Oh! might I never more behold a woman!

Rather than I should meet that object, Gods!
Strike out my eyes-I'll thank you for your mercy.'

We are indebted to Athenæus for part of a dialogue, in which Antiphanes has introduced a traveller to relate a whimsical contrivance, which the king of Cyprus had made use of for cooling the air of his banqueting-chamber, whilst he sate at supper.

'A. You say you've pass'd much of your time in Cyprus.
B. All; for the war prevented my departure.
A. In what place chiefly, may I ask?

B. In Paphos;

Where I saw elegance in such perfection,
As almost mocks belief.

A. Of what kind, pray you?

B. Take this for one-The monarch, when he sups, Is fann'd by living doves.

A. You make me curious

How this is to be done; all other questions

I will put by to be resolv'd in this.

B. There is a juice drawn from the Carpin tree,
To which your dove instinctively is wedded
With a most loving appetite; with this

The king annoints his temples, and the odour
No sooner captivates the silly birds,

Than straight they flutter round him, nay, would fl
A bolder pitch, so strong a love-charm draws them,
And perch, O horror! on his sacred crown,
If that such prophanation were permitted
Of the by-standers, who, with reverend care
Fright them away, till thus, retreating now
And now advancing, they keep such a coil
With their broad vans, and beat the lazy air
Into so quick a stir, that in the conflict
His royal lungs are comfortably cool'd,
And thus he sups as Paphian monarchs should.'

An old man in the comedy, as it should
Γηρατάδης, reasons thus—

I grant you that an old fellow like myself, if he be a wise fellow withal, one that has seen much and learnt a great deal, may be good for something and keep a shop open for all customers, who want advice in points of difficulty. Age is as it were an altar of refuge for human distresses to fly to. Oh! longevity, coveted by all who are advancing towards thee, cursed by all who have attained thee; railed at by the wise, betrayed by them who consult thee, and well spoken of by no one-And yet what is it we old fellows can be charged with? We are no spendthrifts, do not consume our means in gluttony, run mad for a wench, or break locks to get at her; and why then may not old age, seeing such discretion belongs to it, be allowed its pretensions to happiness?'

A servant thus rallies his master upon a species of hypocrisy natural to old age.

'Ah good my master, you may sigh for death,
And call amain upon him to release you,
But will you bid him welcome when he comes?
Not you. Old Charon, has a stubborn task
To tug you to his wherry and dislodge you
From your rich tables, when your hour is come:
I muse the Gods send not a plague amongst you,
A good, brisk, sweeping, epidemic plague:

There's nothing else can make you all immortal.'

Surely there is good comedy in this raillery of the servant-The following short passages have a very neat turn of expression in the original.

'An honest man to law makes no resort; His conscience is the better rule of court.'

The man, who first laid down the pedant rule,

That love is folly, was himself the fool:
For if to life that transport you deny,
What privilege is left us-but to die?

A handsome wadding readily supplies

What nature stints, and all beholders cry,

See what plump haunches!-Hath the nymph perchance
A high round paunch, stuft like our comic drolls,
And strutting out foreright? a good stout busk
Pushing athwart shall force the intruder back.
Hath she red brows? a little soot will cure 'em.
Is she too black? the ceruse makes her fair :
Too pale of hue? the opal comes in aid.
Hath she a beauty out of sight? disclose it!
Strip nature bare without a blush-Fine teeth?
Let her affect one everlasting grin,

Laugh without stint—but ah! if laugh she cannot,
And her lips won't obey, take a fine twig
Of myrtle, shape it like a butcher's skewer,
And prop them open, set her on the bitt
Day after day, when out of sight, till use
Grows second nature, and the pearly row,
Will she or will she not, perforce appears.

This passage I have literally rendered, and I suspect it describes the artifices of an impure toilet, with precision enough to shew that these Grecian models are not absolutely antiquated by the intervention of so many centuries. Our modern puffers in perfumery may have carried artificial complexions and Circassian bloom to a higher state of perfection; I dare say they have more elaborate means of staining carrotty eye-brows than with simple soot, and cannot think of comparing a little harmless opal with their poisonous farrago of pastes, pomatums and pearl powders; but I would have my fair and virtuous country women take notice, that the substitution of stuft hips originated with the Athenian prostitutes, with this advantage on the side of good sense, that the inventors of the fashion never applied false bottoms to those, whom Nature had provided with true ones; they seem to have had a better eye for due proportion than to add to a redundancy,

because in some cases it was convenient to fill up a vacuum.

As I address this friendly hint to the plumper part of the fair sex, I shall rely upon the old proverb for their good humour, and hope they will kindly interpret it as a proof that my eye is sometimes directed to objects, which theirs cannot superintend; and as they generally agree to keep certain particulars out of sight, a real friend to decency will wish they would consent to keep them a little more out of mind also.

NUMBER CXLIII.

We are indebted to Vitruvius for a quotation in the beginning of his sixth book, taken from one of the dramas of Alexis, to the following effect: Whereas all the other states of Greece compel the children of destitute parents, without exception, to provide for the support of those who begot them, we of Athens,' says the poet, make the law binding upon such children only, who are beholden to their parents for the blessing of a liberal education.' The proviso was certainly a wise one, and it is with justice that the poet gives his countrymen credit for being the authors of it.

Alexis in one of his comedies very appositely remarks that the nature of man in some respects resembles that of wine, for as fermentation is necessary to new wine, so is it also to a youthful spirit;

when that process is over, and it comes to settle and subside, we may then and not till then expect to find a permanent tranquillity.' This allusion he again

takes up, probably in the same scene, though under a different character, and cries out-'I am now far advanced in the evening of life's day, and what is there in the nature of man, that I should liken it to that of wine, seeing that old age, which recommends the latter, mars the former? Old wine indeed exhilarates, but old men are miserable to themselves and others.' Antiphanes the comic poet has struck upon the same comparison, but with a different turn. Old age and old wine,' says he, 6 may well be compared; let either of them exceed their date ever so little, and the whole turns sour.'

Julius Pollux says, that Alexis named one of his comedies Γυναικοστρατία, and there are some passages which we may presume are reliques of this piece, of a very bitter cast, for he makes one of his female characters roundly assert:

'No animal in nature can compare
In impudence with woman; I myself

Am one, and from my own experience speak.'

I flatter myself an English audience would not hear such calumny; the modern stage encourages more respectful sentiments

Oh! woman, lovely woman! nature made thee

To temper man: we had been brutes without thee.

Our poet must have been in an ill humour with the sex, when he wrote this comedy, or else the Athenian wives must have been mere Xantippes to deserve what follows

'Nor house, nor coffers, nor whatever else
Is dear and precious, should be watch'd so closely,