supporter and thy sovereign lingering thus long before thy threshold, and listening to the cries, and the curses, and the distant murmurs of a mob. May I never fling Venus again, may I never lip Mela's Falernian, may the black plague poison my pickles, may the green jacket fail in the eircus, if ever I danced the client so long;-no, not before the emperor's gate; -no, not under Triphenion's window, though she be witty, and wicked, and gay, and golden-haired, the fairest and the fondest of the daughters of Corinth! Epona! belike thou hast forgotten me; there is nothing to be remembered in my forehead and my features! look at me, villain, slave, who am I? Syr. My most admirable and excellent master, I lick thy foot. Thou art the supreme of sin and song, the chief choice of charioteers, the love of all thy slaves, the envy of all the senate, priest of pledgings and king of cups, the Mars of midnight, the Cupid of costume, the Jupiter of all joviality! Dam. Excellent well! I had not deemed thy recollection so good; marry, thou mayest perhaps recollect the far-back landing, and the lorn look, and the chalked sole, and the bored ear; and thou mayest perhaps have some slight vision of thrushes fried to dust, and boars burned to powder, and the inflicted scourge, and the threatened crucifixion. I thought that withered skin of thine had undergone metempsychosis, or that thou hadst found the two springs of Lethe in Vindicta and Vertigo. Syr. Prince of men, it is not so lightly that I forget my native dust, or the hand that raised me from it. All I have is thine own; take of it to eat or to drink, or to wear or to waste; set thy slipper on my head, and crush my brains beneath thee; give me thy dagger, and let me pledge a health to thee in my best heart's blood. Dam. Honest Syrinx, I forgive thee! let there be new peace and old wine between us. Ha! little Cyane, where hast thou hidden thy mirth and mitra? Come hither, little Cyane !-What! I warrant me thou wert afraid of me, because my frown was somewhat grim, and my posture somewhat gladiatorial. But mine anger is vanished; I am as cold as the snows of Hæmus, or the pleadings of Pedo. Sit by me, Cyane, we will have music anon. Cya. Now, by Venus, I had not dreamed we should see you again, Damasippus! Have you been grieving with the jaundice or grappling with the Gauls? Have you hunted Parnassus and the columns, or cultivated philosophy and a beard? Ah! now I bethink me; there were two tormentors who kept your sweet looks from us; soldier and sophist they were, uncle and father. Tisiphone, whip them for it! And what hast thou done with them, dear Damasippus; him of the civic 1 crown, with his sword and buckler, his sour look and sagum; who prated to you of cohorts and conquests, warfare and wounds, Syria and Armenia, Ister and Rhine? and him of the stoic school, with his good morals and grave face, his short breath and long speeches, who only lived for profitless dispute, and endless enthymeme, and meaningless maxim, and senseless syllogism. Mercury! but they were a valuable pair to all the lovers of laughter. Dam. They were, Cyane, they were; but they were loathsome poisoners of enjoyment, and detestable marrers of mettle. Here is to the quiet of their encampment. Mine uncle, the gods be thanked for that, is with the Prætor in Spain; and my father, the gods be thanked for that too, is with his ancestors in the Flaminian; and I am here, sweet Cyane, the gods be thanked for that, above all, sufficiently merry, and reasonably drunk. I thought I should have died before supper. A hundred plagues have haunted me since day-break. My head was out of order, and my physician out of town; and my mistress broke an appointment, and my curricle broke down; and the theatres were empty, and the courts were full; and merry Marcus was swearing in the sullens, and solemn Saleius was reciting in the baths. Phæbus blight him for it! A decree of the senate would never stop that eternal babbler; it would be easier to silence the Danube. Does he think that man, whose life is fourscore years, has nothing to study and care for here but warrior and Amazon, epic and ode, maidens shrieking in Sapphics, and heroes howling in Hexameters ? Cya. Nay now, sweetest soul of mine, you are very rude to the poets. May I never see a solidus again, if I do not love a poet as I love my own soul! They are all so humble, and so obedient, and so starving. Poor Saleius never fingers a denarius, but it comes straight to us at the Jew's gate. And then he is so happy and so agreeable, and so fond of his liquor and his laurels; and after his second cup," Cyane," says he, "did you never hear my Orestes? Never, I'll be sworn! woe for thy education, Cyane; thou wert born among savage barbarians, and suckled by tigresses, and cradled in rocks and stones. But it shall be amended. 'Learning,' as Ovid sung before me, Learning and love are good lustrations, And then he throws himself into an attitude thus,-takes off his cup with a tragic smack of the lips, and "Cyane," quoth he, "thou shalt hear sounds which Hercules might have earned by the repetition of his old labours, which Cleopatra might have bought with the brightest jewel in her crown. Their melody might make a client pause when he throws his first glance on the sportula, or a lawyer when the last drop of his clepsydra is putting him into a passion and a gallop. They might wake a stoic from his mutterings, or a spendthrift from his debauch, or a lover from his dream, or a christian from his cloud-worship. Listen; I am to recite them at Carus's to-morrow, and would fain have thy judgment, Cyane, on my voice and manner. By Phoebus, there is some fascination in both, and I could tell thee of some bright-haired ladies who have thought so. Ha!," upon which I compose my features into a greedy gaze of admiration, and bid Syrinx hold the bottle, and Marsyas hold his tongue; and so my man of loud verses and cheap drink prologuises. Dam. Let me bathe my lips in the Chian but once more, and so begin, Cyane; thou art an incomparable mimic; Bathyllus is but dirt by thy side. Cya. What will you have then, sweet Damasippus? Ædipus, the expounder of riddles, or Ajax, the slaughterer of sheep? Medea, with her brats and dragons, or