would often show herself on the roof, and listen to the love-songs of the serenaders below singing in their rough voices; ay, and would even slip out at the doors when she thought I was not on the watch, and flirt with those roysterers.' In this passage Lucian, who afterwards speaks of riots and litigation' as the necessary element in which the orator must live and move, pleasantly images the turmoil of popular assemblies, whether political or judicial, under the figure of those nocturnal revels of which the gilded youth of Greece and Rome were so fond. He has elsewhere spoken of the art of rhetoric in the like derogatory terms. For instance, in the Fisherman, where he is tried under the name of Parrhesiades (John Free-speech as we might say) before Philosophy on certain charges of scandalum magnatum, brought against him by the ghosts of philosophers, he says in the course of his defence, As soon as I became aware of all the foulness that a man must lay on his soul if he will take up the pursuit of oratory, all the deceit, the mendacity, the impudence, the brawling, the pushing, and a thousand other such things, why, I turned my back on it all, as well I might, and betook myself to thy fair pursuits, O Philosophy, minded to live out the days that might yet remain to me under thy shelter, as one escaped into a calm haven from the storm and surge without.'

He describes himself as having been about forty years old when he made this change in the pursuits of his life. All his time, however, had not been occupied by his public practice as an advocate. He appears to have travelled to different countries as a teacher of rhetoric, and to have progressed as far as the shores of the Atlantic in this vocation, to the Celtic land,' as he says, using a term which was then applied indifferently to Gaul and Spain. Here he seems to have

prospered. In the Twice Accused, Rhetoric is made to say, 'I travelled with him to Greece and Ionia, where we fared but moderately; when, however, he would visit Italy, I sailed with him across the Ionian Sea; and at last, when we had got as far as the Celtic land, I found him a competency. And then, when he was thus provided for, and had secured renown besides, he elevated his eyebrows, and turned proud, and neglected me.' The Celtic races of Western Europe were at this time eager to possess themselves of the results of Greek and Roman culture, and no doubt offered a promising field of labour to the professors of art and science.

On going to Italy, Lucian would, of course, find his way to Rome, and we may assume that he paid several visits to the imperial city, though we have no means of ascertaining what portion of his life was spent there. He acquired, at all events, sufficient familiarity with Roman life and manners to leave us some of his impressions on record. It is hardly necessary to say that here also, as well as in the provinces, he insisted on spying out the weak side of the world around him. Rome, which had lately won from the Spaniard Martial that cry of admiration

Terrarum Dea gentiumque Roma, Cui par est nihil, et nihil secundum !— this great Rome, with all her wealth and splendour, made no such impression on her Syrian visitor. He thought, like Sir Charles Coldstream, that there was nothing in it.' Rome is evidently the city whose folly and luxury are arraigned in the Nigrinus. this work Lucian represents himself as having been powerfully affected by the discourse of one Nigrinus, a real or imaginary philosopher, who had been preaching (for the ethical philosophers fulfilled that function for the heathen world) on the corruption and self

In

indulgence of all classes within his city. Especially he makes the preacher comment with caustic ridicule on the strutting gait and pretentious manner of wealthy citizens, that same

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

which Goldsmith thought he noted in the Englishman of his day, but which was purposely cultivated in Rome (as passages in Persius and Juvenal will show) as something especially Roman and befitting the masters of the world. He describes their pompous airs abroad, and the cringing homage which they exacted from their poorer acquaintances, who must needs, 'even when afar off, bow down their souls as well as their bodies in responsive attitude, and if they may but kiss the great man's hand, become an object of envy to those who are not so fortunate, to whom their patron perhaps merely vouchsafes a glance, or a greeting by another's voice' that is, by help of the nomenclator who attended him and supplied him with the names of forgotten clients. But Lucian thinks, like Juvenal, that the clients have only themselves to blame for the scornful treatment which they receive from their patrons. 'If the former,' he says, 'would but agree to renounce this voluntary slavery, would not the rich come round to the houses of the poor and entreat them not to leave their state without gazers and without witnesses, and so render the pomp and luxury of their living a mere useless outlay, their gold and ivory, the trappings of their tables, and the grandeur of their palaces; seeing that what is precious in their eyes is not so much wealth as the consideration which they receive on account of it?' And what, he goes on to ask, is the reward which the clients receive for all this servility, and for the physical discomforts which they must undergo, as when in the early morning they

hurry to the great man's door to be ready to pay their respects when he makes his appearance, waiting in his vestibule, and hustled by the very slaves of the mansion, who talk in their hearing of dogs and parasites? It is all done and suffered for the sake of that vulgar supper,'-for the entrée of the patron's hall, who prided himself on keeping open house for his clients at the evening meal. Even the philosophers, he says, the men who preach temperance and simplicity of life, are not proof against the seductions of those entertainments. 'You mark their special garb among the other guests, for they make no secret of their vocation: they are among all the crew most coarsely eager in their gormandising, most unabashed in their drunkenness, and most rapacious in carrying away more than their share of the remaining dainties; dainties; and those among them who chiefly affect to be men of the world are ready to sing a song when called upon.' One might fancy this was the echo of a diatribe levelled against careless clergymen by some moralist in the days of Whitefield or Wesley.

