I did not; would have talked perpetually of Syria, and thrown it in my teeth, that I was not a Grecian, but a Barbarian. I was refolved, therefore, to be before-hand with them, and to let them know, that a native of Samofata could write as well

as

as the best of them. But, to refume my narrative. As my father, who was a poor labouring man, had not an obolus to fpare, my education in my younger years was, as you may suppose, but indifferent; and though I had a very early and ftrong propenfity to literature, could meet with very few opportunities of improving it: I remained, confequently, for a long time, totally ignorant.

Lord L. Under difadvantages like thefe, it is astonishing how you could ever have attained to a ftyle fo pure, elegant, and correct; and, which is still more extraordinary, in a corrupt and degenerate age, when tafte and genius were almost extinct, and fcarce any footfteps remained of true Grecian perfection in the world of fcience and literature. At fuch a period to emerge from the darkness of fcholaftic jargon, and fhine forth, as you did, in all the luftre of claffic purity, was a fingular phænomenon, and not eafily to be accounted for.

Luc. If I have any merit as an author, which you seem partial enough to fuppofe, I can attribute it to nothing but the early habit which I had contracted in my infancy of having perpetually in my hands the works of fome of the best ancient writers, Homer, Plato, Xenophon, and two or three more; thefe, when I was fent of errands by my father, I used to beg, borrow, or fteal, from fome of the great men in our neighbourhood: these I devoured with the greatest eagernefs, and to thefe I frankly own myself indebted for all the fame which I afterwards acquired.

The unfortunate adventure at my first fetting out in life, and the defperate quarrel with my uncle, I need not here repeat to you, as you are already acquainted with it by the Dream which, I doubt not, you have often read. I fhall only, therefore, obferve to you, that, after the memorable event there recorded, meeting with nothing at home but hard words, and yet harder fare, I took the firft opportunity to decamp; packed up my little all (little enough, heaven knows, it was), and made the best of my way to Antioch: there, under the tuition of my illuftrious patronefs, having gained knowledge, or, at least, impudence enough to become a profeffor, I fet up as teacher of Rhetoric, which was the fashionable accomplishment of thofe times, and univerfally fought after and admired, as it was the general opinion, that eloquence might be as easily taught, and as readily acquired, as dancing, playing on the flute, or any thing elfe which nature might, or might not, have any objection to.

• Lord L. That idea, abfurd as it is, was not confined to Antioch, or the age you lived in, but extended to later times: our witty and fenfible friend, Lord Chesterfield, entertained the fame opinion, and has gravely afferted that every man may be an orator if he pleafes, provided he will take the pains to make himself one: experience, however, in the perfon of his fon, convinced him of the contrary. But, pray go on.

Luc. There, then, I foon diftinguished myfelf, and got many a hard-earned fefterce by beating eloquence into the heads of the young nobility by this, together with the aid of writing exercises and declamations, which were much in vogue, I gained a tolerable livelihood. Some of them are, perhaps, fill extant in my works.

Lord L. I thought you had alfo, either at Antioch or Macedon, I know not which, another trade, and practifed as a lawyer. • LHFO

Luc. I blush to own it, my Lord, but this I certainly did the fcholaftic harangues which I had been long used to, and a habit of defending both fides of the queftion, infenfibly qualified me for a pleader at the bar. In this crooked path, full of thorns and briars, I wandered for fome time, and dealt in abuse, equivocation, and chicanery, with tolerable faccefs: a certain unavoidable fenfe, however, of right and wrong, and fome qualms of confcience, which I could never entirely get over, foon estranged me from a profeffion which might, perhaps, have turned out in the end very advantageous

to me.

• Lord L. Your opinion of the law, my good friend, we are not now to learn; you have given it us pretty freely in many parts of your works: but, pray, what became of you after you left Antioch ? for, if I am not mistaken, in the early part of life, you were a great rambler.

• Luc. I was fo: the fuccefs which I met with in my two profef fions of law and rhetoric, enabled me, in a few years, to gratify the ftrong paffion which I always had for travelling, and I accordingly, during the reigns of the Antonines, took my route from Antioch into lonia and Greece; from thence I roved to Gaul and Italy, and returned, through Macedonia, into my own country: this agreeable peregrination was, as you may fuppofe, of infinite fervice to me; during the courfe of it, I acquired a stock of ufeful knowlege, with regard to men and things, that laid the foundation of all the little fhare of merit and of fame which I could ever pretend to.

