untranslatable; and thus he
gave to his nation a general idea of the most magnificent works of
another people, and to his generation an insight into the lofty culture
of by-gone centuries.

Great as was the effect of this translation in Germany, it appears to
have exercised little influence upon Wieland himself. He was too
thoroughly antagonistic to his author, as is sufficiently obvious from
the passages omitted and passed over, and still more from the appended
notes, in which the French type of thought is evident.

On the other hand, the Greeks, with their moderation and clarity, are to
him most precious models. He feels himself allied with them in taste;
religion, customs, and legislation all give him opportunity to exercise
his versatility, and since neither the gods nor the philosophers, and
neither the nation nor the nations are any more compatible than
politicians and soldiers, he everywhere finds the desired opportunity,
amid his apparent doubts and jests, of repeatedly inculcating his
equitable, tolerant, human doctrines.

At the same time, he takes delight in presenting problematical
characters, and he finds pleasure, for example, in emphasizing the
lovable qualities of a Musarion, a Lais, and a Phryne without regard to
womanly chastity, and in exalting their practical wisdom above the
scholastic wisdom of the philosophers.

But among these he also finds a man whom he can develop and set forth as
the representative of his own convictions--I mean Aristippus. Here
philosophy and worldly pleasure are through wise moderation so united in
serene and welcome fashion that the wish arises to be a contemporary in
so fair a land, and in such goodly company. Union with these educated,
right-thinking, cultivated, joyous men is so welcome, and it even seems
that so long as one may walk with them in thought, one's mind will be as
theirs, and one will think as they.

In these circles our friend maintained himself by careful experiments,
which are still more necessary to the translator than to the poet; and
thus arose the German _Lucian_, which necessarily presented the Greek to
us the more vividly since the author and the translator could be
regarded as true kindred spirits.

But however much a man of such talents preaches decency, he will,
nevertheless, sometimes feel himself tempted to transgress the
boundaries of propriety and decorum, since from time immemorial genius
has reckoned such escapades among its preroga