Chapter XXXI: Front Matter (31)

"I looked up at Miss ----; she was gazing fixedly at me. I noticed a tear in her eye, as she turned away and rested her cheek on her dear little hand. I began to think matters were becoming too serious.

"'Sweet ----,' I began, in an altered and earnest tone.--She raised her head suddenly and I trembled at her glance.

"'_Sweet_ ----,' she repeated, with scornful emphasis--'George, I owe you my life, and for that I shall always feel gratitude. I have loved you for yourself--for I thought you generous, sensible and sincere. Your present conduct shews how much I have been deceived in you, and the love I have been proud to feel is lost in contempt.' She rose from her seat as she spoke.--Heaven and Earth! The figure seen in my almost forgotten vision stood before me. I was motionless with horror--a dagger of ice seemed slowly to pierce my breast--I covered my eyes with my hand and groaned:--Too fearfully were the words of doom fulfilled.

"I rose slowly from my chair, bowed low to ---- and leaving the house, hurried to my room and threw myself on my bed. There I writhed in convulsive agony, and in the frenzy of unutterable despair cursed the hour in which I was born. The criminal who, in the confident hope of pardon, and indulging in dreams of long life and happiness, is suddenly dragged forth to the gallows, feels not a tythe of the utter desolation I then felt. By degrees my frenzy subsided, and a dull stupor was coming over me,--when the word '_Revenge_' {239} was muttered in my ear. I remembered the promise. '_Revenge_ is mine, and I will wreak it to the uttermost.' I became perfectly calm--it was the calm of despair. I had nothings to hope for but revenge, and then, come what might, I would be ready to meet it! 'Yes,' said I aloud, 'I will twine myself round her heartstrings--she shall love me devotedly, fatally, and I will requite her with a contempt colder than the snows on Cotapaxi, and a hate more intense than its fires.'

"In a few days my guardian left town with his daughter. I went about as usual and frequently met Miss ----, to whom I always spoke with an air of grave politeness--but never alluded to her displeasure. I soon saw that her anger was passed like a summer cloud, and that she was not at all indisposed to a renewal of our former intimacy. One evening at a party somewhere, I was engaged in a lively conversation with her, and was quietly offering her many little polite attentions, from which a casual observer would have inferred that we were excellent friends--but there was nothing of confiding, affectionate interest in my tone or looks: all was the calm, cold, habitual politeness of a thorough bred man of the world. After a silence of some minute or two, she said kindly, 'George, I am sorry for what I said in my hasty anger and would be delighted if you would forgive and forget it'--and she offered me her hand. I would have spurned it from me--but the time was not yet come. So I took her hand in mine, and with a grateful pressure, thanked her for her condescending goodness. 'Now,' said she, with one of her most endearing smiles, 'we are good friends again.'

"For an instant my dire resolution seemed melting away--but I steeled myself relentlessly, and swore by my own head to pursue my revenge. From that day forth I was unremitting in my endeavor to gain her whole heart--every word and look was directed to that end. For hours have I sat with her, pouring out for her attentive ear whatever my more masculine studies had made me conversant with, but which to her had been as a sealed book.

"At length I saw that I had succeeded; her whole being seemed bound up in my love, and I felt that my victim was in my power. 'Now for revenge,' I muttered, as I walked slowly to the door and rang the bell. The room was empty as I entered; I sat down and pondered over the best and surest mode of attaining my wish. Presently I heard a light step hurrying down the staircase, and slackening in speed as it approached the door. I threw a slight expression of gloom over my features; the door opened, and Miss ---- entered and greeted me with a mingling of cordiality and bashfulness which at one time would have brought me on my knees before her: now it was of no avail. She soon noticed the sadness of my looks, and inquired the cause. 'I was thinking,' I replied, 'of a past and most painful event. It was here, in this room, that I heard, from lips that were dearest to me of all on earth, words which stunned me more than a thunderbolt would have done, and she who spoke them sate where you now sit.'

