a new fpecies; the merit of which confifts in affociating two things, not naturally allied together, The Severity of philofophic Dialogue, with the bumour of the Comic.

BUT as unnatural as the alliance may seem, this fort of compofition has had its admirers. In particular, ERASMUS was fo taken with LuCIAN'S Dialogue, that he has tranffused its highest graces into his own; and employed thofe fine arms to better purpose against the Monks, than the forger of them had done, against the Philofophers.

IT muft further be confeffed, that this innovation of the Greek writer had fome countenance from the genius of the old Socratic Dialogue;

fuch

fuch I mean as it was in the hands of SOCRATES himself [e]; whọ took his name of IRONIST from the continued humour and ridicule, which runs through his moral dif courses. But, befides that the Athenian's modeft IRONY was of another tafte, and better fuited to the decorum of converfation, than the Syrian's frontlefs buffoonery, there was this further difference in the two cafes. SOCRATES employed this method of ridicule, as the only one by which he could hope to difcredit those mortal foes of reason, the SOPHISTS: LuCIAN, in mere wantonnefs, to infult its beft friends, the PHILOSOPHERS, and even the parent of Phi

[e] Επαιζεν ἅμα (πεδάζων Xen. Mem.

1. i. c. 3.

lofophy,

losophy, himself. The Sage would have dropped his IRONY, in the company of the good and wife: The Rhetorician, is never pleased than in confounding both, by his intemperate SATIRE.

never more

HOWEVER, there was likeness enough in the features of each manner, to favour LUCIAN's attempt in compounding his new Dialogue. He was not displeased, one may fuppofe, to turn the comic art of SoCRATES against himself; though he could not but know that the ableft mafters of the Socratic school employed it sparingly; and that, when the illuftrious Roman came to philofophize in the way of Dialogue, he disdained to make any use of it, at all.

IN

In a word, as it was taken up, to ferve an occafion, fo it was very properly laid afide, with it. And even while the occafion lafted, this humorous manner was far enough, as I obferved, from being pushed to a Scenic licence; the great artists in this way knowing very well, that, when SOCRATES SOCRATES brought Philofophy from Heaven to Earth, it was not his purpose to expose her on the ftage, but to introduce her into good company.

AND here, to note it by the way, what has been obferved of the Ironic manner of the Socratic Dialogue, is equally true of its fubtle questioning dialectic genius. This, too, had its rife from the circum

ftances

1

ftances of the time, and the views of its author, who employed it with much propriety and even elegance to entrap, in their own cobweb nets, the minute, quibbling, captious fophifts. How it chanced that this part of its character did not, alfo, ceafe with its ufe, but was continued by the fuce ceffors in that school, and even carried fo far as to provoke the ridicule of the wits, till, at length, it brought on the juft difgrace of the Socratic Dialogue itself, all this is the proper fubject of another inquiry.

OUR concern, at prefent, is with LUCIAN'S Dialogue; whether he were indeed the inventor of this

fpecies,