1
Lucian to Cronius. Greeting.
1
Poor dear Peregrine—or Proteus, as he loved to call himself,—has quite come up to his namesake in Homer. We have seen him under many shapes: countless have been his transformations for glory’s sake; and now—'tis his last appearance—we see him in the shape of fire. So vast was his ambition. Yes, Cronius; all that is left of the best of men is a handful of ashes, It’s just like Empedocles; only with a difference. That philosopher would fain have sneaked into his crater unobserved: not so our high-souled friend, He bides his time till all Greece is mustered in full force—constructs a pyre of the largest dimensions—and jumps on top in the eyes of all the world, having briefly addressed the nation a few days before on the subject of his daring enterprise!
2
I fancy I see you chuckling away at the old dotard; or rather I hear you blurting out the inevitable comments— 'Mere imbecility’ — ‘Mere clap-trap’— ‘Mere...’ everything else that we are accustomed to attribute to these gentry. But then you are far enough off to be comparatively safe: now I made my remarks before a vast audience, in the very moment of cremation (and before it for that matter), exciting thereby the indignation of all the old fool’s admirers, though there were a few who joined in the laugh against him. I can tell you, I was within an ace of being torn limb from limb by the Cynics, like Actaeon among the dogs, or his cousin Pentheus among the Maenads.—
3
But I must sketch you the whole drama in detail. As to our author, I say nothing: you know the man, you know the sublime utterances that marked his earthly course, outvoicing Sophocles and Aeschylus.