"'Hush, sweet; hush,' said she, playfully putting her hand on my mouth, 'and do not again allude to an occurrence which I regret so much. Indeed,' she continued, while her eyes filled with tears, 'indeed, I would do any thing to convince you how much it has grieved me.'

"I smiled fondly, and rising from my chair, seated myself by her side, and took her little hand in mine.

"'F----,' said I, 'you have told me that you loved me, and I believed you; I need not say how dearly I have loved you. Listen, dear girl, to what my love compels me to tell. Until this day I have been accustomed to think of myself as one beyond the reach of poverty, although not rich: this very day I have learned that I am well nigh pennyless. Our engagement is yet unknown to any save ourselves, and it remains with you to say whether it shall continue. I release you entirely from your promise, and never by word or deed will I reproach you, should you listen to the voice of prudence, and decline linking your fate to that of one who has nothing save the gushing tenderness and love of a passionate heart to offer you. If your generous mind reject the thought of discarding me for my poverty, think on all you will have to undergo; the loss of all that custom has rendered almost necessary; "the proud man's contumely--the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;" perchance the bitings of absolute penury;--and tell me, can you leave family and friends, and your childhood's home, and endure all for the sake of my love?'

"My arm had encircled her waist, and I gazed steadfastly on her face. The proud blood rose in her pale cheek as she answered, 'George, I do love you more than I know how to express, and ever for yourself alone. I can now show you how completely I am yours, for my love can end but with my life.'

"Wildly, fearfully, did the fiery blood bound through my tingling veins. I drew her to me; her head lay on my shoulder, and I covered with kisses her forehead, her eyes, her cheek, her lips. Tears of passionate love burst from my eyes, and I pressed her to my heart in an agony of uncontrollable delight. Slowly my calmness returned, and again 'revenge! revenge!' sounded in my ear.

"I withdrew my arm from her, but still retained her hand, and said in a quiet tone, 'Listen again, and swear by your hopes of heaven that you will divulge to no mortal ear what I shall say.' She did so, and I continued: 'Two months ago you told me that you scorned and despised me: I swore to requite it--and now I tell you, and I swear by the crown of the eternal king I tell you truly, that I abhor you; I scorn and hate you more than I do the wretch who has murdered her infant child.' I flung from me as I spoke the hand I held, and rising from my seat, stood with my arms folded, looking her full in the face.

"For a moment she gazed wildly at me, as if she did not comprehend what I had said; but as the dreadful truth forced itself on her mind her face became white as chalk, her eyelids quivered convulsively, and with almost a scream she fell back in a swoon. I raised her, and getting some water from a flower jar, I sprinkled it over her face, and supported her in my arms. In a few minutes she opened her eyes, and fixed them on me with a gaze of imperfect consciousness; my arm still supported her. 'Oh George, George,' she murmured, clasping my neck with her arms, and sobbing bitterly, 'how could you jest so cruelly with me? I know you were not in earnest; you could not speak so in earnest to your own F----; but your dreadful look frightened me almost to death;' and she hid her face in my {240} bosom, and sobbed as if her heart would break. For a few moments her sobs continued, and then she gradually recovered herself. I quietly unclasped her hands from my neck, and again rising from the sofa, said in a bitter tone, 'compose yourself Miss ----, and be assured that I am in earnest. Look on my face, and see a man marked for the grave--and you are my destroyer. You have blighted all my happiness in this world; and before the leaves which are new budding shall fall, I will be sleeping in my cold grave. But _now_ vengeance is mine, and I have repaid you; your death blow has been stricken, and soon, very soon, will you wither in your early tomb, where I shall speedily follow. Remember your dreadful oath.'

