He then ceased to be a professional talker, and became a writer,
bold and witty, against everything that seemed to him to want
foundation for the honour that it claimed. He attacked the gods of
Greece, and the whole system of mythology, when, in its second
century, the Christian Church was ready to replace the forms of
heathen worship. He laughed at the philosophers, confounding
together in one censure deep conviction with shallow convention.
His vigorous winnowing sent chaff to the winds, but not without some
scattering of wheat. Delight in the power of satire leads always to
some excess in its use. But if the power be used honestly--and even
if it be used recklessly--no truth can be destroyed. Only the
reckless use of it breeds in minds of the feebler sort mere pleasure
in ridicule, that weakens them as helpers in the real work of the
world, and in that way tends to retard the forward movement. But on
the whole, ridicule adds more vigour to the strong than it takes
from the weak, and has its use even when levelled against what is
good and true. In its own way it is a test of truth, and may be
fearlessly applied to it as jewellers use nitric acid to try gold.
If it be uttered for gold and is not gold, let it perish; but if it
be true, it will stand trial.

The best translation of the works of Lucian into English was that by
Dr. Thomas Francklin, sometime Greek Professor in the University of
Cambridge, which was published in two large quarto volumes in the
year 1780, and reprinted in four volumes in 1781. Lucian had been
translated before in successive volumes by Ferrand Spence and
others, an edition, completed in 1711, for which Dryden had written
the author's Life. Dr. Francklin, who produced also the best
eighteenth century translation of Sophocles, joined to his
translation of Lucian a little apparatus of introductions and notes