In the same vein Lucian attacked the social servility of Rome in his sketch called Society on Hire (Epi Tv inì μuotų ovróvtwr). The 'salt bread' which is eaten by those who are minded aliena vivere quadrá forms the theme of one of Juvenal's most spirited satires. Lucian descants in prose on the same subject, making special reference to the position of literary men who consented to play the sordid part which their rich patrons exacted from them. Such humiliations have been a fruitful topic of sarcasm for the wits of all times. Full hardly earneth Matt his dinner,' is the plaintive reflection of Prior after dining with a great man. And Pope, who, if he loved to 'live among the great,' knew how to do so on his own terms, is fond of a taunt at the literary parasites

him:

Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat,

And flattered every day and some days eat: Till, grown more frugal in his riper days, He paid some bards with port and some with praise.

Lucian seems to have thought also that the outlay of flattery and humiliation was excessive in comparison with the return of meat and drink. His work purports to be a dissuasive addressed to one Timocles, who is anxious for the distinction and luxuries enjoyed by those who sit at the tables of these wealthy patrons of art, science, and literature. In discussing the items which will make up the debit side of such an account, Lucian does it with a minuteness and bitterness which seem to imply that his general description is but a picture of what he had himself suffered; especially as there is a curious touch of personality where, among the miseries of first winning your way to the great man's levée, he notes the rebuffs endured from a porter who speaks bad Syrian,' as if the Samosata rhetorician had been more particularly galled by encountering the insolence of office from an uneducated countryman of his own. All the difficulties of the first introduction (he puts it to Timocles) being over, let us suppose that you have received your first invitation to a banquet. Happy man! you have conquered; the Olympian garland is on your brows; say rather you have stormed Babylon or the citadel of Sardis, and you shall possess the horn of Amalthea and drink birds' milk-a proverbial expression for the rarest and costliest of dainties. But he assures his friend that he must not yet flatter himself that he has secured an adequate reward for 'the labours and the mud and the watchings and the running backwards and forwards that he has endured. You may think,' he says, 'O Timocles! to take your rest from

and sleep, merely performing those duties to which you have expressly hired yourself. To wear a yoke, especially a gilded yoke, if it be light and easy, is no such bad thing. But you are very far from such a comfortable plight, and you will find a thousand annoyances in your social position which ought to be intolerable to a freeman. You are summoned to the banquet by a gentlemanlike (our avopixηros) servant, not at all after the type of the porter and the nomenclator whom you had to fee previously. Five drachmæ is the least that you can slip into the hands of such a messenger if you care for the reputation of knowing how to behave. He, of course, coquets a little-" Nay, nay. What! I take it from you? Oh, Hercules forbid !"-but gives way at last, and goes off with a grin on his face. Then, you having had your bath and donned your clean clothing, and equipped yourself as sumptuously as your means will admit, set forth on your way in mortal fear lest you should arrive before anyone else; for there is a gaucherie in that, just as it is a rudeness to come last. Grant that you hit the happy medium in this respect; that you have been courteously received, and placed at table not far from your host, two or three of his old friends, perhaps, between himself and you. You wonder at everything present, and feel as if you had entered the halls of Jupiter- fairly in the clouds. Your neighbours watch to see how you will get on; and the domestics who have come with your fellow-guests have their gibe about the maladroit way in which you handle your napkin, as implying that you have never dined out before. No wonder that you perspire in bewilderment, and that you neither venture to call for drink when you are thirsty, nor to help yourself to any of the varied dishes which are set before you according to artistic rules, not knowing which you ought

to take first; so that you are fain to watch your next neighbour in order to learn the sequence of the courses, not a little envying his superior knowledge. So you go on in a state of fluster, sometimes admiring the good fortune of your rich friend, his gold and his ivory, and all his luxury; and at other times compassionating yourself that so insignificant a person should have taken the liberty to exist. Soon come the healths; and the host, calling for a large bowl, pledges you by the title of his instructor, or whatever it may be. You take the cup, and are quite at a loss for any reply suitable to the occasion, thus getting for yourself the character of a clown. The wine is strong, the feast is protracted; you eat and drink more than is good for you, and get your stomach into such a troubled state that you pray for an earthquake, or an alarm of fire, or anything that may bring the entertainment to a close. For my part,' adds Lucian, 'I had rather dine on herbs and white salt, so that I may eat like a free man, when I like and just as much as I like.' He goes on to show in other ways how irksome was the degradation which the learned man underwent at the hands of his patron, and how inadequate was the hire' which he received; describing in very dramatic style the discussion of such a bargain between the parties-the pompous airs of liberality put on by the patron, the shyness of the proposed tutor; the shabby device of the former, who turns to one of his parasites, inviting him to name a proper stipend in a delicate negotiation between two persons far above mercenary considerations; and the inevitable answer of the obsequious referee about the honour of a connection with our noble friend's household and so forth, as constituting in itself a sufficient recompense, while he goes on to name some small pittance in satisfaction of the patron's doubt. It is still worse, Lucian contends, to be philosopher