"She did not move nor weep, but her eyes were fixed on me with a fearful stare as the charmed bird regards the rattlesnake, and followed me as I moved from the room. Next day I heard that Miss ---- had been discovered in the room where I left her in a state of insensibility, and had with difficulty been aroused from it, but was alarmingly ill. Conjecture was at fault as to the cause of her illness; among the thousand and one suppositions none came near the truth, and nothing could be learned from her. She was obstinately silent, as the attending physician, a pragmatical, dogmatical fellow, chose to report. A week passed and she was thought somewhat better; and her father, who had hurried to town on hearing of her illness, insisted on carrying her to the country with him. Another week passed and I heard nothing of her. I became anxious; I wished to see her again; to mark the progress of death, and exult in the completion of my revenge. I went down to my guardian's house. They were all speaking of poor F---- when I arrived; she was not expected to live forty-eight hours.

"Next day my guardian, his daughter and myself rode over to Mr. ----'s to see F---- once more. Her mother was weeping and refusing to be comforted: she was her only child. I did not see her father; like Hagar, he had taken a last look at his child, and had gone into the woods to mourn unseen--he could not see his child die.

"My cousin and her father went into the dying girl's room, while I remained conversing with some of the neighbors who were there. After some time had elapsed they came out; she came to me weeping bitterly, and said that Miss ---- desired to see me alone. I almost trembled, but hastened to the room; no one was there save the dying girl. There she lay, her dark hair loose over her pillow, her fine face attenuated and white as alabaster; one hand was exposed to view--it was shrunk almost to nothing--but the lustre of her eyes was yet undiminished. I moved to the bedside and gazed in silence on the yet living remains of the most angelic spirit that I have met with in my intercourse with my fellow mortals. 'George,' said she in a weak voice, 'in a few minutes I shall breathe my last, yet I love you as fondly as ever, notwithstanding your cruel treatment of me. Oh speak to me, George! tell me that you love me, and I will forgive you and die contented.' My desire for revenge melted away; I felt almost choked with emotion, and throwing myself on my knees I kissed her emaciated hand and wept tears of bitter regret: inextinguishable love burned in my heart, and I moaned in her ear, 'F----, my sweet, sweet F----, I do love you, and have ever loved you more than all the world holds beside, but it was fated that thus it should be!' A smile of delight spread over her face, her dying hand pressed mine--and in a whisper almost inaudible she said, 'Farewell, we will meet hereafter.' Her breathing fluttered and ceased--she was dead. I imprinted a last kiss on her face, still lovely even in death, and left the room.

"I saw her body committed to the earth and her grave sprinkled with early violets; and when all was over, we left the bereaved family to their sorrows.--Since that day I have impatiently awaited the approach of death, but my sufferings have not terminated as soon as I wished. At times a dreadful feeling of remorse has seized me, and in agonies that cannot be described have I writhed during many sleepless nights--but I was a mere instrument in the hands of unalterable fate.

"A few days since I came to Richmond to arrange some business. To-morrow I shall leave this city for New York, where I shall stay for some weeks. After this day I shall never see you again."

He ceased. I wished to say something, but his recital had made so strong an impression on me, and he seemed so fully fixed in the belief of his approaching death, that I was silent. The shades of evening began to deepen around us, and the full moon rose struggling through a bank of clouds. "Come," said B----, "go with me to my room; I have something to give you as a memento of me." We went to his room and he took from a desk a dirk of beautiful workmanship, the handle richly ornamented with gold, and giving it to me said, "take this and keep it. I have been strongly tempted to use it against myself, but have refrained, for it shall not be said that I feared to live. Farewell. I have something to do, and you will excuse me." I wrung his hand and we parted. I never saw him again; but in the latter part of July I heard that he had returned from New York in a low state of health, having, as was said, wasted rapidly in a consumption. Early in August he died, making it his last request to be buried by the grave of Miss ----. It was complied with, and before he completed the twenty-second year of his age, he slept by the side of her he had loved. Peace to their ashes!

BENEDICT.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

THE CHANGES OF NATURE.

Cum polo Phoebus roseis quadrigis.--_Boet: Lib. ii. Met. iii._

How oft when Sol, in rosy car,
Pursues his radiant race,
The malice of the evil star
Sheds paleness o'er his face!

