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Title: The Works of John Dryden, Volume 18 of 18
Dialogue concerning Women; Characters; Life of Lucian;
Letters; Appendix; Index

Author: John Dryden

Editor: Walter Scott

Release Date: December 7, 2015 [EBook #50637]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF JOHN DRYDEN ***




Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Wayne hammond and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www. pgdp. net










THE

WORKS

OF

JOHN DRYDEN,

NOW FIRST COLLECTED

_IN EIGHTEEN VOLUMES_.

ILLUSTRATED

WITH NOTES,

HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND EXPLANATORY,

AND

A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

VOL. XVIII.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM MILLER, ALBEMARLE STREET,
BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH.

1808.




CONTENTS

OF

VOLUME EIGHTEENTH.


PAGE.

Preface to a Dialogue concerning Women; being
a Defence of the Sex, 1

Character of M. St Evremont, 9

The Character of Polybius, 17

The Life of Lucian, 53

Dryden’s Letters, 83

Appendix, 183

Index, i




PREFACE
TO
A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN;
BEING
A DEFENCE OF THE SEX,

ADDRESSED TO EUGENIA, BY WILLIAM WALSH, ESQ.

8VO, 1691.




PREFACE

TO

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING WOMEN.


The author of this Dialogue, as Dr Johnson has observed, was more
remarkable for his familiarity with men of genius, than for any
productions of his own. He was the son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley,
in Worcestershire, and was born to an easy fortune. This last
circumstance may have contributed something to the extreme respect in
which he seems to have been held by the most accomplished of his age.
Dryden, in the Postscript to “Virgil,” calls Walsh the best critic
of the English nation; and, in the following Preface, he is profuse
in his commendation. But though these praises may have exceeded the
measure of Walsh’s desert, posterity owe a grateful remembrance to
him, who, though a staunch Whig, respected and befriended Dryden in
age and adversity, and who encouraged the juvenile essays of Pope, by
foretelling his future eminence. Walsh’s own Poems and Essays entitle
him to respectable rank among the minor poets. His Essay on the
Pastorals of Virgil, which he contributed to our author’s version, may
be found Vol. XIII. p. 345.

The “Dialogue concerning Women,” contains a critical disquisition upon
the virtues and foibles of the sex. But though the pleasantry be stale,
and the learning pedantic, it seems to have excited some attention when
published; perhaps because, as an angry Defender of the ladies observes,

----“To begin with Dryden’s dreadful name,
Should mark out something of no common fame. ”

I cannot omit remarking, that the Dialogue concludes with a profuse
panegyric, upon a theme not very congenial to Dryden’s political
feelings, the character of Queen Mary.




PREFACE

TO

WALSH’S DIALOGUE

CONCERNING WOMEN.


The perusal of this Dialogue, in defence of the fair sex, written by
a gentleman of my acquaintance, much surprised me; for it was not
easy for me to imagine, that one so young[1] could have treated so
nice a subject with so much judgment. It is true, I was not ignorant,
that he was naturally ingenious, and that he had improved himself by
travelling; and from thence I might reasonably have expected that air
of gallantry, which is so visibly diffused through the body of the
work, and is indeed the soul that animates all things of this nature;
but so much variety of reading, both in ancient and modern authors,
such digestion of that reading, so much justness of thought, that it
leaves no room for affectation, or pedantry, I may venture to say,
are not over-common amongst practised writers, and very rarely to be
found amongst beginners. It puts me in mind of what was said of Mr
Waller, the father of our English numbers, upon the sight of his first
verses, by the wits of the last age; that he came out into the world
forty thousand strong, before they heard of him. [2] Here, in imitation
of my friend’s apostrophes, I hope the reader need not be told, that
Mr Waller is only mentioned for honour’s sake; that I am desirous of
laying hold on his memory, on all occasions, and thereby acknowledging
to the world, that unless he had written, none of us could write.

I know, my friend will forgive me this digression; for it is not only a
copy of his style, but of his candour. The reader will observe, that he
is ready for all hints of commending merit, and the writers of this age
and country are particularly obliged to him, for his pointing out those
passages which the French call _beaux endroits_, wherein they have
most excelled. And though I may seem in this to have my own interest in
my eyes, because he has more than once mentioned me[3] so much to my
advantage, yet I hope the reader will take it only for a parenthesis,
because the piece would have been very perfect without it. I may be
suffered to please myself with the kindness of my friend, without
valuing myself upon his partiality; he had not confidence enough to
send it out into the world, without my opinion of it, that it might
pass securely, at least amongst the fair readers, for whose service it
was principally designed. I am not so presuming to think my opinion
can either be his touchstone, or his passport; but I thought I might
send him back to Ariosto, who has made it the business of almost thirty
stanzas, in the beginning of the thirty-seventh book of his “Orlando
Furioso,” not only to praise that beautiful part of the creation, but
also to make a sharp satire on their enemies; to give mankind their
own, and to tell them plainly, that from their envy it proceeds, that
the virtue and great actions of women are purposely concealed, and the
failings of some few amongst them exposed with all the aggravating
circumstances of malice. For my own part, who have always been their
servant, and have never drawn my pen against them, I had rather see
some of them praised extraordinarily, than any of them suffer by
detraction; and that in this age, and at this time particularly,
wherein I find more heroines than heroes. Let me therefore give them
joy of their new champion. If any will think me more partial to him
than really I am, they can only say, I have returned his bribe; and
the worst I wish him is, that he may receive justice from the men, and
favour only from the ladies.




CHARACTER
OF
M. ST. EVREMONT.




CHARACTER OF M. ST. EVREMONT.


CHARLES DE ST DENIS, Seigneur de St Evremont, was born in 1613, of a
noble Norman family, and was early distinguished by the vivacity of his
wit, as well as by his gallantry; for, like all the French noblesse, he
followed the profession of arms. The Duke D’Enghien, afterwards Prince
of Conde, was particularly attached to him, and gave him an appointment
in his household. This he lost by ill-timed raillery on his patron.
He was committed to the Bastile for a joke on cardinal Mazarine; and
afterwards forced to fly into Holland for writing a satirical history
of the peace of the Pyrenees. From Holland St Evremont retreated
to England, where, at the witty court of Charles, his raillery was
better understood than in Holland, and less likely to incur unpleasant
consequences than in France. St Evremont naturally addressed himself
to his fair countrywomen Louise de Querouaille Duchess of Portsmouth,
and the Duchess of Mazarine; and, though they were rivals in Charles’s
affections, they united in protecting the Norman _bel-esprit_. The
king conferred on him a thousand caresses, and a small pension; on
which he lived, amusing himself by the composition of lighter pieces of
literature, and despising the country which afforded him refuge so very
thoroughly, that he did not even deign to learn English. The people
of England did not, however, consider the labours of their foreign
guest with similar apathy. After several surreptitious editions of his
various tracts had appeared, there was published, in 1692, a collection
entitled, “Miscellaneous Essays, by Monsieur St Evremont, translated
out of French; with his character, by a person of honour here in
England, continued by Mr Dryden. ” Desmaiseaux, by whom a complete
edition of St Evremont’s works was edited in 1705, mentions it as well
known, that Dr Knightly Chetwood, who died dean of Gloucester, was the
person of honour in the title-page of 1692. His connection with Dryden
makes this highly probable; although there is reason to believe, that
the title of “person of honour” was not strictly applicable, and was
probably assumed for the purpose of disguising the real translator.




CHARACTER OF M. ST. EVREMONT.


I know how nice an undertaking it is to write of a living author; yet
the example of Father Bouhours has somewhat encouraged me in this
attempt. Had not Monsieur St Evremont been very considerable in his
own country, that famous jesuit would not have ventured to praise a
person in disgrace with the government of France, and living here in
banishment. Yet, in his “_Pensees Ingenieuses_,” he has often cited our
author’s thoughts and his expressions, as the standard of judicious
thinking, and graceful speaking; an undoubted sign that his merit was
sufficiently established, when the disfavour of the court could not
prevail against it. There is not only a justness in his conceptions,
which is the foundation of good writing, but also a purity of language,
and a beautiful turn of words, so little understood by modern writers;
and which, indeed, was found at Rome but at the latter end of the
commonwealth, and ended with Petronius, under the monarchy. If I durst
extend my judgment to particulars, I would say, that our author has
determined very nicely in his opinion of Epicurus; and that what he
has said of his morals, is according to nature and reason.

