At the same time, he takes delight in presenting problematical characters, and he finds pleasure, for example, in emphasizing the lovable qualities of a Musarion, a Lais, and a Phryne without regard to womanly chastity, and in exalting their practical wisdom above the scholastic wisdom of the philosophers.

But among these he also finds a man whom he can develop and set forth as the representative of his own convictions—­I mean Aristippus.  Here philosophy and worldly pleasure are through wise moderation so united in serene and welcome fashion that the wish arises to be a contemporary in so fair a land, and in such goodly company.  Union with these educated, right-thinking, cultivated, joyous men is so welcome, and it even seems that so long as one may walk with them in thought, one’s mind will be as theirs, and one will think as they.

In these circles our friend maintained himself by careful experiments, which are still more necessary to the translator than to the poet; and thus arose the German Lucian, which necessarily presented the Greek to us the more vividly since the author and the translator could be regarded as true kindred spirits.

But however much a man of such talents preaches decency, he will, nevertheless, sometimes feel himself tempted to transgress the boundaries of propriety and decorum, since from time immemorial genius has reckoned such escapades among its prerogatives.  Wieland indulged this impulse when he sought to assimilate himself to the daring, extraordinary Aristophanes, and when he was able to translate his jests, as audacious as they were witty, though he toned them down with his own innate grace.

For all these presentations an insight into the higher plastic art was also obviously necessary, and since our friend was never vouchsafed the sight of those ancient masterpieces which still survive, he sought to rise to them in thought, to bring them before his eyes by the power of imagination; so that we cannot fail to be amazed to see how talent is able to form for itself a conception even of what is far away.  Moreover, he would have been entirely successful if his laudable caution had not restrained him from taking decisive steps; for art in general, and especially the art of the ancients, can neither be grasped nor comprehended without enthusiasm.  He who will not commence with amazement and with admiration finds no entrance into the holy of holies.  Our friend, however, was far too cautious, and how could he have been expected to make in this single instance an exception from his general rule of life?

If, however, he was near akin to the Greeks in taste, in sentiment he was still more closely allied to the Romans—­not that he would have allowed himself to be carried away by republican or by patriotic zeal, but he really finds his peers among the Romans, whereas he has, in a sense, only fictitiously assimilated himself to the Greeks.  Horace has much similarity to him; himself an artist, and himself a man of the court and of the world, he intelligently estimates life and art; Cicero, philosopher, orator, statesman, and active citizen, also closely resembles him—­and both arose from inconsiderable beginnings to great dignities and honors.