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in-waiting to a great lady; and he describes the indignation of one Thesmopolis, who, having been requested by some fashionable dame to attend her into the country, found himself put into the same carriage with her page, an Asiatic slave of the most effeminate type; and how the angry sage was still further mortified when the lady halted on the road in order to entreat him to take charge of her pet-dog Myrrhina, whose accouchement was momentarily expected, and these cursed servants,' said the lady, will neither attend to her nor to me.' The philosopher gravely undertook the duties assigned him, to the delight of the saucy page, who chaffed him on his abandonment of the Stoic rule for that of the Cynics. The whole of Lucian's complaints of these indignities and hardships will remind the English reader of Macaulay's description of a domestic chaplain's life among our ancestors some hundred and fifty years ago. 'The coarse and ignorant squire, who thought it belonged to his dignity to have grace said every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile dignity with economy. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coachhorses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. He was permitted to dine with the family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare.' Compare Lucian's domestic philosopher, dragged about through the Roman streets in the train of his patron, waiting in the cold or heat while the latter pays his complimentary visits, coming wearied with his day's work to the evening meal, where he can hardly get wherewithal to satisfy his hunger, and just when he thinks some appetising dish is within his reach, finds it suddenly withdrawn by an insolent menial, who murmurs in his ear,

'Come, come, that's not for us.' The close analogy between the philosopher in a Roman household and the chaplain in an English one is humorously illustrated by Lucian's description of a lady who stops her spiritual adviser in an eloquent discourse on the beauty of virtue that she may read a note just brought her from a gallant; signing to the good man to proceed when she has finished the perusal of her billet.

Lucian, as we have said before, is never tired of flouting and fleering at the philosophers of his day-much as Erasmus pursued the worldly-minded monks of his. Nevertheless it had evidently been the object of the Syrian statuary's dreams in early life that he should himself learn to trace the great thoughts of Plato, and himself be a preacher to mankind of the truths revealed through Divine philosophy. It was not in scorn of such pursuits that he lent his wit to the mockeries in his Auction of Lives and other pieces composed in a like vein. But he made it his delight to pry into the impostures of life, and he was, it may be, too much engaged in stripping the mask off sham philosophers to observe the real nobleness and devotion to truth that might yet be found in connection with the unkempt beard, the coarse abolla, and the simple pulsemeals, which provoked such unmeasured ridicule from worldly Romans-Vulfenius and his set, as recorded by Persius. In the Nigrinus, as we have before remarked, he sketched, apparently from fancy, some hints of such a teacher as he had hoped to find when he threw down his hammer and chisel and left the marble Mercury unfinished. And in the Hermotimus, which is expressly directed against the dogmatic teaching of the several sects of philosophers, he nevertheless introduces the Stoic Hermotimus as an honest and intelligent enquirer after truth, who,

of course, is fain to yield at last to Lucian's arguments (as put into the mouth of one Lycinus), and admit that life is too short for any man to undertake to decide between the multitude of wrangling sects about him. For Lucian first shakes his faith in the Stoic system by forcing him to acknowledge that he has never met with a man who lived up to the principles taught by the Stoics. And I do not speak' (says Lycinus) from any special enmity against the Stoics, for the argument has a common application against all the sects, and I should have pressed it on you just as strongly if you had been a follower of Plato or of Aristotle.' He dwells at some length on the want of a common standard of authority which shall determine between conflicting dogmas. Not having this, and finding that all your systems alike fail in producing the model man at which they aim, why then fight no more about their respective merits, but own that 'his can't be wrong whose life is in the right.' He urges on his adversary an argument to which a Christian at all events would have been at no loss to reply; but Lucian, we may presume, had never read the First Epistle to the Corinthians. 'Are you,' he asks ironically, 'in training for another life, that you spend the whole of your allotted span here in learning how to live when you shall get to it? You are like a man who labours at the menu of a perfect dinner till he dies of starvation. Have you not yet-you, the leaders of the philosophic crew-discovered that virtue consists in action; in the doing of that which is just, that which is wise, that which is brave? You are lost in admiration at the ingenuity of teachers who merely bewilder their disciples, who are skilled in putting dialectical questions, in sophistries and subtleties, and in placing disputants on the horns of a dilemma. That is to say, you neglect the fruit or practi