How oft when Spring sets out her flowers,
And opening blossoms play,
An angry cloud, with chilling showers,
Sweeps all their charms away!

How oft when Ocean smiles serene,
Composing all his waves,
A sudden storm confounds the scene,
And sailors find their graves!

Oh! then, since this is Nature's style,
Still changing from her birth,
Why trust her false, deceitful smile?
Why look for rest on earth?

{241}

ORIGINAL LITERARY NOTICES.

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. By the author of Pelham, &c. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1834.

The "Messenger" ought to have contained an earlier notice of this fashionable and brilliant work. If our readers have not seen it, we would advise them by all means to send forthwith to the bookseller and purchase a copy. We are free to confess that it has raised Mr. Bulwer fifty per cent. at least in our estimation,--yet we do not think it by any means a faultless performance. Mr. Bulwer's pictures, in all his works that we have read, are too gaudy,--too highly wrought,--and therefore too much above nature,--and want the delightful repose and serene features which distinguish the great Scottish magician. He is, nevertheless, an author of vivid and powerful fancy, of extensive learning, and of high capacity to seize upon his readers and enchain them by fine imagery and impassioned eloquence. The work before us is one of undoubted merit. The subject is of great historical interest, and the author has contrived to reanimate the "city of the dead" with a group of actors who, with some exceptions, admirably sustain their respective parts, and contribute their due share to the continued interest and final catastrophe of the story. We shall not attempt any analysis of the book, for that would be to deprive such of our readers as have not seen it, of much of that exquisite pleasure which attends the progressive developement of the plot, and the gradual disentanglement of all the intricacies in a work of fiction. The tragical story of Pompeii is familiar to classical readers, and especially the graphic account of its doom by the younger Pliny, who was an eye witness to the calamity. Its discovery and partial restoration in latter times,--the laborious excavations which have brought back its temples, its theatres, its triumphal arches and spacious edifices, to the light of day;--its antique curiosities and fine paintings, rescued as it were from a dark interment of seventeen centuries, and now exhibited in their original form and freshness, are all circumstances of powerful interest,--but have been so frequently referred to by tourists, antiquarians and others, that they do not require any particular notice at our hands. We regard Mr. Bulwer as highly fortunate in the choice of his subject; and, as he enjoyed great advantages by his presence on the spot, he has contrived to embellish his story by a variety of interesting details derived from actual inspection. The minute account, for example, of the dwelling of Glaucus, in the third chapter,--of the complicated arrangement and splendid ornaments of the various apartments, is not the creation of fancy but a lively representation of a living model. By the way, since this same chapter contains a very curious account of a Pompeian supper, besides some other interesting matters, we are tempted to insert the whole in our columns, especially as many of our readers may have no opportunity of seeing the volumes from which it is extracted. The _umbra_, who is introduced as one of the guests, is a species of animal not peculiar we believe, to the Roman age. Society has in all ages abounded in parasites and toadies, who, for the sake of a plentiful repast and _fashionable_ company, have very willingly echoed the sentiments of a rich patron. Glaucus, one of the principal personages in the tale, had assembled a small party to partake of his luxurious bounty,--and the chapter opens with a fine description of the host himself. We introduce it to our readers.

* * * * *

Heaven had given to Glaucus every blessing but one: it had given him beauty, health, fortune, genius, illustrious descent, a heart of fire, a mind of poetry; but it had denied him the heritage of freedom. He was born in Athens, the subject of Rome. Succeeding early to an ample inheritance, he had indulged that inclination for travel so natural to the young, and had drunk deep of the intoxicating draught of pleasure, amid the gorgeous luxuries of the imperial court.

