Trips to the Moon | Page 4

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Lucian had another translator in 1820, who in no way superseded Dr.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