on or toil
after fine writing; though he should aim not the less at an enduring
grace given by Nature to the Art that does not stray from her, and
simply speaks the highest truth it knows.

The endeavour of small Greek historians to add interest to their
work by magnifying the exploits of their countrymen, and piling
wonder upon wonder, Lucian first condemned in his "Instructions for
Writing History," and then caricatured in his "True History,"
wherein is contained the account of a trip to the moon, a piece
which must have been enjoyed by Rabelais, which suggested to Cyrano
de Bergerac his Voyages to the Moon and to the Sun, and insensibly
contributed, perhaps, directly or through Bergerac, to the
conception of "Gulliver's Travels." I have added the Icaro-
Menippus, because that Dialogue describes another trip to the moon,
though its satire is more especially directed against the
philosophers.

Menippus was born at Gadara in Coele-Syria, and from a slave he grew
to be a Cynic philosopher, chiefly occupied with scornful jests on
his neighbours, and a money-lender, who made large gains and killed
himself when he was cheated of them all. He is said to have written
thirteen pieces which are lost, but he has left his name in
literature, preserved by important pieces that have taken the name
of "Menippean Satire."

Lucian married in middle life, and had a son. He was about fifty
years old when he went to Paphlagonia, and visited a false oracle to
detect the tricks of an Alexander who made profit out of it, and who
professed to have a daughter by the Moon. When the impostor offered
Lucian his hand to kiss, Lucian bit his thumb; he also intervened to
the destruction of a profitable marriage for the daughter of the
Moon. Alexander lent Lucian a vessel of his own for the voyage
onward, and gave instructions to the sailors that they were to find
a convenient time and place for throwing their passenger into the
sea; but when the convenient time had come the goodwill of the
master of the vessel saved Lucian's life. He was landed, therefore,
at AEgialos, where he found some ambassadors to Eupator, King of
Bithynia, who took him onward upon his way.

It is believed that Lucian lived to be ninety, and it is assumed,
since he wrote a burlesque drama on gout, that the cause of his
death was not simply old age. Gout may have been the immediate
cause of death. Lucian must have spent much time at Athens, and he
held office at