He was an Alcibiades without ambition. He was what a man of imagination, youth, fortune and talents readily becomes when you deprive him of the inspiration of glory. His house at Rome was the theme of the debauchees, but also of the lovers of art; and the sculptors of Greece delighted to task their skill in adorning the porticoes and _exedra_ of an Athenian. His retreat in Pompeii--alas! the colors are faded now, the walls stripped of their paintings!--its main beauty, its elaborate finish of grace and ornament, is gone; yet when first given once more to the day, what eulogies, what wonder did its minute and glowing decorations create--its paintings--its mosaics! Passionately enamoured of poetry and the drama, which recalled to Glaucus the wit and the heroism of his race, that fairy mansion was adorned with representations of Æschylus and Homer. And antiquaries, who resolve taste to a trade, have turned the patron to the professor, and still (though the error is now acknowledged) they style in custom, as they first named in mistake, the disburied house of the Athenian Glaucus, "THE HOUSE OF THE DRAMATIC POET."

Previous to our description of this house, it may be well to convey to the reader a general notion of the houses of Pompeii, which he will find to resemble strongly the plans of Vitruvius; but with all those differences, in detail, of caprice and taste which, being natural to mankind, have always puzzled antiquaries. We shall endeavor to make this description as clear and unpedantic as possible.

You enter then, usually, by a small entrance passage (called _vestibulum_) into a hall, sometimes with (but more frequently without) the ornament of columns; around three sides of this hall are doors communicating with several bed chambers, (among which is the porter's,) the best of these being usually appropriated to country visiters. At the extremity of the hall, on either side to the right and left, if the house is large, there are two small recesses, rather than chambers, generally devoted to the ladies of the mansion; and in the centre of the tesselated pavement of the hall is invariably a square shallow reservoir for rain water (classically termed _impluvium_,) which was admitted by a hole in the roof above; the said aperture being covered at will by an awning. Near this impluvium, which had a peculiar sanctity in the eyes of the ancients, were sometimes (but at Pompeii more rarely than at Rome) placed images of the household gods; the hospitable hearth, often mentioned by the Roman poets, and consecrated to the Lares, was, at Pompeii, almost invariably formed by a moveable _brasier_; while in some corner, often the most ostentatious place, was deposited a huge wooden chest, ornamented and strengthened by bands of bronze or iron, and secured by strong hooks upon a stone pedestal so firmly as to defy the attempts of any robber to detach it from its position. This chest was supposed to be the money-box or coffer of the master of the house; though, as no money has been found in any of the chests discovered at Pompeii, it is probable that it was sometimes rather designed for ornament than use.

In this hall (or _atrium_, to speak classically) the clients and visiters of inferior rank were usually received. In the houses of the more "respectable," an _atriensis_, or {242} slave peculiarly devoted to the service of the hall, was invariably retained, and his rank among his fellow slaves was high and important. The reservoir in the centre must have been rather a dangerous ornament, but the centre of the hall was like the grass-plat of a college, and interdicted to the passers to and fro, who found ample space in the margin. Right opposite the entrance, at the other end of the hall, was an apartment (_tablinum_,) in which the pavement was usually adorned with rich mosaics, and the walls covered with elaborate paintings. Here were usually kept the records of the family, or those of any public office that had been filled by the owner: on one side of this saloon, if we may so call it, was often a dining room, or _triclinium_; on the other side, perhaps, what we should now term a cabinet of gems, containing whatever curiosities were deemed most rare and costly; and invariably a small passage for the slaves to cross to the farther parts of the house without passing the apartments thus mentioned. These rooms all opened on a square or oblong colonnade, technically termed peristyle. If the house was small, its boundary ceased with this colonnade, and in that case its centre, however diminutive, was ordinarily appropriated to the purpose of a garden, and adorned with vases of flowers placed upon pedestals, while under the colonnade, to the right and left, were doors, admitting to bed rooms,[1] to a second _triclinium_, or eating room, (for the ancients generally appropriated two rooms at least to that purpose, one for summer and one for winter, or perhaps one for ordinary, the other for festive occasions;) and if the owner affected letters, a cabinet, dignified by the name of library,--for a very small room was sufficient to contain the few rolls of papyrus which the ancients deemed a notable collection of books.

[Footnote 1: The Romans had bed rooms appropriated not only to the sleep of night, but also to the day siesta (_cubicula diurna_.)]

