MR. EMERSON, in a course of lectures delivered in this city during the past winter, expressed his conviction that within twenty years, the literature and history of antiquity would become subjects of general interest and study among the American people. At first this would appear almost a paradox for probably no other civilized nation has at any period of its history so completely thrown off its allegiance to the past, as the American. The whole essay of our national life and legislation, has been a prolonged protest against the dominion of antiquity in every form whatsoever. In our ethnical mythology, Jupiter has taken the place of Saturn, and all the old Saturnian prejudices and customs have been dethroned.

Yet extravagant as the above prediction may appear, we have no doubt that it is to be substantially fulfilled. We have rebelled against the dominion of antiquity, but we shall not remain long vindictive, nor harden our hearts but for a season to her advice. We are willing to be cautioned by her errors, to be sustained and encouraged

by her example, even though we cannot permit that example again to become our law.

And herein lies the error of all the idolaters of the past. Because the ancients did well in their day with their means, therefore we should do like them in our day with our means. Instead of qualifying our institutions to the changes wrought by time and reflection, they would have us translate the institutions of Greece and Rome into American forms. They have no sympathy or taste for native virtues. They grieve that we have no Cæsars in our day that they may show the stoical patriotism of Brutus, and they would almost take the trouble to be "just" if there were an institution of ostracism which could give them the immortality of Aristides. Until this spirit of imitation is eradicated, antiquity can never exert an altogether healthy influence. "Fool," said St. Paul, "that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." No man's experience is useful to another for the same purposes exactly that it had been to himself. It dies out in him, but the

essentials of it are to be born again in a new body, that is, in a new state of facts. To the latter it becomes a law, but to issues as different as the circumstances under which he lives. This is true in respect to individuals, it is of course true in respect to nations, Among the American people this death, which is the harbinger of a regeneration, has overtaken antiquity. Our contest with the past has been long and very bitter, and some years must elapse before our animosity can subside, before we can exchange our agonistic attitude for one of unsuspicious ease and confidence. Should the free institutions of our country be permitted to continue for another quarter of a century undisturbed by any extraordinary political convulsions, we should expect to see the literature and history of the ancients more thoroughly understood by the American people than they have ever been by any other nation since the revival of letters, perhaps not excepting the ancients them selves. It is hardly to be expected that this regenerated taste for the works of antiquity will discover the same preferences altogether which have been entertained by those who have had charge of the ark of ancient learning for the last 300 years. We shall naturally search for that kind of experience which may be most readily adapted to our own wants, and which will most speedily solve the mysteries of our own condition. We shall appropriate the discovery of Archimedes for measuring the specific gravity of bodies, not because the author lived more than 2000 years ago, but because it is one of our most efficient coadjutors in multiplying our physical resources. We shall not commemorate the marriage of Geometry and Mechanics, because Archytas who officiated at the ceremony was a pupil of Pythagoras, or conversed familiarly with Plato,-he bridged together two continents of science-the usefulness of his labours is the only earnest of his immortality. In literature we shall exercise the same discrimination. We shall prize the most faithful exponents of the social system of the ancients, while their works of art and æsthetic achievement will be set aside for the present to constitute some subsequent formation in the strata with which our national character is being slowly

builded up. With us the disputes about political constitutions and forms of government will soon have passed away. We are satisfied as a people that the less of government we have, consistently with the protection of the rights of all, the better. The age of individualism is already upon us. We are not much longer to judge of right and wrong by the statute book. The independence of the individual at once enthrones the conscience. The conscience will be disciplined and educated more or less by the complicated interest of individuals in society. The difficulties that will occur in harmonizing these interests are not to be cut by the sword of the state, but to be solved by the moral sagacity of each individual. Their interpretations will be the vexatæ quæstiones of the approaching phase of our civilisation. Casuistry and ethics will take the place of constitutional discussions and political engineering. Whatever will throw light upon this department of social science, whatever faithful experiments the ancients may have made therein, we shall undoubtedly esteem as so much labour saved and endurance spared us.

Such being our views on this subject, we feel justified in presuming that among the ancient writers, Lucian will be among the first to receive a widely extended and certainly a well deserved popularity. Indeed at this present, we know of no labour for a thoroughly liberal and accomplished scholar which would be likely to prove more generally acceptable to the mass of our reading community than a good translation and a thorough exegesis of Lucian's works.