It is true, that as I am a religious admirer of Virgil, I could wish
that he had not discovered our father’s nakedness. [4] But, after all,
we must confess, that Æneas was none of the greatest heroes, and that
Virgil was sensible of it himself. But what could he do? the Trojan on
whom he was to build the Roman empire, had been already vanquished;
he had lost his country, and was a fugitive. Nay more, he had fought
unsuccessfully with Diomedes, and was only preserved from death by
his mother-goddess, who received a wound in his defence. So that
Virgil, bound as he was to follow the footsteps of Homer, who had thus
described him, could not reasonably have altered his character, and
raised him in Italy to a much greater height of prowess than he found
him formerly in Troy. Since, therefore, he could make no more of him
in valour, he resolved not to give him that virtue, as his principal;
but chose another, which was piety. It is true, this latter, in the
composition of a hero, was not altogether so shining as the former; but
it entitled him more to the favour of the gods, and their protection,
in all his undertakings; and, which was the poet’s chiefest aim, made
a nearer resemblance betwixt Æneas and his patron Augustus Cæsar, who,
above all things, loved to be flattered for being pious, both to the
gods and his relations. And that very piety, or gratitude, (call it
which you please,) to the memory of his uncle Julius, gave him the
preference, amongst the soldiers, to Mark Antony; and, consequently,
raised him to the empire. As for personal courage, that of Augustus
was not pushing;[5] and the poet, who was not ignorant of that defect,
for that reason durst not ascribe it, in the supreme degree, to him
who was to represent his emperor under another name: which was managed
by him with the most imaginable fineness; for had valour been set
uppermost, Augustus must have yielded to Agrippa. After all, this is
rather to defend the courtier than the poet; and to make his hero
escape again, under the covert of a cloud. Only we may add, what I
think Bossu says, that the Roman commonwealth being now changed into a
monarchy, Virgil was helping to that design; by insinuating into the
people the piety of their new conqueror, to make them the better brook
this innovation, which was brought on them by a man who was favoured by
the gods. Yet we may observe, that Virgil forgot not, upon occasion, to
speak honourably of Æneas, in point of courage, and that particularly
in the person of him by whom he was overcome. For Diomedes compares him
with Hector, and even with advantage:

_Quicquid apud duræ cessatum est mænia Trojæ,
Hectoris Æneæque manu victoria Graiûm
Hæsit, et in decimum vestigia retulit annum:
Ambo animis, ambo insignes præstantibus armis;
Hic pietate prior. _

As for that particular passage, cited by Monsieur St Evremont, where
Æneas shows the utmost fear, in the beginning of a tempest,

_Extemplo Æneæ solvuntur frigore membra_, &c.

why may it not be supposed, that having been long at sea, he might
be well acquainted with the nature of a storm; and, by the rough
beginning, foresee the increase and danger of it? at least, as a father
of his people, his concernment might be greater for them than for
himself: and if so, what the poet takes from the merit of his courage,
is added to the prime virtue of his character, which was his piety.
Be this said with all manner of respect and deference to the opinion
of Monsieur St Evremont; amongst whose admirable talents, that of
penetration is not the least. He generally dives into the very bottom
of his authors; searches into the inmost recesses of their souls,
and brings up with him those hidden treasures which had escaped the
diligence of others. His examination of the “_Grand Alexandre,_”[6] in
my opinion, is an admirable piece of criticism; and I doubt not, but
that his observations on the English theatre had been as absolute in
their kind, had he seen with his own eyes, and not with those of other
men. But conversing in a manner wholly with the court, which is not
always the truest judge, he has been unavoidably led into mistakes,
and given to some of our coarsest poets a reputation abroad, which
they never had at home. Had his conversation in the town been more
general, he had certainly received other ideas on that subject; and not
transmitted those names into his own country, which will be forgotten
by posterity in ours.

Thus I have contracted my thoughts on a large subject; for whatever has
been said falls short of the true character of Monsieur St Evremont,
and his writings: and if the translation you are about to read does
not every where come up to the original, the translator desires you to
believe, that it is only because that he has failed in his undertaking.




THE CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS.

FIRST PRINTED IN OCTAVO, IN 1692.




CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS.


The character of Polybius was prefixed to a translation executed by
Sir Henry Shere, or Sheers;[7] the same gentleman whom Dryden has
elsewhere classed among the “finer spirits of the age. ”[8] Our author
had announced this work to the public in the preface to “Cleomenes. ”[9]
It was probably at that time under the press, or at least subjected
to Dryden for his correction. The translation itself is of little
value. Sir Henry disclaims all extent of erudition, and frankly
confesses, he “has no warrant from his depth of learning whereof to
make ostentation; wherein, indeed, he who most abounds ever finds
least cause of boasting. ” Accordingly, his preface is employed in an
attempt to convince the world, that mere scholars, or book-learned men,
have rather traduced than translated Polybius, and most authors of
his class; such being totally at a loss to discover the sense of many
passages in history, wherein matters military and naval are handled. He
therefore takes up the pen as a man of the world, of business, science,
and conversation, long intimate with such matters as are principally
treated of by the historian. Finally, he describes his undertaking as
an “employment, wherein he who performs best, traffics for small gain,
and it would be unfair and unconscionable to make the loss more than
the adventure; and, at the worst, it having been rather a diversion
than a task, helping me to while away a few winter hours, which is some
recreation to one who has led a life of action and business; and whose
humour and fortune suit not with the pleasures of the town. Wherefore I
shall have little cause of complaint, if my well-meaning in consenting
to its publication be not so well received: I have been worse treated
by the world, to which I am as little indebted as most men, who have
spent near thirty years in public trusts; wherein I laboured, and
wasted my youth and the vigour of my days, more to the service of my
country, and the impairment of my health, than the improvement of
my fortune; having stood the mark of envy, slander, and hard usage,
without gleaning the least of those advantages, which use to be the
anchor-hold and refuge of such as wrongfully or otherwise suffer the
stroke of censure. ”

Our author, who seems to have had an especial regard for Sir Henry
Shere, contributed this preliminary discourse.

Mr Malone has fixed Sir Henry Shere’s death to the year 1713, when his
library was exposed to sale by advertisement in “The Guardian. ”




THE CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS, AND HIS WRITINGS.


The worthy author of this translation, who is very much my friend, was
pleased to entrust it in my hands for many months together, before he
published it, desiring me to review the English, and to correct what I
found amiss; which he needed not have done, if his modesty would have
given him leave to have relied on his own abilities, who is so great a
master of our style and language, as the world will acknowledge him to
be, after the reading of this excellent version.

It is true, that Polybius has formerly appeared in an English
dress,[10] but under such a cloud of errors in his first translation,
that his native beauty was not only hidden, but his sense perverted
in many places; so that he appeared unlike himself, and unworthy of
that esteem which has always been paid him by antiquity, as the most
sincere, the clearest, and most instructive of all historians. He is
now not only redeemed from those mistakes, but also restored to the
first purity of his conceptions; and the style in which he now speaks
is as plain and unaffected as that he wrote. I had only the pleasure
of reading him in a fair manuscript, without the toil of alteration;
at least it was so very inconsiderable, that it only cost me the dash
of a pen in some few places, and those of very small importance. So
much had the care, the diligence, and exactness of my friend prevented
my trouble, that he left me not the occasion of serving him, in a work
which was already finished to my hands. I doubt not but the reader will
approve my judgement. So happy it is for a good author to fall into the
hands of a translator, who is of a genius like his own; who has added
experience to his natural abilities; who has been educated in business
of several kinds; has travelled, like his author, into many parts of
the world, and some of them the same with the present scene of history;
has been employed in business of the like nature with Polybius,
and, like him, is perfectly acquainted not only with the terms of
the mathematics, but has searched into the bottom of that admirable
science, and reduced into practice the most useful rules of it, to his
own honour, and the benefit of his native country; who, besides these
advantages, possesses the knowledge of shipping and navigation; and,
in few words, is not ignorant of any thing that concerns the tactics:
so that here, from the beginning, we are sure of finding nothing that
is not thoroughly understood. [11] The expression is clear, and the
words adequate to the subject. Nothing in the matter will be mistaken;
nothing of the terms will be misapplied: all is natural and proper;
and he who understands good sense and English, will be profited by the
first, and delighted with the latter. This is what may be justly said
in commendation of the translator, and without the note of flattery to
a friend.