At the end of the peristyle was generally the kitchen. Supposing the house was large, it did not end with the peristyle, and the centre thereof was not in that case a garden, but might be perhaps adorned with a fountain, or basin for fish; and at its end, exactly opposite to the tablinum, was generally another eating room, on either side of which were bed rooms, and perhaps a picture saloon, or _pinatheca_.[2] These apartments communicated again with a square or oblong space, usually adorned on three sides with a colonnade like the peristyle, and very much resembling the peristyle, only longer. This was the proper _viridarium_ or garden, being usually adorned with a fountain, or statues, and a profusion of gay flowers: at its extreme end was the gardener's house; on either side beneath the colonnade were sometimes, if the size of the family required it, additional rooms.

[Footnote 2: In the stately palaces of Rome, the pinatheca usually communicated with the atrium.]

At Pompeii, a second or third story was rarely of importance, being built only above a small part of the house, and containing rooms for the slaves; differing in this respect from the more magnificent edifices of Rome, which generally contained the principal eating room (or _coenaculum_) on the second floor. The apartments themselves were ordinarily of small size: for in those delightful climes they received any extraordinary number of visiters in the peristyle (or portico,) the hall, or the garden; and even their banquet rooms, however elaborately adorned and carefully selected in point of aspect, were of diminutive proportions; for the intellectual ancients, being fond of society, not of crowds, rarely feasted more than nine at a time, so that large dinner rooms were not so necessary with them as with us.[3] But the suite of rooms seen at once from the entrance must have had a very imposing effect; you beheld at once the hall richly paved and painted--the tablinum--the graceful peristyle, and (if the house extended farther) the opposite banquet room and the garden, which closed the view with some gushing fount or marble statue.

[Footnote 3: When they entertained very large parties, the feast was usually served in the hall.]

The reader will now have a tolerable notion of the Pompeian houses, which resembled in some respects the Grecian, but mostly the Roman, fashion of domestic architecture. In almost every house there is some difference in detail from the rest, but the principal outline is the same in all. In all you find the hall, the tablinum, and the peristyle communicating with each other; in all you find the walls richly painted, and in all the evidence of a people fond of the refining elegancies of life. The purity of the taste of the Pompeians in decoration is however questionable: they were fond of the gaudiest colors, of fantastic designs; they often painted the lower half of their columns a bright red, leaving the rest uncolored; and where the garden was small, its wall was frequently tinted to deceive the eye as to its extent, imitating trees, birds, temples, &c. in perspective--a meretricious delusion which the graceful pedantry of Pliny himself adopted, with a complacent pride in its ingenuity.

But the house of Glaucus was at once one of the smallest, and yet of the most adorned and finished, of all the private mansions of Pompeii; it would be a model at this day for the house of "a single man in Mayfair"--the envy and despair of the coelibian purchasers of buhl and marquetrie.

You enter by a long and narrow vestibule, on the floor of which is the image of a dog in mosaic, with the well known "cave canem," or "beware the dog." On either side is a chamber of some size; for the interior house not being large enough to contain the two great divisions of private and public apartments, these two rooms were set apart for the reception of visiters who neither by rank nor familiarity were entitled to admission in the penetralia of the mansion.

Advancing up the vestibule, you enter an atrinum, that when first discovered was rich in paintings, which _in point of expression_ would scarcely disgrace a Raphael. You may see them now transplanted to the Neapolitan Museum; they are still the admiration of connoisseurs; they depict the parting of Achilles and Briseis. Who does not acknowledge the force, the vigor, the beauty! employed in delineating the forms and faces of Achilles and the immortal slave!

On one side the atrinum, a small staircase admitted to the apartments for the slaves on the second floor; there too were two or three small bed rooms, the walls of which portrayed the rape of Europa, the battle of the Amazons, &c.

You now enter the tablinum, across which at either end hung rich draperies of Tyrian purple, half withdrawn.[4] On the walls were depicted a poet reading his verses to his friends; and in the pavement was inserted a small and most exquisite mosaic, typical of the instructions given by the director of the stage to his comedians.