The whole history of the human race through the mysterious operation of causes comparatively hidden from the observation of men, appears to have crystalized itself into cycles, in each of which some particular idea or aspiration has become dominant. That idea has usually incorporated itself into a peculiar body of institutions, and has organised for itself a priesthood or ministry, whose province it was to interpret them to the multitude. It was their mission to fortify, sustain, and propagate the doctrine of which they were made the apostles, until all opposition should be removed, and the public mind prepared to receive it without exhortation, After a time all

the truth of this doctrine is absorbed, and is taken up into the national character, while the formulæ through which its vitality was made manifest, the temple, the priesthood, and the worshippers, perhaps together with the bushel of error which entered in with the grain of truth, still go on in their appointed courses with as much seriousness and regularity as if fulfilling a destiny. The day comes, however, when some person out of sheer curiosity, perhaps, determines to look into this temple, and get a view of this mysterious spirit about which all his world is making such ado. He knocks repeatedly, but no answer; he timidly ventures to open the door-nothing is visible to satisfy his expectations. He looks to the altar and behind it-above and below-within and around,-he discovers nothing but the implements of priestcraft-there is no Divinity there. He rushes to the window and proclaims to the multitude the extent of the imposition. That the God whom they so ignorantly worshipped, was but a simulacrum. Then follows the reaction. They not only believe that they have been worshipping a simulacrum, but they are persuaded that the impostrous altar was never sanctified by the spirit of truth. They thereupon tear down the temple-drive out and persecute the hierophants of its mystery, and for a time give them selves over to utter scepticism about the truth itself, which had once so engrossed their devotions.

Cycles like the one we have attempted to describe, were those il lustrated by the early idolatries in Canaan, by the sophists of Athens, and their lineal offspring at Rome. The Koreshitish worshippers of the Black-stone in Arabia-the Knights Errant of modern Europe-the religious bigots of the sixteenth century. The idolaters of Canaan had their Iconoclast in Abraham-the sophists of Greece had their Aristophanes, those of Rome their Lucian-the Knights Errant had their Cervantes-the bigots had their Encyclopædists and writers of Philosophical Dictionaries. Men whose careers thus résume or sum up their age, constitute altogether the most interesting subjects of study to the philosophical historian. Their interest never dies-they turn a new aspect full of attraction to every form of civilisation,

and to each succeeding generation. It is this pivotal position in history, which gives Lucian another claim to the careful study of posterity, and which has procured for his writings in our day, more substantial respect and considertion, than they have ever received in any preceding generation. He was present and an active agent in the dissolution of an old society, and was an unconscious participator in building up a new. He helped to eject one dispensation of prejudices, and thus prepared the world for a new faith. His was a mission kindred to that which every American in his humble sphere has been fulfilling either consciously or unconsciously for the last two hundred years. It is this reason that inclines us to think that a welltranslated and well-edited edition of Lucian would be one of the most popular works, with the American people, which the ancients have left behind them. Being under the impression that a more elaborate statement of the ground of this position may be interesting to a portion of our readers, we trust we shall be pardoned for noticing more at length those points in the career of Lucian, which connect him most distinctly with social and political science.

Almost all the interest which attaches to the name of Lucian, springs from the writings which he left behind him, for it is a singular fact that no mention made of him by any of his cotemporaries, has reached us, and the only notice approaching the truth which he has received, that transmitted by Suidas, might have been applied with as much propriety to any other saucy sophist of the third century as the one to whom it purports to relate. He simply says that Lucian was an "impious sophist," who lived about the time of Trajan or afterwards-which is too vague to constitute a fact; who practised law at Antioch-which is doubtful at least, "who wrote furiously against the Christian faith," as did almost every unbeliever of the period who wrote at all; and "was torn to pieces by dogs as a punishment for his blasphemy,' which is altogether false. It is difficult to account for the weakness of Philostratus in leaving him out of his "Lives of the Sophists," though it was a gallery from which Lucian himself would not probably have experienced

much regret at the prospect of being excluded. The brave men who lived before Agamemnon would have hardly received the immortality which Horace promised them, if they had had no more adequate exponent of their prowess than the author of Bio Lopov. By this suppression or exclusion, however, Philostratus has secured to his own bigotry and narrowness a very unenviable immortality.

As we are so exclusively indebted to the writings of Lucian himself, for the details of his life, it is not surprising that any accounts of him should be more or less imperfect. He never vaunts himself in his writings, and consequently none of them are in an autobiographic spirit at all, unless, perhaps, we except the "Dream" and the "Double Indictment," where he introduces his personal experience as auxiliary to other purposes which he then had in view.

Lucian was born about one hundred and twenty years after the advent of our Saviour, at Samosata, a small town on the west bank of the Euphrates. The early history of this town entitled it to some celebrity; but it is now an insignificant place attached to the pachalic of Aleppo, and is called Schemisat. Trajan had just completed his ambitious though comparatively happy reign, and the whole life of Lucian fell within that gilded parenthesis in the history of Imperial Rome, during which Gibbon thought the condition of the human race more happy and prosperous than during any other period in the history of the world.

