ADVERTISEMENT. Dialogue, that great and powerful art, Of all the wonders which this art contains.-Buckingham. THE following Dialogues were first suggested by the opinions of Dr. Samuel Johnson, as set forth in "The Adventurer: "There are many modes of composition," says he, "by which a moralist may deserve the name of an original writer:-he may familiarize his system by dialogues, after the manner of the ancients, or subtilize it into a series of syllogistic arguments; he may enforce his doctrine by seriousness and solemnity, or enliven it by sprightliness and gaiety; he may deliver his sentiments in naked precepts, or illustrate them by historical examples; he may detain the studious by the artful concatenation of a continued discourse, or relieve the busy by short strictures and unconnected essays. "To excel in any of these forms of writing will require a particular cultivation of the genius; whoever can attain to excellence will be certain to engage a set of readers whom no other method would have equally allured; and he that communicates truth with success must be numbered among the first benefactors of mankind." This is undoubtedly true: and Johnson might have said of the dialogue writer, not only that he may enforce his sentiments "by seriousness and solemnity, or by sprightliness and gaiety," but that both these methods may be employed by him in one and the same production; and that, in so doing, he will be the more likely to compass what he had intended, that is, at once to instruct and to please; and thus, instead of particular and partial commendation, obtain the suffrage, the approbation, of all. It must not be imagined, from the title given to this work, that the writer is vain enough to think of placing himself on a level with LUCIAN. No, he is only ambitious to be considered a pupil, who has not studied in vain, in the school of so great and distinguished a master. LUCIANUS REDIVIVUS. DIALOGUE I. SCENE-THE ELYSIAN FIELDS. FREDERIC II. KING OF PRUSSIA, and MACHIAVEL (meeting). Mac. HA! is it Frederic the Great, of Prussia, whom I thus fortunately meet? Fred. The same: the man, who, ambitious as he acknowledges himself to have been, and justly pleased with the illustrious title "the Great," and which indeed particularly characterizes the hero, is yet infinitely prouder of the more honourable distinction of "the Good." Mac. A pattern for princes, both as a statesman and a warrior; but it is in your legislative talents, in the rules and ordinances so wisely established for the happiness of your people, that you are particularly entitled to praise. It is there that you may be said to rise "above all Greek, above all Roman, fame." Fred. This is a language I should not have expected from Machiavel. How greatly the sentiments change with a change of condition or of place! Mac. This remark applies not to me; my sentiments were the same, when I had the unhappiness to herd among men. Fred. You were then a great deceiver, if I am to |