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mation on some minutiae of domestic economy, gives us, through the medium of parody, a little insight into the scolia, or drinking songs of the ancients. The spendthrift schines, Cleon, the mighty demagogue, just fresh from his Pylian exploit, and his base flatterers, are attacked in a manner not unamusing.

Son.

Father.

Son.

Father.

Son.

Enough, enough-now sit you down, and learn
To feed, and take your dinner like a gentleman.
Pleasant enough! and how wouldst have me sit?
With decency, and like a man of fashion--
As thus? (putting himself into a ridiculous attitude.)
Nay spare my eyes.

Father. Or thus?

Son.

In mercy

Observe Your legs should be extended, thus;
Your limbs easy and free, like one well-practised
In his gymnastics.-
-Mark me, I beseech you.

Then you commend the plate, or cast an eye
Upon the fretted roof; perchance, the curtains
May claim a passing look of admiration.*

(Affecting to call to his slaves,) Hoa, there, within! bring water+ for

our hands!

Fetch in the tables: quick! set on the dishes:

'Tis done! the banquet's ended, hands are wash'd:

Libations made,

Father. Aye, in a dream, I grant ye--

Son.

A strain from the attending lyrist follows.

From a similar principle of politeness, when Thales, in the Banquet just analysed, arrives at the house of Periander, he makes it a point to take a view of his host's racecourse, his palæstra, &c. not, says the narrator, that he took any pleasure in things of this kind, αλλ' όπως μη καταφρονειν δοκοιη το Περιάνδρα, μηδε ύπεροραν της φιλοτιμίας. Strictly speaking, however, all this fell within the province of the flatterer and parasite; as we learn from an independent fellow of the profession, evidently more intent upon the perquisites of his office, than the duties which were to acquire them.

Makes some rich squire

A banquet, and am I among the guests?

I cast no idle eye of observation

On mouldings or on fretted roof; I deign not

With laudatory breath to ask, if hands

From Corinth form'd and fashion'd the wine-coolers :

These trouble not my cap. I watch and note

(And with most deep intensity of vision)

What smoke the cook sends up: mounts it me full,

And with alacrity and perpendicular?

All joy and transport I: I crow and clap
My wings for very extasy of heart!

Does it come sidelong, making wayward angles,
Embodied into no consistency?—

I know the mournful signal well, and straight
Prepare me for a bloodless feast of herbs.

Guests washed before and after meals, and even between the courses. The custom

of bringing in the tables and removing them after meals prevails in Greece even to this

day.

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Then for your fellow-drinkers, there are met
Theorus, Eschines, Cleon, and Phanus,
And a rough fellow at Acestor's side,
Of the same fashion as himself—you join
The circle-well-catches go round-let's see
How you'll bear out your part-

Father.

Nay, for a song,

Not one of all our mountaineers excels me.

Son. To the proof-suppose me Cleon-good: what next?
I chant a stanza from Harmodius-good-

You take me up—now I begin.

(preludes, then sings.)

Burgh and city, hill and dale,

Search them all—and mark my tale ;—

You'll not find in Attic land—

Father. (preludes, then sings.)

'Mong the little or the great

For this knave a duplicate,

Take him either tongue or hand.

Son. "Twill cost your life to utter such a speech:
He'll bellow endless exile, ruin, death,

Within your ears.

Father.

Then I've another strain.

"Stop and pause, madd'ning wretch, hold thy phrenzied career!
'Tis for Athens I plead, 'tis for her I show fear:

Impending destruction hangs over her walls:

The bolt's shot-all is over—she totters, she falls!'

Son. Put case, Theorus then, your next-hand neighbour
Grasp hard at Cleon's hand and chaunt as follows.

'As the story-books tell

In old times it befell,

That Admetus-but read and you'll know, sirs,

For the gallant and brave,

Who think light of a grave,

How the heart-springs more cheerily flow, sirs?

What ready answer have you now to that?

Father. An answer, boy, full, loud and musical-
From sycophants base

Son.

Who are looking for place,

Jove in mercy thy servant defend!

From tricksters that fawn

Upon purple or lawn;

But most from a two-sided friend!
Then you have Æschines,

A man of parts and a right delicate ear;

And he sets off as follows.

Fair Cleitagora and I

And the men of Thessaly,

Once a day had wealth in store:

Father.

Father.

But theirs is gone--and woe is me!
For mine lies buried in the sea.

Live he who helps my purse to more!

Son. Enough you know these matters to a nicety.

The way is at length opened for the consideration of two banquets, which, as they afford means of investigating the character of Socrates, excite an interest, that makes those of the poet and even of the Seven Wise Menlose discountenanced and like nothing show.' Internal evidence points out, that both were written after the exhibition of the Clouds, and, with all due deference to the learned Casaubon, that the Platonic Banquet appeared first in point of time. To it therefore we shall first direct our attention. This highly interesting narrative introduces us to Eryximachus, (a physician,) to Agathon, the great successor of Euripides, to Pausanias a friend of Agathon, to Phædrus, a beautiful pupil of Socrates, to Aristophanes, Alcibiades, and Socrates. In such society we ought to be much more diffuse than our limits will allow.