The parents of our author appear to have lived in very humble circumstances, and to have been under the necessity of putting their son immediately after leaving school to some productive business. He was accordingly sent to work with his uncle, where he gained no distinction except that of passing his earlier years, like Socrates, in the trade of a statuary. In his "Dream," a short address delivered before his fellow-townsmen of Samosata after he had established his reputation as well as his pecuniary independence, he gives us an account of this, his first attempt

to take care of himself. He says that after considerable debate about the choice of his future occupation it is resolved that he might make a good stone-cutter, and that his uncle was the best person to teach him in the town, whereupon the father says to the uncle, “Take* the young man home with you, and make of him a dexterous stone-cutter and statuary; he is not deficient in abilities, as you know.' This he said in allusion to certain toys, with the making of which while a boy I had amused myself. For after school hours I used to scrape together pieces of wax wherever they fell in my way, and make cows, horses, aye, God forgive me, even men! and very fine likenesses, as my father thought. This childish amusement, for which I had got many a box on the ear from my schoolmaster, was now brought as a proof of my natural turn, and the best hopes were conceived that by this plastic disposition I should in a short time become a great proficient in the art. As soon, therefore, as a lucky day had been pitched upon for entering on my apprenticeship, I was transferred to my uncle, and, to say the truth, not much against my will. On the contrary, I thought it would be very diverting, and procure me no small consideration among my comrades, to carve gods and other little images, for myself and those lads whom I liked best.

"It fell out with me, however, as is usual with young beginners; for my uncle giving into my hands a chisel, ordered me to ply it gently to and fro on a smooth slab of marble which lay upon the ground, adding withal the old saying: 'Well begun is half done,' and then left me to my own direction; but for want of knowing better, and striking too roughly, the marble broke in two. Upon which he fell into a passion, laid hold on a whip that was lying near him, and ushered me into a new trade, with so unfriendly a welcome as deprived me at once of all inclination to the art. I ran home, crying and roaring, related the story of the whip-showed the marks of the lash, and made vehement complaints

of the cruelty of my uncle. I am sure he did it out of pure jealousy,' said I, 'he being afraid that I should in the end prove a better workman than himself. My mother at this was very angry, and vented bitter reproaches on her brother. Night coming on, however, I went to bed, where I passed many tedious hours of grief and vexation, till at length, with tearful eyes, I fell asleep," when the "Dream" is supposed to occur through of which he conveyed to his fellow-citizens the grounds of his preference for a literary profession.

After such an inauspicious collision with the graces of his new profession, we are not surprised that he declined any further attempt at forming a permanent attachment. He immediately resolved to qualify himself for the bar, and, like most headstrong and proud young men, vindicate the propriety of his rebellion by achieving the highest honors which the state could confer. As rhetorical brilliancy and artifice were at that period, as they had been for some 300 years previous, the chief pre-requisite to the success of an ambitious advocate, Lucian devoted himself to that study until he was about thirty years of age, meanwhile travelling through the principal cities of Asia Minor and Greece, and studying the manner of the best artists he could find. It is probable that at the conclusion of this period he commenced his professional career, at the city of Antioch. There is no evidence whatever of his success, nor, indeed, that he continued it for any length of time.

The profession of the law at Rome, and throughout the empire, was always a very unsatisfactory occupation to high-minded and accomplished men, unless they had already achieved a high reputation. A despotic government can only rule a people which feels little interest in the social oppression of tradesmen and handicraftsmen, and the lawyer whose reputation could secure him retainers from only such as these must have felt but too painfully the sickness of heart which comes from hope deferred. When some haughty proconsul had sacrificed a province to his pleasures, or some dis

solute nobleman had murdered an imperial officer, the fashionable world was ready to forsake, for a period, the gladiatorial displays of the arena for those of the tribune. But Sylvanus Julian or Sabinus, the Ciceros or the Antonies of the time, engrossed all such retainers. An undistinguished Asiatic, of low birth, and with a tongue altogether too free for a despotism, who spoke bad Latin, though that was the language of the statute-book and the court room-certainly he was not the person whom, at such a bar, we should expect would achieve, to say the least, a very rapid distinction. We may readily conceive that Lucian could hardly have mistaken his vocation more signally. Here again, as before, his chagrin took refuge behind his pride, and he conceived a disgust for the profession, which he took every convenient opportunity to indulge. He charges upon its incumbents, and, doubtless, with propriety, ignorance, impudence, indecency, and corruption. "I had not long carried on the profession of a pleader at the bar," says he, "when experience convinced me that deceit, lies, unblushing impudence, clamor, chicanery, and a thousand more such odious qualities, are inseparable from that mode of life." Even when laughing at the absurdities of the prevailing mythology, he must go out of his way to have a fling at the lawyers. In his "Double Indictment," Drunkenness sues Academy in the celestial courts for having seduced Polemon from his allegiance. But when Drunkenness is called upon to open his case, he finds his tongue too thick to articulate to his satisfaction, as might have been expected, whereupon Justice promptly intercedes, and says, "Then let her employ a proper attorney: there are advocates enough at hand who are ready to split their lungs for three oboli (about fourpence)." Whereupon they finally determine that the Academy should be his attorney; but the Academy is defendant; therefore it is resolved that the Academy shall speak first for the plaintiff, and afterwards for herself.†

the

But although Lucian abandoned his

• The Angler, vol. i., p. 254.

† Double Indictment, vol. ii., p. 606.