whale on fire, and when the animal is dead,
haul up their vessel and launch it through
the interstices of his teeth. Among other
adventures they now visit the Island of the
Blessed, and see the place where they
assemble to eat lies (the appropriate food of Fools'
Paradise), situated beyond the city, and
called the Elysian Fields. Heroes and sages
are seen in great abundance, but Plato,
famous for his dreams of an ideal commonwealth,
is not to be found with the other
philosophers, but lives in a republic of his
own contrivance, and under a constitution
and laws of his own making.

Our voyager again embarks, and, favoured
by fortune and the winds, ere long approaches
the Island of Dreams, an island scarcely
distinguishable, even at the shortest distance, and
which possesses the amiable property of
continually receding as you advance, so that it is
almost itself a dream. At length with the last
gleam of evening twilight, he runs into the
Harbour of Sleep. He finds the city environed
by a high wall displaying all the colours of the
rainbow. He beholds also the dreams themselves
These visionary creatures are of
various nature. Some are large, gay, and
lovely; others little and ugly. Some look like
finegold; others seem of no value at all. Several
of them have wings, and the most strange
and fanciful shapes. Others are dressed and
decorated as for a holiday-procession,
personating gods or kings. Many of them, says
the narrator, reminded me of having seen
them formerly at home. They came up to us,
greeted us as old acquaintaiices, and after
lulling us to sleep, entertained us in the most
sumptuous manner, even promising to make
us kings and great lords. Some of them
conveyed us to our own country, showed us our
relatives and friends and brought us back
again in the same day. Thirty days glide
away in luxurious dreams in this island,
when suddenly the travellers are roused by a
loud clap of thunder, spring up, provision
their ship, and take to sea again. They make
for the island of Calypso, our hero having
undertaken to deliver a letter for the goddess
from Ulysses. The forsaken fair one receives
and feasts them magnificently, talks much of
her old love, is curious about Penelope, asks
how she looked, and whether she is really
such a picture of virtue as Ulysses made out.
Of course there are no Calypsos now, and
female curiosity is as obsolete an article as
female rivalry. Our adventurers leave the
island of the enchantress, and visit that of
the ox-headed people. Sailing further still,
they observe a peculiar kind of water-locomotives.
Men sit on large pieces of cork, drawn
by a pair of harnessed dolphins, which they
manage by bit and bridle, and so are
charioteered.

              O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea.

Next they land on an island inhabited
only by women who "speak Greek and have
donkey's hoofs." Have we never had a
vision of these forms of light and love in
some blue oasis in the desert of the ninteenth
century? If we have, let us remember that
Zoë is yet young, and indulge the hope that
when she is come to years of discretion, she
will retain her linguistic felicity without
exhibiting these somewhat objectionable
extremities.

A storm now arises. The vessel, which
has sailed through so many seas is dashed to
pieces, and the pilots that have weathered
the storm, swim to land, catching hold of
whatever aid to self-navigation they can lay
hands on. So ends the True History, not without
a promise of being continued; a promise,
however, that to use the words of an old
friend in Don Quixote, Lucian "did not
choose to remember."

Lucian's dialogues abound in wit, but it is
difficult to convey Greek wit into English
words. In one place he introduces the
Scythian Anacharsis laughing covertly at
Spartan severities and unnatural resignation
to suffering. The satirist slily remarks, on
hearing of the whippings which were
administered to the tingling boy-senators: "Your
customs are very unlike ours. You are a
much braver people than we. For we are
so timid that we have not even the
courage to let a man give us a slap in the
face." In another place, Lucian ridicules
the superstitious funeral ceremonies of the
ancients, complaining that men put an
obolus into the mouth of a friend, as soon as
he expires, without having previously
ascertained what species of currency is legal tender
in the other world! They dress the body in
beautiful clothes, he conjectures, for fear it
should catch cold by the way, or be seen
naked by Cerberus. Have we not heard of
some modern country, where the inhabitants
defer the payment of their debt of gratitude
and honour to private friends or public
benefactors while yet there is celestial beauty
in the widow's mites, to discharge it with
compound interest when the finest gold has
lost its lustre. That amiable goddess
Diana, is introduced to us by Lucian in
another paper in a very unclassical state of
mind, if repose be an essential characteristic
of Greek divinity. King Æneus, it appears,
has omitted to invite her to his grand sacrifice,
and Diana—who may be a goddess, but
who looks much more like a naughty child—
is represented as fretting and fuming, and
filling Olympus with her complaints, while
the other deities are feasting and making
merry below. Can such temper dwell in
heavenly minds? Can unhappiness approach
those higher circles where nectar takes the
place of champagne, and ambrosia succeeds
to tourte meringuée? Lucian tells us they
can. He points to Jupiter reproving
insolence of philosophers, who, on the bare
word of Homer, declare the upper ten thousand
blessed, asserting that happiness is