Re: His Dark Materials (was Re: "Da Vinci" Debunking

> "All infidel writers drop into oblivion,  [snip]
>                               - Samuel Johnson

Ah yes, but this is the same literary prognosticator who famously
declared, "Nothing odd will do long. 'Tristram Shandy' did not last."

Also, whose writings (not conversations, I hasten to qualify) are
more widely read today: those of Johnson or those of his infidel
friend Gibbon (or, for that matter, his infidel bete noire Hume)?

Also, who does not on occasion gratefully turn from Milton to
Rochester?

And hasn't Lucian lasted?  (True, he's not as popular these days
as he was in Johnson's...)

David Lupher
Classics Dept.
Univ. of Puget Sound
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