As for his author, I shall not be ashamed to copy from the learned
Casaubon, who has translated him into Latin,[12] many things which I
had not from my own small reading, and which I could not, without great
difficulty, have drawn, but from his fountain; not omitting some which
came casually in my way, by reading the preface of the Abbot Pichon to
the Dauphin’s “Tacitus,” an admirable and most useful work; which helps
I ingenuously profess to have received from them, both to clear myself
from being a plagiary of their writings, and to give authority, by
their names, to the weakness of my own performance.

The taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet the Great, fell into the
latter times of Pope Nicholas the Fifth,[13] a pope not only studious
of good letters, and particularly of history, but also a great
encourager of it in others. From the dreadful overthrow of that city,
and final subversion of the Greek empire, many learned men escaped,
and brought over with them into Italy that treasure of ancient
authors,[14] which, by their unhappiness, we now possess; and, amongst
the rest, some of these remaining fragments of Polybius. The body of
this history, as he left it finished, was consisting of forty books,
of which the eighth part[15] is only remaining to us entire. As for
his negociations, when he was sent ambassador either from his own
countrymen,[16] the commonwealth of the Achaians, or afterwards was
employed by the Romans on their business with other nations, we are
obliged to Constantine the Great for their preservation; for that
emperor was so much in love with the dexterous management and wisdom
of our author, that he caused them all to be faithfully transcribed,
and made frequent use of them in his own dispatches and affairs with
foreign princes, as his best guides in his concernments with them.

Polybius, as you will find in reading of him, though he principally
intended the history of the Romans, and the establishment of their
empire over the greatest part of the world which was then known, yet
had in his eye the general history of the times in which he lived, not
forgetting either the wars of his own country with their neighbours
of Etolia, or the concurrent affairs of Macedonia and the provinces
of Greece, which is properly so called; nor the monarchies of Asia
and Egypt; nor the republic of the Carthaginians, with the several
traverses of their fortunes, either in relation to the Romans, or
independent to the wars which they waged with them; besides what
happened in Spain and Sicily, and other European countries. The time,
which is taken up in this history, consists of three-and-fifty years;
and the greatest part of it is employed in the description of those
events, of which the author was an eye-witness, or bore a considerable
part in the conduct of them. But in what particular time or age it was,
when mankind received that irrecoverable loss of this noble history,
is not certainly delivered to us. It appears to have been perfect in
the reign of Constantine, by what I have already noted; and neither
Casaubon, nor any other, can give us any further account concerning it.

The first attempt towards a translation of him, was by command of the
same Pope Nicholas the Fifth, already mentioned, who esteemed him the
prince of Greek historians; would have him continually in his hands;
and used to make this judgement of him,--that, if he yielded to one
or two, in the praise of eloquence, yet, in wisdom, and all other
accomplishments belonging to a perfect historian, he was at least equal
to any other writer, Greek or Roman, and perhaps excelled them all.
This is the author, who is now offered to us in our mother-tongue,
recommended by the nobility of his birth, by his institution in arts
and sciences, by his knowledge in natural and moral philosophy, and
particularly the politics; by his being conversant both in the arts
of peace and war; by his education under his father Lycortas, who
voluntarily deposed himself from his sovereignty of Megalopolis to
become a principal member of the Achaian commonwealth, which then
flourished under the management of Aratus; by his friendship with
Scipio Africanus, who subdued Carthage, to whom he was both a companion
and a counsellor; and by the good-will, esteem, and intimacy, which he
had with several princes of Asia, Greece, and Egypt, during his life;
and after his decease, by deserving the applause and approbation of all
succeeding ages.

This author, so long neglected in the barbarous times of Christianity,
and so little known in Europe, (according to the fate which commonly
follows the best of writers,) was pulled from under the rubbish which
covered him, by the learned bishop, Nicholas the Fifth; and some parts
of his history (for with all his diligence he was not able to recover
the whole) were by him recommended to a person knowing both in the
Greek and Roman tongues, and learned for the times in which he lived,
to be translated into Latin; and, to the honour of our Polybius, he was
amongst the first of the Greek writers, who deserved to have this care
bestowed on him; which, notwithstanding so many hindrances occurred
in this attempt, that the work was not perfected in his popedom,
neither was any more than a third part of what is now recovered in his
hands; neither did that learned Italian,[17] who had undertaken him,
succeed very happily in that endeavour; for the perfect knowledge of
the Greek language was not yet restored, and that translator was but
as a one-eyed man amongst the nation of the blind; only suffered till
a better could be found to do right to an author, whose excellence
required a more just interpreter than the ignorance of that age
afforded. And this gives me occasion to admire, (says Casaubon,) that
in following times, when eloquence was redeemed, and the knowledge
of the Greek language flourished, yet no man thought of pursuing
that design, which was so worthily begun in those first rudiments of
learning. Some, indeed, of almost every nation in Europe, have been
instrumental in the recovery of several lost parts of our Polybius,
and commented on them with good success; but no man before Casaubon
had reviewed the first translation, corrected its errors, and put the
last hand to its accomplishment. The world is therefore beholden to
him for this great work; for he has collected into one their scattered
fragments, has pieced them together, according to the natural order
in which they were written, made them intelligible to scholars, and
rendered the French translator’s task more easy to his hands.

Our author is particularly mentioned with great honour by Cicero,
Strabo, Josephus, and Plutarch; and in what rank of writers they are
placed, none of the learned need to be informed. He is copied in whole
books together, by Livy, commonly esteemed the prince of the Roman
history, and translated word for word, though the Latin historian
is not to be excused, for not mentioning the man to whom he had been
so much obliged, nor for taking, as his own, the worthy labours of
another. Marcus Brutus, who preferred the freedom of his country to
the obligations which he had to Julius Cæsar, so prized Polybius,
that he made a compendium of his works; and read him not only for
his instruction, but for the diversion of his grief, when his noble
enterprize for the restoration of the commonwealth had not found the
success which it deserved. And this is not the least commendation of
our author, that he, who was not wholly satisfied with the eloquence
of Tully, should epitomise Polybius with his own hand. [18] It was on
the consideration of Brutus, and the veneration which he paid him, that
Constantine the Great took so great a pleasure in reading our author,
and collecting the several treaties of his embassies; of which, though
many are now lost, yet those which remain are a sufficient testimony
of his abilities; and I congratulate my country, that a prince of
our extraction (as was Constantine,) has the honour of obliging the
Christian world by these remainders of our great historian.

It is now time to enter into the particular praises of Polybius, which
I have given you before in gross; and the first of them (following the
method of Casaubon,) is his wonderful skill in political affairs. I
had read him, in English, with the pleasure of a boy, before I was ten
years of age; and yet, even then, had some dark notions of the prudence
with which he conducted his design, particularly in making me know, and
almost see, the places where such and such actions were performed. This
was the first distinction which I was then capable of making betwixt
him and other historians which I read early. But when being of a riper
age, I took him again into my hands, I must needs say, that I have
profited more by reading him than by Thucydides, Appian, Dion Cassius,
and all the rest of the Greek historians together; and amongst all the
Romans, none have reached him, in this particular, but Tacitus, who is
equal with him.

