urgent; while the search would have become
more ardent as the inquirers became more
numerous and the instruments of inquiry
more effective, till at length this golden fruit
of the tree of knowledge would have dropped
dead ripe into the expanded palm of watchful
and educated observation. It is somewhat
different in art. The spiritual world is
infinitely mutable and various. Human society,
it is true, often reproduces itself, in its essential
phases, but rarely, perhaps never, in its
superficial forms. Had Shakespeare never
conceived his Hamlet, it is improbable that
the requisite consilience of rare genius and
prepared circumstances would ever again
have been repeated in the history of the
human race. Yet, though the pedigree of
fiction cannot be made out as accurately as
that of science, it has its hereditary principle
and rule of succession. In the case of the
great masters of the laughing philosophy we
have not only to take into account the
influence of contact with the minds of their
intellectual ancestors, through their literary
works, but the re-action of that spirit of wit
and humour, the emanation of an older comic
literature, which floats on the common
atmosphere of contemporary thought and
language jesting with sunny mockery in
Voltaire, laughing with great-hearted frolic-
someness in Aristophanes, and smiling with
sweet-natured irony in Lucian.

The mantle of Aristophanes fell on one not
unworthy to wear the poetic purple. Five
hundred years after his fanciful creations
ministered delight or rebuke to his lively
countrymen, Lucian of Samosata succeeded to
the throne of the merry monarch. From
Aristophanes he borrowed the soul of wit;
from Plato the form with which he clothed
it. His dramatic dialogue and ingenious
narrative entitle him to a foremost rank
among those who have sought to reform the
world by the laughable representation of its
silliness, superstition, and mischief-making.
While he really succeeded in producing
something fresh and new, he was not too proud to
imitate the models of Greek antiquity.
Though one of that small and exclusive class
that take the trouble to think for themselves,
he never set up for an original. He had no
idea of being that admirable radical in
literature, who, like his political counterpart
in a mysterious modern philosopher, was to
leap clean off the terra firma of hereditary
thought right into Chaos, and in that
promising and independent region commence
business on his own account, with no possibility
of incurring the servile obligation of
borrowed capital. Lucian was far too sensible
a man for that. He begged, borrowed, and
stole wherever he had a chance, doing so
with a frank nobleness that made the
entreaty a compliment, the loan a pleasure,
the larceny a heroism. His stealing carried
a grace with it; for when he stole it he
acknowledged it with a justifying courtesy:
"I am like a bee," he says, "in the bowers of
the poets and philosophers. From their
flowers I suck the most fragrant juices; and
from their open gardens bear away a lapfull
of buds and blossoms." All the better for
us is it that Lucian thought every man's
good things his own, and claimed his
property wherever he found it. The bloom and
beauty of the elder poesy revives in his
poetic prose; and as you wander with him
in many a fair landscape, you half see "the
meadow grass grown over with asphodel,
where they drink the water of oblivion; half
inhale the odours of the rose and narcissus,
the laurel and vine-blossom; or overhear
the grove resound witli melodious airs, as the
trees are breathed on by the evening gales."

In our judgment Lucian had a distinct
calling as a light-hearted though earnest
moralist. To understand his purpose and
position, we must take a glance at the age in
which he lived. That age was the epoch of
Hadrian and the Antonines. The last of the
Antonines was that good emperor who, as
Mr. Mill tells us in his recent essay on
Liberty, embodied in his moral writings the
Christian ideal, yet failed to see that Christianity
was a good to the world. "Existing
society was in a deplorable state. Belief and
reverence of the received divinities still held
it together, but the new religion openly aimed
at dissolving these ties." Wise and virtuous
as he was, Marcus Aurelius persecuted the
Christians. On the other hand, Lucian, the
witty and light-hearted, laughed at the
gods of Olympus, and put paganism out of
countenance. As the second century advanced,
imposition and hypocrisy lengthened these
black shadows in the setting sun of the old
faith. True wisdom was rare; but would-be
philosophers, with "knapsacks, long beards,
long staves, voracity, impudence, syllogism,
and avarice, everywhere declaimed on friendship,
virtue, and moral beauty—winged words
with which they played as with tennis-balls."
It was the interregnum of genius. The
Talents usurped the throne of the intellectual
world; and finding plenty to get and nothing
to do, were contented to play the part
assigned to a modern king, and enjoyed the
sinecure function of reigning rather than
fulfil the responsible but plebeian office of
governing. Innocent mediocrity and gentle
dulness were throned on the seven hills, the
antichrists of wit. There seemed to be no
touchstone of reality then, and tales of
mystery and wonder were accepted as fast
as they were made. There was an epidemic
propensity to believe whatever was incredible;
and no prodigy was too large for the swallow,
or too tough for the digestion, of credulity.
Oracles were then the order of the day; and
ghosts then, as now, represented the night-
side of nature. Witchcraft and necromancy
were included among the exact sciences.
Aristocratic oppression and popular suffering
favoured the progress of superstition. The