Dr. Francklin prefaced his edition with a Life, written by a friend in the form of a Dialogue of the Dead in the Elysian Fields between Lord Lyttelton—who had been, in his Dialogues of the Dead, an imitator of the Dialogues so called in Lucian—and Lucian himself. “By that shambling gait and length of carcase,” says Lucian, “it must be Lord Lyttelton coming this way.” “And by that arch look and sarcastic smile,” says Lyttelton, “you are my old friend Lucian, whom I have not seen this many a day. Fontenelle and I have just now been talking of you, and the obligations we both had to our old master: I assure you that there was not a man in all antiquity for whom, whilst on earth, I had a greater regard than yourself.” After Lucian has told Lyttelton something about his life, his lordship thanks Lucian for the little history, and says, “I wish with all my heart I could convey it to a friend of mine in the other world”—meaning Dr. Francklin—“to whom, at this juncture, it would be of particular service: I mean a bold adventurer who has lately undertaken to give a new and complete translation of all your works. It is a noble design, but an arduous one; I own I tremble for him.” Lucian replies, “I heard of it the other day from Goldsmith, who knew the man. I think he may easily succeed in it better than any of his countrymen, who hitherto have made but miserable 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 say a great many things, some good, some bad, which I never thought of, and, upon the whole, what he has done is more a paraphrase than a translation.” Then, says Lord Lyttelton, “All the attempts to represent you, at least in our language, which I have yet seen, have failed, and all from the same cause, by the translator’s departing from the original, and substituting his own manners, phraseology, expression, wit, and humour instead of yours. Nothing, as it has been observed by one of our best critics, is so grave as true humour, and every line of Lucian is a proof of it; it never laughs itself, whilst it sets the table in a roar; a circumstance which these gentlemen seem all to have forgotten: instead of the set features and serious aspect which you always wear when most entertaining, they present us for ever with a broad grin, and if you have the least smile upon your countenance make you burst into a vulgar horse-laugh: they are generally, indeed, such bad painters, that the daubing would never be taken for you if they had not written ‘Lucian’ under the picture. I heartily wish the Doctor better luck.” Upon which the Doctor’s friend makes Lucian reply: “And there is some reason to hope it, for I hear he has taken pains about me, has studied my features well before he sat down to trace them on the canvas, and done it con amore: if he brings out a good resemblance, I shall excuse the want of grace and beauty in his piece. I assure you I am not without pleasing expectation; especially as my friend Sophocles, who, you know, sat to him some time ago, tells me, though he is no Praxiteles, he does not take a bad likeness. But I must be gone, for yonder come Swift and Rabelais, whom I have made a little party with this morning: so, my good lord, fare you well.”
Lucian had another translator in 1820, who in no way superseded Dr. Francklin. The reader of this volume is reminded that the notes are Dr. Francklin’s, and that any allusion in them to a current topic, has to be read as if this present year of grace were 1780.
H. M.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING HISTORY.
Lucian, in this letter to his friend Philo, after having, with infinite humour, exposed the absurdities of some contemporary historians, whose works, being consigned to oblivion, have never reached us, proceeds, in the latter part of it, to lay down most excellent rules and directions for writing history. My readers will find the one to the last degree pleasant and entertaining; and the other no less useful, sensible, and instructive. This is, indeed, one of Lucian’s best pieces.
My Dear Philo,—In the reign of Lysimachus, [{17}] we are told that the people of Abdera were seized with a violent epidemical fever, which raged through the whole city, continuing for seven days, at the expiration of which a copious discharge of blood from the nostrils in some, and in others a profuse sweat, carried it off. It was attended, however, with a very ridiculous circumstance: every one of the persons affected by it being suddenly taken with a fit of tragedising, spouting iambics, and roaring out most furiously, particularly the Andromeda [{18a}] of Euripides, and the speech of Perseus, which they recited in most lamentable accents. The city swarmed with these pale seventh-day patients, who, with loud voices, were perpetually bawling out—
“O tyrant love, o’er gods and men supreme,” etc.
