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will be discovered; for as Lord Bacon has well said, ' As navigation was imperfect before the use of the compass, so will many secrets of nature and art remain undiscovered, without a more perfect knowledge of the understanding, its uses and ways of working." 'Lapse of centuries!' said Mrs. Smith. I had thought the world would come to an end after the next thousand years.'

' And why?'

'Because the seventh of the series of thousands of years would have then been completed. Is not this the universal belief?' 'It may be, but if so, it is an universal error.'

When will the world come to an end?

'I am not a diviner, astrologer, alchemist, or even a conjuror, and therefore can't say; but if I were to take the liberty of the country, I could guess.'

Well, as you guess!'

'When the last lump of coal shall have been consumed, and the last nail is driven, it will be in good time to burn it up.'

'Look!' exclaimed Mrs. Smith, whose attention was now suddenly attracted to the ceiling and to a large silver hoop, on which were ointment-bottles of silver and alabaster,silver garlands with beautifully-chisseled leaves, circlets, and other trifles, which descended upon the table, and were shared as apophoreta among the guests. In the mean time the desert had been served, wherein the baker gave a specimen of his skill. In addition to innumerable articles of pastry, there were artificial muscles, field-fares filled with dried grapes and almonds, and many other things of the same kind. In the middle stood a well-modelled Vertumnus, who held in his apron a great variety of fruits. Around lay sweet quinces stuck full of almonds, and having the appearance of sea-urchins, with melons cut in various shapes. While the party was praising the fancy of the baker, a slave handed round tooth-picks, made of the leaves of the mastich-pistacho; and the host invited the guests to assist themselves to the confectionary and fruits with which the god was loaded. The guests seemed astonished by the gifts of Vertumnus at this season, for it was now December, when one of them stretched across the table and seized the inviting apples and grapes, but drew back in affright, when, as he touched them, a stream of saffron discharged from the fruit, besprinkling his hand. The merriment became general, when several of the guests attempted cautiously to help themselves to the mysterious fruit, and each time a red hot stream shot forth. And now two musicians with flutes entered the saloon, accompanied by a young and surpassingly beautiful danseuse. The circles of couches were extended, and she advanced to the side which was thus opened. A boy took the cithara and struck the strings to the accompaniment of the flutes. The cithara then ceased to be played upon, and the maiden took some hoops, and as she danced to the tune of flutes, whirled them into the air, and caught them one after the other as they fell, with remarkable skill. More and more hoops were handed to her, till a whole dozen were hovering aloft betwixt her hands and the hall-ceiling; and the grace of

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her movements, together with the dexterity she evinced, elicited the applause of the spectators: a large hoop was now brought in, set all around with pointed knives. It was placed upon the ground. The damsel commenced dancing afresh and threw a summer sault right into the centre of the hoop, and then out again, repeating this feat repeatedly. Mrs. Smith became so excited, lest the lovely creature should by accident be injured, that she cried out, covering her eyes with her hands :

'It is too much! I can't endure it longer!'

The Gentleman in Black smiled, and said it was rather a tame sight after all, to the ladies and gentleman of Rome, who were accustomed to witness the dreadful conflicts of the gladiators, struggling for life in the arena of the Coliseum; and that he had seen lovely ladies with their betting-tablets opened before them, gazing with delight as their chances of winning increased, and inflamed with anger when they saw the wounded wretch upon whom their bets were pending, turning his beseeching look toward the audience, while his antagonist waited for the signal to determine whether he should die or live; and then the pretty hands of these fair ladies, with their thumbs turned down, were as numerous as those with their thumbs upturned; and yet the turning of them decided a question of life and death.'

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'I am sure,' said Mrs. Smith, the world is very much better now than it was in those days, though now it be sometimes true, 'that rogues must hang that jury-men may dine.''

Undoubtedly,' said the Gentleman in Black, with earnestness; 'there never existed a society so innocent and pure as that which graces the circles of Babylon the Less, and which I have had the pleasure to meet in your mansion this evening.'

Mrs. Smith sighed, thinking that this was rather over-strained, and the Gentleman in Black, to qualify his language, said, that 'doubtless there were some exceptions, but then there were spots on the sun.'

The mention of the word 'spots' induced Mrs. Smith to cast an anxious look around her rooms, to see if the spots on her splendid sofas were still there, and she was relieved to find they had all disappeared. The amiable Gentleman in Black said 'his especial object in mesmerising the mirror,' and he slightly smiled as he spoke, was to show her the methods of illumination adopted by the Romans' and breathing once more upon the face of the glass, the mirror now presented the sight of another saloon in which the lamps were being lighted, and which hung from the marble panels of the room. Upon the polished table, between the tapestried couches, stood an elegant candelabrum, in the form of a stem of a tree, from the winterly and almost leafless branches of which four two-flamed lamps, emulating each other in beauty of shape, were suspended. Other lamps were hung by chains from the ceiling, which was richly gilt and inlaid with ivory, in order to expel the darkness of night from all parts of the saloon. A number of costly goblets and larger vessels were arranged on two side-boards, and on one of them a slave was

just placing another vessel filled with snow, together with its colum, and on the other was the steaming caldarium, containing water kept constantly boiling by the coals in its inner cylender, in case any of the guests should prefer the calda, the drink of winter, to the snow-drink.

