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Lucian had another translator in 1820, who in no way superseded Dr.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