And this they continued every day for a long time, till winter and the cold weather coming on put an end to their delirium. For this disorder they seem, in my opinion, indebted to Archelaus, a tragedian at that time in high estimation, who, in the middle of summer, at the very hottest season [{18b}] of the year, exhibited the Andromeda, which had such an effect on the spectators that several of them, as soon as they rose up from it, fell insensibly into the tragedising vein; the Andromeda naturally occurring to their memories, and Perseus, with his Medusa, still hovering round them.
Now if, as they say, one may compare great things with small, this Abderian disorder seems to have seized on many of our literati of the present age; not that it sets them on acting tragedies (for the folly would not be so great in repeating other people’s verses, especially if they were good ones), but ever since the war was begun against the barbarians, the defeat in Armenia, [{19a}] and the victories consequent on it, not one is there amongst us who does not write a history; or rather, I may say, we are all Thucydideses, Herodotuses, and Xenophons. Well may they say war is the parent of all things, [{19b}] when one action can make so many historians. This puts me in mind of what happened at Sinope. [{20a}] When the Corinthians heard that Philip was going to attack them, they were all alarmed, and fell to work, some brushing up their arms, others bringing stones to prop up their walls and defend their bulwarks, every one, in short, lending a hand. Diogenes observing this, and having nothing to do (for nobody employed him), tucked up his robe, and, with all his might, fell a rolling his tub which he lived in up and down the Cranium. [{20b}] “What are you about?” said one of his friends. “Rolling my tub,” replied he, “that whilst everybody is busy around me, I may not be the only idle person in the kingdom.” In like manner, I, my dear Philo, being very loath in this noisy age to make no noise at all, or to act the part of a mute in the comedy, think it highly proper that I should roll my tub also; not that I mean to write history myself, or be a narrator of facts; you need not fear me, I am not so rash, knowing the danger too well if I roll it amongst the stones, especially such a tub as mine, which is not over-strong, so that the least pebble I strike against would dash it in pieces. I will tell you, however, what my design is—how I mean to be present at the battle and yet keep out of the reach of danger. I intend to shelter myself from the waves and the smoke, [{21}] and the cares that writers are liable to, and only give them a little good advice and a few precepts; to have, in short, some little hand in the building, though I do not expect my name will be inscribed on it, as I shall but just touch the mortar with the tip of my finger.
There are many, I know, who think there is no necessity for instruction at all with regard to this business, any more than there is for walking, seeing, or eating, and that it is the easiest thing in the world for a man to write history if he can but say what comes uppermost. But you, my friend, are convinced that it is no such easy matter, nor should it be negligently and carelessly performed; but that, on the other hand, if there be anything in the whole circle of literature that requires more than ordinary care and attention, it is undoubtedly this. At least, if a man would wish, as Thucydides says, to labour for posterity. I very well know that I cannot attack so many without rendering myself obnoxious to some, especially those whose histories are already finished and made public; even if what I say should be approved by them, it would be madness to expect that they should retract anything or alter that which had been once established and, as it were, laid up in royal repositories. It may not be amiss, however, to give them these instructions, that in case of another war, the Getæ against the Gauls, or the Indians, perhaps, against the barbarians (for with regard to ourselves there is no danger, our enemies being all subdued), by applying these rules if they like them, they may know better how to write for the future. If they do not choose this, they may even go on by their old measure; the physician will not break his heart if all the people of Abdera follow their own inclination and continue to act the Andromeda. [{23}]
Criticism is twofold: that which teaches us what we are to choose, and that which teaches us what to avoid. We will begin with the last, and consider what those faults are which a writer of history should be free from; next, what it is that will lead him into the right path, how he should begin, what order and method he should observe, what he should pass over in silence, and what he should dwell upon, how things may be best illustrated and connected. Of these, and such as these, we will speak hereafter; in the meantime let us point out the faults which bad writers are most generally guilty of, the blunders which they commit in language, composition, and sentiment, with many other marks of ignorance, which it would be tedious to enumerate, and belong not to our present argument. The principal faults, as I observed to you, are in the language and composition.