It is wonderful to consider with how much care and application he
instructs, counsels, warns, admonishes, and advises, whensoever he
can find a fit occasion. He performs all these sometimes in the
nature of a common parent of mankind; and sometimes also limits his
instructions to particular nations, by a friendly reproach of those
failings and errors to which they were most obnoxious. In this last
manner he gives instructions to the Mantinæans, the Elæans, and several
other provinces of Greece, by informing them of such things as were
conducing to their welfare.
Thus he likewise warns the Romans of their
obstinacy and wilfulness, vices which have often brought them to the
brink of ruin. And thus he frequently exhorts the Greeks, in general,
not to depart from their dependence on the Romans; nor to take false
measures, by embroiling themselves in wars with that victorious people,
in whose fate it was to be masters of the universe. But as his peculiar
concernment was for the safety of his own countrymen, the Achaians, he
more than once insinuates to them the care of their preservation, which
consisted in submitting to the yoke of the Roman people, which they
could not possibly avoid; and to make it easy to them, by a cheerful
compliance with their commands, rather than unprofitably to oppose them
with the hazard of those remaining privileges which the clemency of the
conquerors had left them. For this reason, in the whole course of his
history he makes it his chiefest business to persuade the Grecians in
general, that the growing greatness and fortune of the Roman empire was
not owing to mere chance, but to the conduct and invincible courage of
that people, to whom their own virtue gave the dominion of the world.
And yet this counsellor of patience and submission, as long as there
was any probability of hope remaining to withstand the progress of the
Roman fortune, was not wanting to the utmost of his power to resist
them, at least to defer the bondage of his country, which he had long
foreseen. But the fates inevitably drawing all things into subjection
to Rome, this well-deserving citizen was commanded to appear in that
city,[19] where he suffered the imprisonment of many years; yet even
then his virtue was beneficial to him, the knowledge of his learning
and his wisdom procuring him the friendship of the most potent in the
senate; so that it may be said with Casaubon, that the same virtue
which had brought him into distress, was the very means of his relief,
and of his exaltation to greater dignities than those which he lost;
for by the intercession of Cato the Censor, Scipio Æmilianus, who
afterwards destroyed Carthage, and some other principal noblemen, our
Polybius was restored to liberty. After which, having set it down as a
maxim, that the welfare of the Achaians consisted, as I have said, in
breaking their own stubborn inclinations, and yielding up that freedom
which they no longer could maintain, he made it the utmost aim of his
endeavours to bring over his countrymen to that persuasion; in which,
though, to their misfortunes, his counsels were not prevalent, yet
thereby he not only proved himself a good patriot, but also made his
fortunes with the Romans. For his countrymen, by their own unpardonable
fault, not long afterwards drew on themselves their own destruction;
for when Mummius, in the Achaian war, made a final conquest of that
country, he dissolved the great council of their commonwealth. [20]
But, in the mean time, Polybius enjoyed that tranquillity of fortune
which he had purchased by his wisdom, in that private state, being
particularly dear to Scipio and Lælius, and some of the rest, who were
then in the administration of the Roman government. And that favour
which he had gained amongst them, he employed not in heaping riches
to himself, but as a means of performing many considerable actions;
as particularly when Scipio was sent to demolish Carthage,[21] he
went along with him in the nature of a counsellor and companion of
his enterprize. At which time, receiving the command of a fleet from
him, he made discoveries in many parts of the Atlantic Ocean, and
especially on the shores of Africa; and[22] doing many good offices
to all sorts of people whom he had power to oblige, especially to the
Grecians, who, in honour of their benefactor, caused many statues of
him to be erected, as Pausanias has written. The particular gratitude
of the Locrians in Italy is also an undeniable witness of this truth;
who, by his mediation, being discharged from the burden of taxes which
oppressed them, through the hardship of those conditions which the
Romans had imposed on them in the treaty of peace, professed themselves
to be owing for their lives and fortunes, to the interest only and good
nature of Polybius, which they took care to express by all manner of
acknowledgment.

Yet as beneficent as he was, the greatest obligement which he could lay
on human kind, was the writing of this present history; wherein he has
left a perpetual monument of his public love to all the world in every
succeeding age of it, by giving us such precepts as are most conducing
to our common safety and our benefit. This philanthropy (which we have
not a proper word in English to express,) is every-where manifest in
our author; and from hence proceeded that divine rule which he gave
to Scipio,--that whensoever he went abroad, he should take care not
to return to his own house, before he had acquired a friend by some
new obligement. To this excellency of nature we owe the treasure which
is contained in this most useful work: this is the standard by which
all good and prudent princes ought to regulate their actions. None
have more need of friends than monarchs; and though ingratitude is too
frequent in the most of those who are obliged, yet encouragement will
work on generous minds; and if the experiment be lost on thousands,
yet it never fails on all: and one virtuous man in a whole nation is
worth the buying, as one diamond is worth the search in a heap of
rubbish. But a narrow-hearted prince, who thinks that mankind is made
for him alone, puts his subjects in a way of deserting him on the
first occasion;[23] and teaches them to be as sparing of their duty,
as he is of his bounty. He is sure of making enemies, who will not be
at the cost of rewarding his friends and servants; and by letting his
people see he loves them not, instructs them to live upon the square
with him, and to make him sensible in his turn, that prerogatives are
given, but privileges are inherent. As for tricking, cunning, and
that which in sovereigns they call king-craft, and reason of state in
commonwealths, to them and their proceedings Polybius is an open enemy.
He severely reproves all faithless practices, and that κακοπραγμὁσυνη,
or vicious policy, which is too frequent in the management of the
public. He commends nothing but plainness, sincerity, and the common
good, undisguised, and set in a true light before the people. Not but
that there may be a necessity of saving a nation, by going beyond
the letter of the law, or even sometimes by superseding it; but then
that necessity must not be artificial,--it must be visible, it must
be strong enough to make the remedy not only pardoned, but desired,
to the major part of the people; not for the interest only of some
few men, but for the public safety: for otherwise, one infringement
of a law draws after it the practice of subverting all the liberties
of a nation, which are only entrusted with any government, but can
never be given up to it. The best way to distinguish betwixt a
pretended necessity and a true, is to observe if the remedy be rarely
applied, or frequently; in times of peace, or times of war and public
distractions, which are the most usual causes of sudden necessities.
From hence Casaubon infers, that this our author, who preaches virtue,
and probity, and plain-dealing, ought to be studied principally by
kings and ministers of state; and that youth, which are bred up to
succeed in the management of business, should read him carefully, and
imbibe him thoroughly, detesting the maxims that are given by Machiavel
and others, which are only the instruments of tyranny. Furthermore,
(continues he,) the study of truth is perpetually joined with the
love of virtue; for there is no virtue which derives not its original
from truth; as, on the contrary, there is no vice which has not its
beginning from a lie. Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the
cement of all societies; and this is one of the most shining qualities
in our author.

I was so strongly persuaded of this myself, in the perusal of the
present history, that I confess, amongst all the ancients I never found
any who had the air of it so much; and amongst the moderns, none but
Philip de Commines. [24] They had this common to them, that they both
changed their masters. But Polybius changed not his side, as Philip
did: he was not bought off to another party, but pursued the true
interest of his country, even when he served the Romans. Yet since
truth, as one of the philosophers has told me, lies in the bottom of
a well, so it is hard to draw it up: much pains, much diligence, much
judgment is necessary to hand it us; even cost is oftentimes required;
and Polybius was wanting in none of these.

