Page:LuciansTrueHistory (Hickes).djvu/30

xxiv and the cruelty of his satire. Like Lucian, he professed an unveiled contempt for philosophers and mathematicians; unlike Lucian, he made his imaginary journey the occasion for a fierce satire upon kings and politicians. But so masterly is the narrative, so convincing the reality of Lilliput and Brobdignag, that Gulliver retains its hold upon our imagination, though the meaning of its satire is long since blunted. Swift's work came to astonish the world in 1727, and some fourteen years later in the century Holberg astonished the wits of Denmark with a satire cast in Lucian's mould. Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum thus ran the title, and from Latin the book was translated into every known tongue. The city of walking trees, the home of the Potuans, and many another invention, prove Holberg's debt to the author of The True History. And if the genre is dead to-day, it is dead because the most intrepid humourist would hesitate