A most circumlocutory introduction informs us, through a sort of crazy, Socratic Boswell, (and Apollodorus was not the only one of the class,) that for the truth and accuracy of this celebrated narrative, we are finally to settle accounts with a man of the borough of Cydathenë, Aristodemus by name, small in person and a pertinacious adherent to the Socratic mode of going barefooted, (Αρισόδημος τις, Κυδαθηνευς, σμικρος, ανυπόδητος αι.) The entertainment was given by Agathon, a young man of liberal fortune and elegant manners: it commemorated the success of his first tragedy, and it was held on the day subsequent to the feast of victory (ETTIVIxia), which the poet's tribe had celebrated, after the usual manner, in honour of the event. It must not be omitted, that the opening introduces to the reader a pair of characters, which he might little have expected to meet in Athens, two good listeners. The name of one of them (Glaucon) is recorded; that of the other does not transpire.

Apollodorus, by his own confession, had idled away much of his time, a victim to vapours and ennui, till Socrates and philosophy taught him to fill it up better. He appears subsequently to have caught a good portion of his master's garrulity, and Aristodemus's communication enables him to indulge his loquacity to a considerable extent. You wealthy men,' says he to a friend, (and like the Ancient Mariner, he seems to have marked out his victim), 'think me a poor miserable devil; but I know you to be such.' And as riches were apparently, in his opinion, the chosen habitation of vapours and the spleen, and his own experience had taught him that these fiends were only to be

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ousted

ousted by conversation, Apollodorus transfers, without mercy, to his friend all the information which he had previously derived from Aristodemus: if the nicest discrimination of character, the utmost variety of dialogue, and a richness and brilliancy of language, absolutely without example, did not drive the foul fiend' from his companion, we know not what could. The disclosures of these two communicants may be thrown into the following

narrative.

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Towards sunset one day, the inflexible little member of the shoeless faction meets his great master, bathed, and, contrary to his usual practice, with a pair of sandals on his feet. So unusual an occurrence argued that something extraordinary was in the wind, and a few questions elicit that the dinner, given by Agathon, in honour of his theatrical triumph, is the cause of this unusual display; and that a certain symmetry of ideas had also contributed to this piece of foppery. To a handsome man's house,' says Socrates, I make it a point to go in the handsomest manner.' The Cydanethan had received no invitation to this desirable party; but Socrates, in common with the rest of his countrymen, had a happy mode of punning and of quoting Homer; and with these encouragements, the little man consents to put himself under the philosopher's wing, and to take his chance without the formality of an invitation. Just as they reach the house, (talking and arguing, it is presumed, all the way,) the philosopher falls into one of those fits of abstraction usual with him, and Aristodemus suddenly finds himself ushered into the banquettingroom, without any friend to apologize for such an intrusion. The situation was awkward, but the politeness of Agathon dissipates the embarrassment; Aristodemus is presently assigned a place at the table; a foot-bath (probably not unnecessary) is ordered, and a servant dispatched for Socrates. Socrates, however, was in a reverie, in an adjoining vestibule, and more than one summons ineffectually tries to wake him out of it; Agathon pronounces all this to be very much misplaced; and the Greek word, which signified misplaced, implies also very absurd; but Aristodemus, who knew the philosopher better, urges that it was needless to meddle with him on such occasions, and that till the fit had passed over, there was no chance of seeing him. The repast is accordingly ordered up, and it must be mentioned to the honour of Agathon, that he appears to have been the inventor of that social mode of dining, which mixes the master of the feast completely with his guests, and leaves the entertainment to regulate itself without the supremacy of a constituted head. About the middle of the repast, Socrates enters; and after a little pleasantry between the master of the feast and himself on the sub

ject

ject of his abstractions, he takes his place by the side of Agathon; for Agathon was the handsomest man in company, and we learn afterwards, through Alcibiades, that the person most distinguished for personal appearance in a company was sure to have Socrates for his next neighbour.

The supper dispatched, a little discourse ensues about the drinking part of the ceremony. As most of the guests were suffering by the preceding day's debauch, a proposal on the part of Pausanias, that the drinking should be moderate, is hailed with warm approbation by the more abstemious of the company; and even Aristophanes, who allows that he had had a soaking the day before, (και γαρ αυτος ειμι των χθες βεβαπτισμένων) makes no objection to the proposal. Socrates, by universal consent, is excepted from taking any part in the determination-for it was all one to him to drink oceans or to drink nothing. Eryximachus, the physician, aids these laudable dispositions by professional dicta, and it is finally agreed that it shall be Liberty-Hall, as our young collegians used to say, and that every one shall drink as he pleases. A second resolution decrees that the female fluteperformer shall be dismissed to pipe to herself, or, if she likes it better, to the women within,' and that the rest of the meeting shall be devoted to conversation.

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Conversation, at a Greek table, was not the interchange of thoughts, accidentally arising, but the discussion of some single topic, on which each guest delivered his sentiments in succession. It is agreed, that the topic on the present occasion shall be Love. All other gods, it is declared by Phædrus, have their appropriate hymns and pæans; and is Love alone to be without his encomiums? 'The sophists,' continues this beautiful pupil of Socrates, will spin out a volume in praise of so trifling a thing as salt; and shall a deity, like love, not command a tribute of applause?' Instead, therefore, of circulating the wine from right to left, it is determined that a discourse on love shall circulate in the same way; Socrates approving heartily of the proposal. whole knowledge,' said he, is confined to erotics; and I am sure no repugnance will arise on the side of Agathon or Pausanias, or of Aristophanes, whose whole life is dedicated to the service of the god of wine and the goddess of love.'

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Love is accordingly treated mythically, politically, historically, physically, metaphysically, enigmatically, scientifically, poetically, sophistically. The age and the honourableness of love are brought under review, and its power in working the happiness of men, both dead and living. It is considered as a simple passion, as a compound passion, as a universal feeling pervading medicine, gymnastic exercise, agriculture, music, rhythm, the seasons, the

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prophetic

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