We find but few historians of all ages, who have been diligent enough
in their search for truth: it is their common method to take on
trust what they distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood
once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity.
But Polybius weighed the authors from whom he was forced to borrow
the history of the times immediately preceding his, and oftentimes
corrected them, either by comparing them each with other, or by the
lights which he had received from ancient men of known integrity
amongst the Romans, who had been conversant in those affairs which were
then managed, and were yet living to instruct him. He also learned
the Roman tongue; and attained to that knowledge of their laws, their
rights, their customs, and antiquities, that few of their own citizens
understood them better: having gained permission from the senate to
search the Capitol, he made himself familiar with their records, and
afterwards translated them into his mother-tongue. So that he taught
the noblemen of Rome their own municipal laws, and was accounted more
skilful in them than Fabius Pictor, a man of the senatorian order, who
wrote the transactions of the Punic wars. He who neglected none of the
laws of history, was so careful of truth, (which is the principal,)
that he made it his whole business to deliver nothing to posterity
which might deceive them; and by that diligence and exactness, may
easily be known to be studious of truth, and a lover of it. What
therefore Brutus thought worthy to transcribe with his own hand out
of him, I need not be ashamed to copy after him: “I believe,” says
Polybius, “that nature herself has constituted truth as the supreme
deity, which is to be adored by mankind, and that she has given it
greater force than any of the rest; for being opposed, as she is on all
sides, and appearances of truth so often passing for the thing itself,
in behalf of plausible falsehoods, yet by her wonderful operation
she insinuates herself into the minds of men; sometimes exerting her
strength immediately, and sometimes lying hid in darkness for length of
time; but at last she struggles through it, and appears triumphant over
falsehood. ” This sincerity Polybius preferred to all his friends, and
even to his father: “in all other offices of life,” says he, “praise
a lover of his friends, and of his native country; but in writing
history, I am obliged to divest myself of all other obligations, and
sacrifice them all to truth. ”

Aratus, the Sicyonian, in the childhood of our author, was the chief
of the Achaian commonwealth; a man in principal esteem, both in his
own country and all the provinces of Greece; admired universally for
his probity, his wisdom, his just administration, and his conduct: in
remembrance of all which, his grateful countrymen, after his decease,
ordained him those honours which are only due to heroes. Him our
Polybius had in veneration, and formed himself by imitation of his
virtues; and is never wanting in his commendations through the course
of his history. Yet even this man, when the cause of truth required
it, is many times reproved by him for his slowness in counsel, his
tardiness in the beginning of his enterprises, his tedious and more
than Spanish deliberations; and his heavy and cowardly proceedings are
as freely blamed by our Polybius, as they were afterwards by Plutarch,
who questionless drew his character from this history. In plain terms,
that wise general scarce ever performed any great action but by night:
the glittering of a sword before his face was offensive to his eyes:
our author therefore boldly accuses him of his faint-heartedness;
attributes the defeat at Caphiæ wholly to him; and is not sparing to
affirm, that all Peloponnesus was filled with trophies, which were set
up as the monuments of his losses. He sometimes praises, and at other
times condemns the proceedings of Philip, king of Macedon, the son of
Demetrius, according to the occasions which he gave him by the variety
and inequality of his conduct; and this most exquisite on either side.
He more than once arraigns him for the inconstancy of his judgment,
and chapters even his own Aratus on the same head; shewing, by many
examples, produced from their actions, how many miseries they had both
occasioned to the Grecians; and attributing it to the weakness of
human nature, which can make nothing perfect. But some men are brave
in battle, who are weak in counsel, which daily experience sets before
our eyes; others deliberate wisely, but are weak in the performing
part; and even no man is the same to-day, which he was yesterday,
or may be to-morrow. On this account, says our author, “a good man
is sometimes liable to blame, and a bad man, though not often, may
possibly deserve to be commended. ” And for this very reason he severely
taxes Timæus, a malicious historian, who will allow no kind of virtue
to Agathocles, the tyrant of Sicily, but detracts from all his actions,
even the most glorious, because in general he was a vicious man. “Is
it to be thought,” says Casaubon, “that Polybius loved the memory of
Agathocles, the tyrant, or hated that of the virtuous Aratus? ” But it
is one thing to commend a tyrant, and another thing to overpass in
silence those laudable actions which are performed by him; because it
argues an author of the same falsehood, to pretermit what has actually
been done, as to feign those actions which have never been.

It will not be unprofitable, in this place, to give another famous
instance of the candour and integrity of our historian. There had
been an ancient league betwixt the republic of Achaia and the kings
of Egypt, which was entertained by both parties sometimes on the
same conditions, and sometimes also the confederacy was renewed on
other terms. It happened, in the 148th Olympiad,[25] that Ptolomy
Epiphanes, on this occasion, sent one Demetrius, his ambassador, to
the commonwealth of Achaia. That republic was then ruinously divided
into two factions; whereof the heads on one side were Philopœmen, and
Lycortas, the father of our author; of the adverse party, the chief
was Aristænus, with some other principal Achaians. The faction of
Philopœmen was prevalent in the council, for renewing the confederacy
with the king of Egypt; in order to which, Lycortas received a
commission to go to that court and treat the articles of alliance.
Accordingly, he goes, and afterwards returns, and gives account to his
superiors, that the treaty was concluded. Aristænus, hearing nothing
but a bare relation of a league that was made, without any thing
belonging to the conditions of it, and well knowing that several forms
of those alliances had been used in the former negociations, asked
Lycortas, in the council, according to which of them this present
confederacy was made? To this question of his enemy, Lycortas had not
a word to answer; for it had so happened by the wonderful neglect of
Philopœmen and his own, and also that of Ptolomy’s counsellors, (or, as
I rather believe, by their craft contrived,) that the whole transaction
had been loosely and confusedly managed, which, in a matter of so great
importance, redounded to the scandal and ignominy of Philopœmen and
Lycortas, in the face of that grave assembly. Now these proceedings
our author so relates, as if he had been speaking of persons to whom
he had no manner of relation, though one of them was his own father,
and the other always esteemed by him in the place of a better father.
But being mindful of the law which himself had instituted, concerning
the indispensable duty of an historian, (which is truth,) he chose
rather to be thought a lover of it, than of either of his parents. It
is true, Lycortas, in all probability, was dead when Polybius wrote
this history; but, had he been then living, we may safely think, that
his son would have assumed the same liberty, and not feared to have
offended him in behalf of truth.

Another part of this veracity is also deserving the notice of the
reader, though, at the same time we must conclude, that it was also an
effect of a sound judgment, that he perpetually explodes the legends of
prodigies and miracles, and instead of them, most accurately searches
into the natural causes of those actions which he describes; for, from
the first of these, the latter follows of direct consequence. And
for this reason, he professes an immortal enmity to those tricks and
jugglings, which the common people believe as real miracles; because
they are ignorant of the causes which produced them. But he had made
a diligent search into them, and found out, that they proceeded either
from the fond credulity of the people, or were imposed on them by the
craft of those whose interest it was that they should be believed.
You hear not in Polybius, that it rained blood or stones; that a
bull had spoken; or a thousand such impossibilities, with which Livy
perpetually crowds the calends of almost every consulship. [26] His new
years could no more begin without them, during his description of the
Punic wars, than our prognosticating almanacks without the effects of
the present oppositions betwixt Saturn and Jupiter, the foretelling of
comets and coruscations in the air, which seldom happen at the times
assigned by our astrologers, and almost always fail in their events.
If you will give credit to some other authors, some god was always
present with Hannibal or Scipio to direct their actions; that a visible
deity wrought journey-work under Hannibal, to conduct him through
the difficult passages of the Alps; and another did the same office
of drudgery for Scipio, when he besieged New Carthage, by draining
the water, which otherwise would have drowned his army in their rash
approaches; which Polybius observing, says wittily and truly, that the
authors of such fabulous kind of stuff write tragedies, not histories;
for, as the poets, when they are at a loss for the solution of a plot,
bungle up their catastrophe with a god descending in a machine, so
these inconsiderate historians, when they have brought their heroes
into a plunge by some rash and headlong undertaking, having no human
way remaining to disengage them with their honour, are forced to have
recourse to miracle, and introduce a god for their deliverance. It is
a common frenzy of the ignorant multitude, says Casaubon, to be always
engaging heaven on their side; and indeed it is a successful stratagem
of any general to gain authority among his soldiers, if he can persuade
them, that he is the man by fate appointed for such or such an action,
though most impracticable. To be favoured of God, and command (if it
may be permitted so to say,) the extraordinary concourse of Providence,
sets off a hero, and makes more specious the cause for which he fights,
without any consideration of morality, which ought to be the beginning
and end of all our actions; for, where that is violated, God is only
present in permission; and suffers a wrong to be done, but not commands
it. Light historians, and such as are superstitious in their natures,
by the artifice of feigned miracles captivate the gross understandings
of their readers, and please their fancies by relations of things which
are rather wonderful than true; but such as are of a more profound and
solid judgment, (which is the character of our Polybius), have recourse
only to their own natural lights, and by them pursue the methods at
least of probability, if they cannot arrive to a settled certainty. He
was satisfied that Hannibal was not the first who had made a passage
through the Alps, but that the Gauls had been before him in their
descent on Italy; and also knew, that this most prudent general, when
he laid his design of invading that country, had made an alliance with
the Gauls, and prepossessed them in his favour; and before he stirred a
foot from Spain, had provided against all those difficulties which he
foresaw in his attempt, and compassed his undertaking, which indeed
was void of miracles, but full of conduct, and military experience.
In the same manner, Scipio, before he departed from Rome, to take
his voyage into Spain, had carefully considered every particular
circumstance which might cross his purpose, and made his enterprize
as easy to him as human prudence could provide; so that he was
victorious over that nation, not by virtue of any miracle, but by his
admirable forecast, and wise conduct in the execution of his design.
Of which, though Polybius was not an eye-witness, he yet had it from
the best testimony, which was that of Lælius, the friend of Scipio,
who accompanied him in that expedition; of whom our author, with great
diligence; enquired concerning every thing of moment which happened in
that war, and whom he commends for his sincerity in that relation.