By degrees the same guests came in and took their places in the same order as before on the triclinium. On a signal from the host, a slave placed upon the table the dice-board, of terebinthus wood, the four dice, made from the knuckles of gazelles, and the ivory turret-shaped dice box. Slaves at the same time brought chaplets of dark green ivy and of blooming roses, which were selected and worn by the guests.

And did these Romans so soon commence gaming?' asked Mrs. Smith.

'No, Madam,' replied the Gentleman in Black; 'they are now about to throw the dice to decide who shall be the king for the night, whose duty it is to decide how much water shall be mixed with the wine about to be drank; for though those were not the days of temperance societies, yet there was then no such mixtures and distillations as are now used; and though Anacreon sang of wine and its inspirations, it was not unmixed with water.'

Mrs. Smith's attention was fixed on the lamps, and the degree of light obtained from them. There seemed no lack of skill and invention in giving grace to their forms, yet they were nothing more than vessels containing oil, out of the end of which came a wick which was lighted; the consequence was that the beautiful ceiling soon became obscured and blackened, and the guests showed evidently that their breathing was oppressed with smoke. She admired the beauty of the candelabras, but these gave no light, and in no way relieved the anxiety she felt on the subject of 'lamps which never would burn dim.' She observed the slaves whose duty it was to pick up the wicks and trim the lamps, and which, with this constant watching, were but poor contrivances, even when compared to the most common lamp she had in use on that evening. She asked the Gentleman in Black if this was the best method of illumination then known?' He replied, 'that tallow and wax were both used, but that the methods of making them were so imperfect that they never obtained in the palaces of the great; indeed they were but rushes smeared over with wax or tallow.'

The guests were in the midst of their cups, when the Gentleman in Black advanced and gave a long expiration, which suffused the face of the mirror with vapor for a moment or more, and turning around to Mrs. Smith, said: If I were not fearful of wearying you, I would show you other scenes, and of a later age.'

'I beg you will,' said the lady.

AN HERIDITARY NAME.

THE best of blood by learning is refined,

And virtue arms the solid inind;
While vice will stain the noblest race,
And the paternal stamp efface.

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VOL. XXVII.

111.

Drear sorrow-drops in showers
The white-haired mourner shed
For vanished sunshine, birds and flowers,
And verdure brown and dead,
Till death brought sweet release,
And to his heart spake peace.

IV.

To the princely heir all hail!
Who hath chequered reign began;
What booteth it to wail

For his sire, the poor old man!

A cup of good and ill

He quaffed, and now is still.

By unseen spirits is each hoary year,

When ended its brief race, in this wise mourned:

They are the solemn monitors, who call

On dying man to note the rapid ebb
Of Time's disastrous current, as it speeds
To lose its troubled waters in a sea
That hath no tide in its unsounded depths;
Wafting along the purple sail of Pride,
Love's shallop, and Ambition's gallant bark.
Another year hath vanished, and the hopes
He scattered in our path, with liberal hand,
And idols made of perishable clay,

But dear to us as life, have with him gone!
The locks of Age have caught a paler hue,
The voice of Childhood deepened in its tone,

And Beauty's worshipped features grown less bright.
Between his birth-day and his dying hour
Its marble door the sepulchre hath closed
On thousands to its custody consigned,
With unavailing groans and sighs and tears.
Empires have felt the scourge for fearful crimes:
Sword, ghastly famine, and the spotted plague
Have thickly peopled Death's unlighted realm:
Great ships have foundered in the cruel gale,
And with their screaming passengers and crews
Down in the deep, full many fathoms, sank:
Vain Pomp hath dropped the sceptre, and the slave,
Raising on high his chained and bleeding hands,
Hath shouted to the nations, Liberty!'

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Right hath achieved new triumphs over Wrong:
In Tara's hali a clash of shields is heard,

While war-like murmurs from each hallowed spot
Where moulder Erin's martyred children, rise!

Another year hath vanished like a ghost,
And in his palace-hall of glittering ice
A young successor proudly sits enthroned:
The latter, too, though ruddy now his cheek,
Will cling to life awhile, then pass away;
But ere a grave is hollowed for his corse,
What mighty changes may sweep over earth!
Fair isles may slip their moorings in the brine,
Stars, like the Pleiad lost, be quenched for ever;
Dark waves may roll where Art now rears the tower;
Blue lakes and rushing streams may shift their beds;
Red-crested War, with demons at his back,

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