Orestes, with his rags and snakes? for he has stored me with specimens of all. Dam. The last, I pray thee, the last; let me hear what Orestes says to his tormentors, that I may know how to answer mine. Marry, the fiends in the fish-market are becoming so tumultuous now, that a nobleman knows not wherewithal to reply, unless he ransacks the poets for complimentary language. Cya. Thus then." It is necessary that thou should'st understand, Cyane, how that Orestes is the murderer of his mother; a wicked thing, by Themis, a wicked thing; but justifiable in particular cases: Æmilius argued it so the other day, and saved his client: Publius it was, who had succeeded somewhat too suddenly to an inheritance. Alas! Avarice, never walks abroad, but she carries aconite fastened to her girdle. But I said Orestes has murdered his mother, and that he rushes upon the stage with long hair, and short breath, and torn garments, and wandering eyes; and fifty furies are in readiness without, with snaky ringlets and blazing torches, which thou knowest, little Cyane, are the adornments which the furies most conceit. When Serranus played his Megæra, the torches went out; but those things shall be better cared for when I- — but I lose time; listen! Orestes begins thus, faltering a little from fear, as is natural: "Dark goddesses, swift-footed, serpent-haired, Red-eyed, black-lipped, hell's offspring, earth's annoy, Lord of the beaming bow and echoing string, Fair-browed, far-darting, Prince of Poetry, Art thou a juggler? are thine oracles Mere webs for witching flies? Behold! they come! Pæan, Lycean, God of music, god of day, Delian, Patarean, Help, help; and let me see an End of these calamities as soon as I may.'' Dam. Ha ha! may Esculapius put life into my father's ashes, if I do not love thee entirely. The poet is under infinite obligations to thee; if thou wouldst only study this trade, the dirty Quirites would run from their bread; by Pollux! I think they would run from their games, to hear thee. And now the answer, pretty Saleius, the response of the Avengers ! 66 Cya. Let me unfasten my mitra, and perform it in costume. There! Now, Cyane," he says, "thou must suppose, what doubtless thou hast already suspected, that the Goddesses rush in with their shrivelled arms and terrible eyebrows, dancing, in groups of three or four, a dance dreadful to look upon,such a dance as Pomponia's slave performs when he is whipped, or Paulus's mistress when she is intoxicated ;thus, Cyane; a rapid agitation of the right foot, then a corresponding movement of the left, with vibrations of the arms and contortions of the neck in unison. Presently the chief of them chants these terrible verses in a low and dismal Ye raven-headed Goddesses, Who, in your cloudy boddices, Hover with me around this ball of earth, Dark drops from your own Styx With every rivulet of living mirth, Fit followers of mortality, Fine teachers of morality, Eternal servants of the Olympian thunder,- By whose unyielding wrists Strong frames are racked, fine heart-strings rent asunder,- Rain, rain your boils and blisters, Heart-thrilling ache, swift stripe, and searing cinder, And let him waste and wither, Roaring like twenty bulls, and rotting into tinder!"" Dam. Ho! ho! ho! stop, dear girl, or thou wilt murder me indeed; thou art very Saleius from head to foot; investigate the flagon and proceed: I would bring thee to the emperor's hearing, Cyane, had I not some scruples of jealousy in my composition. But thou must be chary of thy parlous wit, for those singing birds are marvellously inflammable; I have known them in their wrath more rude than a Briton, and more robust than a rhinoceros. Codrus broke my skull in the first week of my consulship, because I asked him how often he had dined upon his Theseid; and Serranus has written five and twenty lampoons upon me, because I told him that Podalirius recommends cold water for a December cup. And I need not tell thee that these male sempstresses of absurdities have at their beck and bidding sword and dagger, plague and pestilence, balista and bowl,-ay, by my head, and lightningflash and thunder-bolt to boot, and the whole armoury of the skies. But go on, sweetest of all the Furies; maledictions from such lips as thine are worth blessings from any others. Cya. I have done!-Never was Sibyl more weary after an hour's raving. But Damasippus hath noticed none other of his friends. Geta is here, and Parmeno, and little Amphitryon, and tall Antigonus. Come, do throw away a word upon them; it is long since they have looked upon their master. Dam. Geta, worthy Geta, sovereign reducer of ringlets and princely mower of beards, how fares the world with thee? Well, as I can divine by thy red nose and round external. What! do the gallants still linger to babble truth and falsehood in the shade of thy dominion? Come, let us know what scandal is toward. Get. I prate scandal! Now Mercury forbid! It is true that idle persons do consort to me often; and, as my worshipful master knows, much talk will arise of princes and patricians, and matters with which the like of Geta are little concerned. But do I ever report a syllable? Now Mercury forbid ! 'Twas but yesterday that young Nasica was telling of the quarrel between Aurelius and his wife; did you hear? She must go on the arena forsooth; nothing would serve her but helm and sword, glory and fencing: "Why not," quoth the lady ; " was not Julia in training with Capella, and had not Lucia foiled her master after three weeks' learning?" Marry, Aurelius was but little moved by authority or precept. He stilled her arguments by oaths, and sold her paraphernalia by auction; carried her into the country on a lean mule, and confined her in what he calls his Tusculan, where he collects together gems he cannot name, and books he cannot read, busts with broken noses and bailiffs who talk philosophy. Dam. Bravo! and has the lady laid her propensities on the shelf? Get. No; she has put her baggage on board; she has gone off to sea with that long-armed destroyer of tigers, Cleobulus. The amphitheatre never saw a firmer hand or a quicker eye. But do I ever mention the story? Now Mercury forbid! Then there was merry Tiberius,-ah ha! a clever young fellow, and |