• Tired, however, at laft, with repeated wanderings, I fixed my habitation in the feat of empire, retired to the groves of Academus, and, as I advanced in years, fought for ease and pleasure in the bofom of philofophy.

• Lord L. Who, herfelf, if we are to credit your affertions, was not in a very easy fituation; being, at that time, like yourself, rather on the decline.

• Luc. I endeavoured, however, to reftore her to her priftine rank and dignity, and was, upon the whole, I believe, of some service to her. I had not, indeed, rank or fortune enough properly to defend or fupport her, and was, moreover, having now loft the practice of both my profeffions, finking apace into poverty and old age, when Providence interfered in my favour, and put it into the head of an honest Emperor most amply to provide for me: the good Marcus Aurelius took me into his houfe, made me his friend and companion, and gave me the fuperintendency of Egypt, an honourable and lucrative employment.

Lord L. Which, I fuppofe, like the great penfioners of my time, you performed the duty of by deputation, and made an agree

able finecure of it.

Luc. I did, and fpent the remainder of my days in eafe, pleafure, and feftivity.

Lord L. Your life, if I have been rightly informed, was a pretty long one but, pray, what, after all, put an end to it? for of this, as of many other things concerning you, we have had various

accounts.

• Luc.

• Luc. I know you have. Suidas has fet his dogs at me, and worried me to death: another has charitably configned me to hell flames, which, notwithstanding, I have hitherto, as you fee, had the good fortune to escape; and all this, I believe, on account of a little tract called Philopatris, which, between friends, I had no hand in; but the real cause of my death was, by Hercules, that rafcally disorder, which had killed fo many honeft fellows before me, even that opprobrium medicorum the Gout, whofe attacks I feverely felt for many years, who at laft fnatched me away in the prime of my life, and tranfported me, in the ninetieth year of my age, from a wicked world to these happy manfions, where I have now the pleasure of converfing with your Lordship.

Lord L. I thought, by your Tragopodagra, that you spoke feelingly, and like one who had experienced the miferies which you fo pathetically, as well as fo humourously, defcribe; confidering, however, the length of your thread, you have little reafon to complain of Atropos for cutting it too foon; though there it was certainly no fmall dégree of ingratitude in the Lady, whom you had raised to the rank of a divinity, to kill the man who had fo exalted her.

• Luc. It was a return, indeed, which I little expected, and had I forefeen her conduct, I am inclined to think I fhould never have made a goddess of her.

Lord L. In good truth I believe not. I thank you, my friend, for your little hiftoriette, and wish with all my heart I could convey it to a friend of mine in the other world, to whom, at this juncture, it would be of particular fervice: I mean a bold adventurer, who has lately undertaken to give a new and complete tranflation of all your works. It is a noble defign, but an arduous one; I own I tremble for him.

• Luc. I heard of it the other day from Goldfmith, who knew the man. I think he may eafily fucceed better in it than any of his countrymen, who hitherto have made but miferable work with me; nor do I make a much better appearance in my French habit, though that I know has been admired. D'Ablancourt has made me fay a great many things, fome good, fome bad, which I never thought of, and, upon the whole, what he has done is more a paraphrafe than a

tranflation.

Lord L. All the attempts to reprefent you, at least in our language, which I have yet feen, have failed, and all from the fame caufe, by the tranflator's departing from the original, and fubftituting his own manners, phrafeology, expreffion, wit and humour, inftead of your's: nothing, as it has been obferved by one of our beit critics, is fo grave as true humour (and almost every line of Lucian is a proof of it); it never laughs itfelf, whilft it fets the table in a roar; a circumftance which thefe gentlemen feem all to have forgotten instead of thofe fet features, and ferious afpect, which you always wear when molt entertaining, they prefent us for ever with a broad grin, and if you have the leaft fmile upon your countenance, make you burst into a vulgar horfe-laugh: they are generally, indeed, fuch bad painters, that the daubing would never be taken for

you,