Whensoever he gives us the account of any considerable action, he never
fails to tell us why it succeeded, or for what reason it miscarried;
together with all the antecedent causes of its undertaking, and the
manner of its performance; all which he accurately explains: of which I
will select but some few instances, because I want leisure to expatiate
on many. In the fragments of the seventeenth book he makes a learned
dissertation concerning the Macedonian phalanx, or gross body of foot,
which was formerly believed to be invincible, till experience taught
the contrary by the success of the battle which Philip lost to the
commonwealth of Rome; and the manifest and most certain causes are
therein related, which prove it to be inferior to the Roman legions.
When also he had told us in his former books, of the three great
battles wherein Hannibal had overthrown the Romans, and the last at
Cannæ, wherein he had in a manner conquered that republic, he gives
the reasons of every defeat, either from the choice of ground, or the
strength of the foreign horse in Hannibal’s army, or the ill-timing of
the fight on the vanquished side. After this, when he describes the
turn of fortune on the part of the Romans, you are visibly conducted
upwards to the causes of that change, and the reasonableness of the
method which was afterwards pursued by that commonwealth, which raised
it to the empire of the world. In these and many other examples,
which for brevity are omitted, there is nothing more plain than that
Polybius denies all power to fortune, and places the sum of success in
Providence; συμβαινογγων τὑχην ἁιτιασθι φαυλον, indeed, are his words,
It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in
herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence. So
that whenever our author seems to attribute any thing to chance, he
speaks only with the vulgar, and desires so to be understood.

But here I must make bold to part company with Casaubon for a moment.
He is a vehement friend to any author with whom he has taken any
pains; and his partiality to Persius, in opposition to Juvenal, is too
fresh in my memory to be forgotten. [27] Because Polybius will allow
nothing to the power of chance, he takes an occasion to infer, that
he believed a providence; sharply inveighing against those who have
accused him of atheism. He makes Suidas his second in this quarrel; and
produces his single evidence, and that but a bare assertion, without
proof, that Polybius believed, with us Christians, God administered
all human actions and affairs. But our author will not be defended
in this case; his whole history reclaims to that opinion. When he
speaks of Providence, or of any divine admonition, he is as much in
jest, as when he speaks of fortune; it is all to the capacity of the
vulgar. Prudence was the only divinity which he worshipped, and the
possession of virtue the only end which he proposed. If I would have
disguised this to the reader, it was not in my power. The passages
which manifestly prove his irreligion are so obvious that I need not
quote them. Neither do I know any reason why Casaubon should enlarge so
much in his justification; since to believe false gods, and to believe
none, are errors of the same importance. He who knew not our God, saw
through the ridiculous opinions of the heathens concerning theirs; and
not being able without revelation to go farther, stopped at home in
his own breast, and made prudence his goddess, truth his search, and
virtue his reward. If Casaubon, like him, had followed truth, he would
have saved me the ungrateful pains of contradicting him; but even the
reputation of Polybius, if there were occasion, is to be sacrificed to
truth, according to his own maxim.

As for the wisdom of our author, whereby he wonderfully foresaw the
decay of the Roman empire, and those civil wars which turned it down
from a commonwealth to an absolute monarchy, he who will take the pains
to review this history will easily perceive, that Polybius was of the
best sort of prophets, who predict from natural causes those events
which must naturally proceed from them. And these things were not to
succeed even in the compass of the next century to that wherein he
lived, but the person was then living who was the first mover towards
them; and that was that great Scipio Africanus, who, by cajoling the
people to break the fundamental constitutions of the government in
his favour, by bringing him too early to the consulship,[28] and
afterwards by making their discipline of war precarious, first taught
them to devolve the power and authority of the senate into the hands
of one, and then to make that one to be at the disposition of the
soldiery; which though he practised at a time when it was necessary
for the safety of the commonwealth, yet it drew after it those fatal
consequences, which not only ruined the republic, but also in process
of time, the monarchy itself. But the author was too much in the
interests of that family, to name Scipio; and therefore he gives other
reasons, to which I refer the reader, that I may avoid prolixity.

By what degrees Polybius arrived to this height of knowledge, and
consummate judgment in affairs, it will not be hard to make the reader
comprehend; for presupposing in him all that birth or nature could give
a man, who was formed for the management of great affairs, and capable
of recording them, he was likewise entered from his youth into those
employments which add experience to natural endowments; being joined in
commission with his father Lycortas, and the younger Aratus, before the
age of twenty, in an embassy to Egypt: after which he was perpetually
in the business of his own commonwealth, or that of Rome. So that it
seems to be one part of the Roman felicity, that he was born in an age
when their commonwealth was growing to the height; that he might be the
historian of those great actions, which were performed not only in his
lifetime, but the chief of them even in his sight.

I must confess, that the preparations to his history, or the
Prolegomena, as they are called, are very large, and the digressions in
it are exceeding frequent. But as to his preparatives, they were but
necessary to make the reader comprehend the drift and design of his
undertaking: and the digressions are also so instructive, that we may
truly say, they transcend the profit which we receive from the matter
of fact. Upon the whole, we may conclude him to be a great talker; but
we must grant him to be a prudent man. We can spare nothing of all he
says, it is so much to our improvement; and if the rest of his history
had remained to us, in all probability it would have been more close:
for we can scarce conceive what was left in nature for him to add, he
has so emptied almost all the common-places of digressions already; or
if he could have added any thing, those observations might have been as
useful and as necessary as the rest which he has given us, and that are
descended to our hands.

I will say nothing farther of the “Excerpta,” which (as Casaubon
thinks,) are part of that epitome which was begun to be made by Marcus
Brutus, but never finished; nor of those embassies which are collected
and compiled by the command of Constantine the Great; because neither
of them are translated in this work. And whether or no they will be
added in another impression, I am not certain; the translator of these
five books having carried his work no farther than it was perfect. He,
I suppose, will acquaint you with his own purpose, in the preface which
I hear he intends to prefix before Polybius.

Let us now hear Polybius himself describing an accomplished historian,
wherein we shall see his own picture, as in a glass, reflected to him,
and given us afterwards to behold in the writing of this history.

Plato said of old, that it would be happy for mankind, if either
philosophers administered the government, or that governors applied
themselves to the study of philosophy. I may also say, that it would
be happy for history, if those who undertake to write it, were men
conversant in political affairs; who applied themselves seriously
to their undertaking, not negligently, but as such who were fully
persuaded that they undertook a work of the greatest moment, of the
greatest excellency, and the most necessary for mankind; establishing
this as the foundation whereon they are to build, that they can never
be capable of performing their duty as they ought, unless they have
formed themselves beforehand to their undertaking, by prudence, and
long experience of affairs; without which endowments and advantages,
if they attempt to write a history, they will fall into a various and
endless labyrinth of errors.

