s had no superior. Like Cicero or Demosthenes or
Plato or Thucydides or Tacitus, Quintilian would be a great man if he
lived in our times, and could proudly challenge the modern world to
produce a better teacher than he in the art of public speaking.

There were other classical writers of immense fame, but they do not
represent any particular class in the field of literature which can be
compared with the modern. I can only draw attention to Lucian,--a witty
and voluminous Greek author, who lived in the reign of Commodus, and who
wrote rhetorical, critical, and biographical works, and even romances
which have given hints to modern authors. His fame rests on his
"Dialogues," intended to ridicule the heathen philosophy and religion,
and which show him to have been one of the great masters of ancient
satire and mockery. His style of dialogue--a combination of Plato and
Aristophanes--is not much used by modern writers, and his peculiar kind
of ridicule is reserved now for the stage. Yet he cannot be called a
writer of comedy, like Moliere. He resembles Rabelais and Swift more
than any other modern writers, having their indignant wit, indecent
jokes, and pungent sarcasms. Like Juvenal, Lucian paints the vices and
follies of his time, and exposes the hypocrisy that reigns in the high
places of fashion and power. His dialogues have been imitated by
Fontanelle and Lord Lyttleton, but these authors do not possess his
humor or pungency. Lucian does not grapple with great truths, but
contents himself with ridiculing those who have proclaimed them, and in
his cold cynicism depreciates human knowledge and all the great moral
teachers of mankind. He is even shallow and flippant upon Socrates; but
he was well read in human nature, and superficially acquainted with all
the learning of antiquity. In wit and sarcasm he may be compared with
Voltaire, and his object was the same,--to demolish and pull down
without substituting anything instead. His scepticism was universal, and
extended to religion, to philosophy, and to everything venerated and
ancient. His purity of style was admired by Erasmus, and his works have
been translated into most European languages. In strong contrast to the
"Dialogues" of Lucian is the "City of God" by Saint Augustine, in which
he demolishes with keener ridicule all the gods of antiquity, but
substitutes instead the knowledge of the true God.

Thus the Romans, as well as Greeks, produced works in all departmen