[Footnote 4: The tablinum was also secured at pleasure by sliding doors.]

You passed through this saloon and entered the peristyle; and here (as I have said before was usually the case with the smaller houses of Pompeii) the mansion ended. From each of the seven columns that adorned this court hung festoons of garlands; the centre, supplying the place of a garden, bloomed with the rarest flowers, placed in vases of white marble, that were supported on pedestals. At the left end of this small garden was a diminutive fane, resembling one of those small chapels placed at the side of roads in Catholic countries, and dedicated to the Penates; before it stood a bronze tripod; to the left of the colonnade were two small cubiculi or bed rooms; to the right was the triclinium, in which the guests were now assembled.

This room is usually termed by the antiquaries of Naples, "the chamber of Leda;" and in the beautiful work of Sir William Gell, the reader will find an engraving from that most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her new-born to her husband, from {243} which the room derives its name. This beautiful apartment opened upon the fragrant garden. Round the table of citrean[5] wood, highly polished and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii than the semi-circular seat that had grown lately into fashion at Rome; and on these couches of bronze, studded with richer metals, were laid thick quiltings covered with elaborate broidery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure.

[Footnote 5: The most valued wood; not the modern citron tree. Some, among whom is my learned friend Mr. W. S. Landor, conjecture it, with much plausibility, to have been mahogany.]

"Well, I must own," said the ædile Pansa, "that your house, though scarcely larger than a case for one's fibulæ, is a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted is that parting of Achilles and Briseis!--what a style!--what heads!--what a--hem!"

"Praise from Pansa is indeed valuable on such subjects," said Clodius, gravely. "Why, the paintings on _his_ walls--ah! there is, indeed, the hand of a Zeuxis!"

"You flatter me, my Clodius; indeed you do," quoth the ædile, who was celebrated through Pompeii for having the worst paintings in the world; for he was patriotic, and patronised none but Pompeians,--"you flatter me: but there is something pretty--Ædepol, yes--in the colors, to say nothing of the design;--and then for the kitchen, my friends--ah! that was all my fancy."

"What is the design?" said Glaucus. "I have not yet seen your kitchen, though I have often witnessed the excellence of its cheer."

"A cook, my Athenian--a cook sacrificing the trophies of his skill on the altar of Vesta, with a beautiful muræna (taken from the life) on a spit at a distance: there is some invention there!"

At that instant the slaves appeared, bearing a tray covered with the first preparative initia of the feast. Amid delicious figs, fresh herbs strewed with snow, anchovies, and eggs, were ranged small cups of diluted wine sparingly mixed with honey. As these were placed on the table, young slaves bore round to each of the five guests (for there were no more) the silver basin of perfumed water and napkins edged with a purple fringe. But the ædile ostentatiously drew forth his own napkin, which was not, indeed, of so fine a linen, but in which the fringe was twice as broad, and wiped his hands with the parade of a man who felt he was calling for admiration.

"A splendid _mappa_ that of yours," said Clodius; "why, the fringe is as broad as a girdle."

"A trifle, my Clodius, a trifle! They tell me this stripe is the latest fashion at Rome; but Glaucus attends to these things more than I."

"Be propitious, O Bacchus!" said Glaucus, inclining reverentially to a beautiful image of the god placed in the centre of the table, at the corners of which stood the Lares and the saltholders. The guests followed the prayer, and then, sprinkling the wine on the table, they performed the wonted libation.

This over, the convivalists reclined themselves on the couches, and the business of the hour commenced.

"May this cup be my last!" said the young Sallust, as the table, cleared of its first stimulants, was now loaded with the substantial part of the entertainment, and the ministering slave poured forth to him a brimming cyathus--"May this cup be my last, but it is the best wine I have drunk at Pompeii!"

"Bring hither the amphora," said Glaucus; "and read its date and its character."

The slave hastened to inform the party that the scroll fastened to the cork betokened its birth from Chios, and its age a ripe fifty years.