When we hear this author speaking, we are ready to think ourselves
engaged in a conversation with Cato the Censor, with Lælius, with
Massinissa, and with the two Scipios; that is, with the greatest heroes
and most prudent men of the greatest age in the Roman commonwealth.
This sets me so on fire, when I am reading either here, or in any
ancient author, their lives and actions, that I cannot hold from
breaking out with Montagne into this expression: “It is just,” says he,
“for every honest man to be content with the government and laws of his
native country, without endeavouring to alter or subvert them; but if I
were to choose, where I would have been born, it should have been in a
commonwealth. ” He indeed names Venice, which, for many reasons, should
not be my wish; but rather Rome in such an age, if it were possible,
as that wherein Polybius lived; or that of Sparta, whose constitution
for a republic, is by our author compared with Rome, to which he justly
gives the preference.

I will not undertake to compare Polybius and Tacitus; though, if I
should attempt it upon the whole merits of the cause, I must allow to
Polybius the greater comprehension, and the larger soul; to Tacitus,
the greater eloquence, and the more close connection of his thoughts.
The manner of Tacitus in writing is more like the force and gravity
of Demosthenes; that of Polybius more like the copiousness and
diffusive character of Cicero. Amongst historians, Tacitus imitated
Thucydides, and Polybius, Herodotus. Polybius foresaw the ruin of the
Roman commonwealth, by luxury, lust, and cruelty; Tacitus foresaw in
the causes those events which would destroy the monarchy. They are
both of them, without dispute, the best historians in their several
kinds. In this they are alike, that both of them suffered under the
iniquity of the times in which they lived; both their histories are
dismembered, the greatest part of them lost, and they are interpolated
in many places. Had their works been perfect, we might have had longer
histories, but not better. Casaubon, according to his usual partiality,
condemns Tacitus that he may raise Polybius; who needs not any sinister
artifice to make him appear equal to the best. Tacitus described the
times of tyranny; but he always writes with some kind of indignation
against them. It is not his fault that Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and
Domitian, were bad princes. He is accused of malevolence, and of taking
actions in the worst sense: but we are still to remember, that those
were the actions of tyrants. Had the rest of his history remained to
us, we had certainly found a better account of Vespasian, Titus, Nerva,
and Trajan, who were virtuous emperors; and he would have given the
principles of their actions a contrary turn. But it is not my business
to defend Tacitus; neither dare I decide the preference betwixt him
and our Polybius. They are equally profitable and instructive to the
reader; but Tacitus more useful to those who are born under a monarchy,
Polybius to those who live in a republic.

What may farther be added concerning the history of this author, I
leave to be performed by the elegant translator of his work. [29]




THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.

FIRST PRINTED IN 8VO, IN 1711.




THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.


The Dialogues of Lucian were translated by Walter Moyle, Sir Henry
Shere, Charles Blount, and others, and seem to have been intended
for publication about 1696, when our author supplied the following
prefatory life. The design was, however, for a time laid aside, and
the work did not appear until 1711 several years after Dryden’s death.
Hence the preface wants those last corrections, which, I suspect,
Dryden contented himself with bestowing upon the proof sheets, as they
came from press. I have followed several of Mr Malone’s judicious, and
indeed indispensable, corrections of the printed copy.




THE LIFE OF LUCIAN.


The writing a life is at all times, and in all circumstances, the most
difficult task of an historian; and, notwithstanding the numerous tribe
of biographers, we can scarce find one, except Plutarch, who deserves
our perusal, or can invite a second view. But if the difficulty
be so great where the materials are plentiful, and the incidents
extraordinary, what must it be when the person, that affords the
subject, denies matter enough for a page? The learned seldom abound
with action, and it is action only that furnishes the historian with
things agreeable and instructive. It is true, that Diogenes Laertius,
and our learned countryman Mr Stanley,[30] have both written the “Lives
of the Philosophers;” but we are more obliged to the various principles
of their several sects, than to any thing remarkable that they did,
for our entertainment.

But Lucian, as pleasing and useful as he was in his writings, in the
opinion of the most candid judges, has left so little of his own
affairs on record, that there is scarce sufficient to fill a page, from
his birth to his death.

There were many of the name of Lucian among the ancients, eminent
in several ways, and whose names have reached posterity with honour
and applause. Suidas mentions one, as a man of singular probity,
who, having discharged the administration of the chief prefect of
the Oriental empire,[31] under Arcadius, with extraordinary justice
and praise of the people, drew on himself the envy and hate of the
courtiers, (the constant attendant of eminent virtue and merit,)
and the anger of the emperor himself; and was at last murdered by
Rufinus. [32]

Among those, who were eminent for their learning, were some divines
and philosophers. Of the former, we find one in St Cyprian, to whom
the fourth and seventeenth epistles are inscribed. There was another,
priest of the church of Antioch, who, as Suidas assures us, reviewed,
corrected, and restored to its primitive purity, the Hebrew Bible; and
afterward suffered martyrdom, at Nicomedia, under Maximilian. [33] A
third was a priest of Jerusalem, who not only made a figure among the
learned of his own age,[34] but, as Gesnerus observes, conveyed his
reputation to posterity by the remains of his writings.

But none of this name has met with the general applause of so many
ages, as Lucian the philosopher and eminent sophist, who was author of
the following Dialogues, of whose birth, life, and death, I shall give
you all I could collect of any certain and historical credit.

He had not the good fortune to be born of illustrious or wealthy
parents, which give a man a very advantageous rise on his first
appearance in the world; but the father of our Lucian laboured under
so great a straitness of estate, that he was fain to put his son
apprentice to a statuary, whose genius for the finer studies was
so extraordinary and so rare; because he hoped from that business,
not only a speedy supply to his own wants, but was secure that his
education in that art would be much less expensive to him.

He was born in Samosata, a city of Syria, not far from the river
Euphrates; and for this reason, he calls himself more than once an
Assyrian, and a Syrian; but he was derived from a Greek original, his
forefathers having been citizens of Patras in Achaia.

We have nothing certain as to the exact time of his birth. Suidas
confirms his flourishing under the Emperor Trajan; but then he was
likewise before him. Some mention the reign of Adrian; but it cannot
be fixed to any year or consulate. [35]

The person he was bound to was his uncle, a man of a severe and morose
temper, of whom he was to learn the statuary’s and stone-cutter’s
art; for his father observing our Lucian, now a boy, of his own head,
and without any instructor, make various figures in wax, he persuaded
himself, that if he had a good master, he could not but arrive to an
uncommon excellence in it.

But it happened, in the very beginning of his time, he broke a model,
and was very severely called to account for it by his master. He, not
liking this treatment, and having a soul and genius above any mechanic
trade, ran away home.

After which, in his sleep, there appeared to him two young women, or
rather the tutelar goddesses of the statuary art, and of the liberal
sciences, hotly disputing of their preference to each other; and on a
full hearing of both sides, he bids adieu to statuary, and entirely
surrenders himself to the conduct of virtue and learning. And as his
desires of improvement were great, and the instructions he had, very
good, the progress he made was as considerable, till, by the maturity
of his age and his study, he made his appearance in the world.

Though it is not to be supposed, that there is any thing of reality in
this dream, or vision, of Lucian, which he treats of in his works, yet
this may be gathered from it,--that Lucian himself, having consulted
his genius, and the nature of the study his father had allotted him,
and that to which he found a propensity in himself, he quitted the
former, and pursued the latter, choosing rather to form the minds of
men than their statues.

In his youth, he taught rhetoric in Gaul, and in several other places.
He pleaded likewise at the bar in Antioch, the capital of Syria;
but the noise of the bar disgusting, and his ill success in causes
disheartening him, he quitted the practice of rhetoric and the law, and
applied himself to writing.

