THE LIFE OF LUCIA N." 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,' have both written the Lives of }; 9 This Life was prefixed to a translation of the Dialogues of Lucian, which was undertaken by some of our author's friends. It appears, from the publisher's Dedication and some other circumstances, to have been written in the year 1696; but the translation was not printed till some years after our author's death, having been first published in three volumes, 8vo. in 1711. Among the translators are found the names of Mr. Walter Moyle, Sir Henry Sheers, and Mr. Charles Blount. Thomas Stanley, Esq., whose HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, &c. was published in folio, in detached parts, 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, 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,)3 and the 2 between 1655 and 1660. The whole was reprinted in 1687. 2 A. D. 375. Rufinus was Chief Prefect of the East: the person here alluded to, was only Count of fifteen provinces. See the next note. 3 It is observable that our author, though he had the good fortune to be warmly patronized by several distinguished men of his age, on whom he has certainly not been sparing of encomiums, occasionally throws out severe reflections on Great Men, in which he seems to have indulged the humour of the moment, without much solicitude concerning the propriety or truth of the charge. See the Dedication of AURENGZEBE, in vol.i.; and vol. ii. p. 23, and p. 35. In the present instance, when the facts anger of the Emperor himself; and was at last murdered by Rufinus.* Among those who were eminent for their learning, were some divines and philosophers. Of shall have been examined, it will be found that the death of Lucian was not occasioned by the envy of the Great Men who formed the court of Arcadius, (as is here stated,} but principally by the wickedness of "one odious favourite, [Rufinus,] who in an age of civil and religious faction, has deserved from every party the imputation of every crime."—" His avarice (says Mr. Gibbon) which seems to have prevailed, in his corrupt mind, over every other sentiment, attracted the wealth of the East, by the various arts of partial and general extortion; oppressive taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments, by which the tyrant despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of strangers or enemies; and the publick sale of justice, as well as of favour, which he instituted in the palace of Constantinople. ---- The extreme parsimony of Rufinus left him only the reproach and envy of ill-gotten wealth: his dependents served him without attachment; the universal hatred of mankind was repressed only by the influence of servile fear. The fate of LUCIAN proclaimed to the East, that the Prefect, whose industry was much abated in the dispatch of ordinary business, was active and indefatigable in the pursuit of revenge. Lucian, (the son of the Prefect, Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul, and the enemy of Julian,) had employed a considerable part of his inheritance, the fruit of rapine and corruption, to purchase the friendship of Rufinus, and the high office of Count of the East. But the new magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court and of the times; disgraced his benefactor, by the contrast of a virtuous and temperate administration; |