Chapter LIII: Section XLII

[a] The urbanity with which the Dialogue is conducted, and the perfect harmony with which the speakers take leave of each other, cannot but leave a pleasing impression on the mind of every reader of taste. It has some resemblance to the conclusion of Cicero's Dialogue DE NATURA DEORUM. In both tracts, we have a specimen of the politeness with which the ancients managed a conversation on the most interesting subjects, and by the graces of style brought the way of instructing by dialogue into fashion. A modern writer, whose poetical genius cannot be too much admired, chooses to call it a _frippery way of writing_. He advises his countrymen to abandon it altogether; and this for a notable reason: because the Rev. Dr. Hurd (now Bishop of Worcester) has shewn the true use of it. That the dialogues of that amiable writer have an intrinsic value, cannot be denied: they contain a fund of reflection; they allure by the elegance of the style, and they bring us into company with men whom we wish to hear, to know, and to admire. While we have such conversation-pieces, not to mention others of the same stamp, both ancient and modern, the public taste, it may be presumed, will not easily be tutored to reject a mode of composition, in which the pleasing and useful are so happily blended. The present Dialogue, it is true, cannot be proved, beyond a controversy, to be the work of Tacitus; but it is also true, that it cannot, with equal probability, be ascribed to any other writer. It has been retained in almost every edition of Tacitus; and, for that reason, claims a place in a translation which professes to give all the works of so fine a writer.