He was forty years old, when he first took to philosophy. Having a
mind to make himself known in Macedon, he took the opportunity of
speaking in the public assembly of all that region. In his old age, he
was received into the imperial family, and had the place of intendant
of Egypt,[36] after he had travelled through almost all the known
countries of that age to improve his knowledge in men, manners, and
arts; for some writers make this particular observation on his travel
into Gaul, and residence in that country, that he gained there the
greatest part of his knowledge in rhetoric, that region being in
his age, and also before it, a nursery of eloquence and oratory, as
Juvenal, Martial, and others, sufficiently witness. [37]

The manner of his death is obscure to us, though it is most probable
he died of the gout. Suidas alone tells a story of his being worried
to death, and devoured by dogs, returning from a feast; which being so
uncommon a death, so very improbable, and attested only by one author,
has found little credit with posterity. If it be true, that he was once
a Christian, and afterwards became a renegade to our belief, perhaps
some zealots may have invented this tale of his death, as a just and
signal punishment for his apostacy. All men are willing to have the
miracle, or at least the wonderful providence, go on their side, and
will be teaching God Almighty what he ought to do in this world, as
well as in the next; as if they were proper judges of his decrees,
and for what end he prospers some, or punishes others, in this life.
Ablancourt, and our learned countryman Dr Mayne,[38] look on the story
as a fiction: and, for my part, I can see no reason either to believe
he ever professed Christianity, or, if he did, why he might[39] not
more probably die in his bed at so great an age as fourscore and ten,
than be torn in pieces and devoured by dogs, when he was too feeble to
defend himself. So early began the want of charity, the presumption of
meddling with God’s government, and the spirit of calumny amongst the
primitive believers.

Of his posterity we know nothing more, than that he left a son behind
him, who was as much in favour with the Emperor Julian, as his father
had been with Aurelius the philosopher. This son became in time a
famous sophist; and among the works of Julian we find an epistle of
that great person to him. [40]

I find that I have mingled, before I was aware, some things which are
doubtful with some which are certain; forced indeed by the narrowness
of the subject, which affords very little of undisputed truth. Yet I
find myself obliged to do right to Monsieur d’Ablancourt,[41] who is
not positively of opinion, that Suidas was the author of this fable;
but rather that it descended to him by the tradition of former times,
yet without any certain ground of truth. He concludes it, however, to
be a calumny, perhaps a charitable kind of lie, to deter others from
satirizing the new dogmas of Christianity, by the judgment shown on
Lucian. We find nothing in his writings, which gives any hint of his
professing our belief; but being naturally curious, and living not
only amongst Christians, but in the neighbourhood of Judea, he might
reasonably be supposed to be knowing in our points of faith, without
believing them. He ran a muck, and laid about him on all sides with
more fury on the heathens, whose religion he professed; he struck at
ours but casually, as it came in his way, rather than as he sought it;
he contemned it too much to write in earnest against it.

We have indeed the highest probabilities for our revealed religion;
arguments which will preponderate with a reasonable man, upon a long
and careful disquisition; but I have always been of opinion, that we
can demonstrate nothing, because the subject-matter is not capable of a
demonstration. It is the particular grace of God, that any man believes
the mysteries of our faith; which I think a conclusive argument against
the doctrine of persecution in any church. And though I am absolutely
convinced, as I heartily thank God I am, not only of the general
principles of Christianity, but of all truths necessary to salvation
in the Roman church, yet I cannot but detest our inquisition, as it
is practised in some foreign parts, particularly in Spain and in the
Indies.

Those reasons, which are cogent to me, may not prevail with others, who
bear the denomination of Christians; and those which are prevalent with
all Christians, in regard of their birth and education, may find no
force, when they are used against Mahometans or heathens. To instruct
is a charitable duty; to compel, by threatenings and punishment, is the
office of a hangman, and the principle of a tyrant.

But my zeal in a good cause, as I believe, has transported me beyond
the limits of my subject. I was endeavouring to prove, that Lucian had
never been a member of the Christian church; and methinks it makes
for my opinion, that, in relating the death of Peregrinus, who, being
born a Pagan, pretended afterwards to turn Christian, and turned
himself publicly at the Olympic games, at his death professing himself
a cynic philosopher, it seems, I say, to me, that Lucian would not
have so severely declaimed against this Proteus, (which was another of
Peregrinus his names,) if he himself had been guilty of that apostacy.

I know not that this passage has been observed by any man before
me;[42] and yet in this very place it is, that this author has more
severely handled our belief, and more at large, than in any other part
of all his writings, excepting only the Dialogue of Triephon and
Critias,[43] wherein he lashes his own false gods with more severity
than the true; and where the first Christians, with their cropped hair,
their whining voices, melancholy faces, mournful discourses, and nasty
habits, are described with a greater air of Calvinists or Quakers, than
of Roman Catholics or Church of England men.

After all, what if this discourse last mentioned, and the rest of the
dialogues wherein the Christians are satirized, were none of Lucian’s?
The learned and ingenious Dr Mayne, whom I have before cited, is
of this opinion, and confirms it by the attestation of Philander,
Obsobœus, Mycillus, and Cognatus, whom since I have not read, or two of
them but very superficially, I refer you for the faith of his quotation
to the authors themselves. [44]

The next supposition concerning Lucian’s religion is, that he was of
none at all. I doubt not but the same people, who broached the story of
his being once a Christian, followed their blow upon him in this second
accusation.

There are several sorts of Christians at this day reigning in the
world, who will not allow any man to believe in the Son of God, whose
other articles of faith are not in all things conformable to theirs.
Some of these exercise this rigid and severe kind of charity, with
a good intent of reducing several sects into one common church; but
the spirit of others is evidently seen by their detraction, their
malice, their spitting venom, their raising false reports of those
who are not of their communion. I wish the ancientness of these
censorious principles may be proved by better arguments, than by any
near resemblance they have with the primitive believers. But till I am
convinced that Lucian has been charged with atheism of old, I shall be
apt to think that this accusation is very modern.

One of Lucian’s translators pleads in his defence, that it was very
improbable a man, who has laughed paganism out of doors, should believe
no God; that he, who could point to the sepulchre of Jupiter in Crete,
as well as our Tertullian, should be an atheist. But this argument, I
confess, is of little weight to prove him a deist, only because he was
no polytheist. He might as well believe in none, as in many gods; and
on the other side, he might believe in many, as Julian did, and not in
one. For my own part, I think it is not proved that either of them were
apostates, though one of them, in hopes of an empire, might temporize,
while Christianity was the mode at court. Neither is our author cleared
any thing the more, because his writings have served, in the times of
the heathens, to destroy that vain, unreasonable, and impious religion;
_that_ was an oblique service, which Lucian never intended us; for his
business, like that of some modern polemics, was rather to pull down
every thing, than to set up any thing. With what show of probability
can I urge in his defence, that one of the greatest among the fathers
has drawn whole homilies from our author’s dialogue, since I know that
Lucian made them not for that purpose? The occasional good which he has
done, is not to be imputed to him. St Chrysostom, St Augustin, and many
others, have applied his arguments on better motives than their author
proposed to himself in framing them.

These reasons therefore, as they make nothing against his being an
atheist, so they prove nothing of his believing one God; but only leave
him as they found him, and leave us in as great an obscurity concerning
his religion as before. I may be as much mistaken in my opinion as
these great men have been before me; and this is very probable, because
I know less of him than they; yet I have read him over more than once,
and therefore will presume to say, that I think him either one of the
Eclectic[45] school, or else a Sceptic: I mean, that he either formed
a body of philosophy for his own use out of the opinions and dogmas of
several heathen philosophers, disagreeing amongst themselves, or that
he doubted of every thing; weighed all opinions, and adhered to none
of them; only used them as they served his occasion for the present
dialogue, and perhaps rejected them in the next. And indeed this last
opinion is the more probable of the two, if we consider the genius of
the man, whose image we may clearly see in the glass which he holds
before us of his writings, which reflects him to our sight.

Not to dwell on examples, with which his works are amply furnished,
I will only mention two. In one, Socrates convinces his friend
Chærephon of the power of the gods in transformations, and of a supreme
Providence which accompanies that power in the administration of the
world. In another, he confutes Jupiter, and pulls him down from heaven
to earth, by his own Homerical chain; and makes him only a subservient
slave to blind eternal fate.