Heraclitus.—Gods—but mortal.
Customer.—And the gods?
Heraclitus.—Men—but immortal.
Customer.—You speak in riddles, fellow, and put us off with puzzles. You are as bad as Apollo Loxias, giving oracles that no man can understand.
Heraclitus.—Yea; I trouble not myself for any of ye.
Customer.—Then no man in his senses is like to buy you.
Heraclitus.—Woe! woe to every man of ye, I say! buyers or not buyers.
Customer.—Why, this fellow is pretty near mad—I’ll have naught to do with either of them, for my part.
Mercury [turning to Jupiter].—We shall have this pair left on our hands too.”—Collins.
“The Sale of the Philosophers” has a sequel in “the Resuscitated Professors.” Permitted to return to earth for a day to revenge themselves on Lucian, the Philosophers capture him, and bring him to trial before the goddess of philosophy. He clears himself by showing that he has not attacked the venerable sages themselves, but only the impostors who cheat the world under their great names. In the beginning of the Dialogue, Lucian is thus assailed by the belligerent Socrates and his confrères:—