"How deliciously the snow has cooled it!" said Pansa; "it is just enough."

"It is like the experience of a man who has cooled his pleasures sufficiently to give them a double zest," exclaimed Sallust.

"It is like a woman's 'No,'" added Glaucus; "it cools but to inflame the more."

"When is our next wild-beast fight?" said Clodius to Pansa.

"It stands fixed for the ninth ide of August," answered Pansa, "on the day after the Vulcanalia; we have a most lovely young lion for the occasion."

"Whom shall we get for him to eat?" asked Clodius, "Alas! there is a great scarcity of criminals. You must positively find some innocent or other to condemn to the lion, Pansa!"

"Indeed I have thought very seriously about it of late," replied the ædile, gravely. "It was a most infamous law that which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. Not to let us do what we like with our own, that's what I call an infringement on property itself."

"Not so in the good old days of the republic," sighed Sallust.

"And then this pretended mercy to the slaves is such a disappointment to the poor people. How they do love to see a good tough battle between a man and a lion! and all this innocent pleasure they may lose (if the gods don't send us a good criminal soon) from this cursed law."

"What can be worse policy," said Clodius, sententiously, "than to interfere with the manly amusements of the people?"

"Well, thank Jupiter and the Fates! we have no Nero at present," said Sallust.

"He was, indeed, a tyrant; he shut up our amphitheatre for ten years."

"I wonder it did not create a rebellion," said Sallust.

"It very nearly did," returned Pansa, with his mouth full of wild boar.

Here the conversation was interrupted for a moment by a flourish of flutes, and two slaves entered with a single dish.

"Ah! what delicacy hast thou in store for us now, my Glaucus?" cried the young Sallust, with sparkling eyes.

Sallust was only twenty-four, but he had no pleasure in life like eating--perhaps he had exhausted all the others; yet had he some talent, and an excellent heart--as far as it went.

"I know its face, by Pollux!" cried Pansa; "it is an Ambracian kid. Ho!" snapping his fingers, a usual signal to the slaves, "we must prepare a new libation in honor to the new-comer."

"I had hoped," said Glaucus, in a melancholy tone, "to have procured you some oysters from Britain; but the winds that were so cruel to Cæsar have forbid us the oysters."

"Are they in truth so delicious?" asked Lepidus, loosening to a yet more luxurious ease his ungirdled tunic.

"Why, in truth, I suspect it is the distance that gives the flavor; they want the richness of the Brundusium oyster. But at Rome no supper is complete without them."

"The poor Britons! There is some good in them after all," said Sallust; "they produce an oyster!"

"I wish they would produce us a gladiator," said the ædile, whose provident mind was still musing over the wants of the amphitheatre.

"By Pallas!" cried Glaucus, as his favorite slave crowned his steaming locks with a new chaplet, "I love these wild spectacles well enough when beast fights beast; but when a man, one with bones and blood like ours, is coldly put on the arena, and torn limb from limb, the interest is too horrid: I sicken--I gasp for breath--I long to rush and defend him. The yells of the populace seem to me more dire than the voices of the Furies chasing Orestes. I rejoice that there is so little chance of that bloody exhibition for our next show!"

{244} The ædile shrugged his shoulders; the young Sallust, who was thought the best natured man in Pompeii, stared in surprise. The graceful Lepidus, who rarely spoke for fear of disturbing his features, cried, "Per Hercle!" The Parasite Clodius muttered, "Ædepol;" and the sixth banqueter, who was the umbra of Clodius, and whose duty it was to echo his richer friend when he could not praise him--the parasite of a parasite,--muttered also, "Ædepol."

"Well, you Italians are used to these spectacles; we Greeks are more merciful. Ah, shade of Pindar!--the rapture of a true Grecian game--the emulation of man against man--the generous strife--the half-mournful triumph--so proud to contend with a noble foe, so sad to see him overcome! But ye understand me not."

"The kid is excellent," said Sallust.

The slave whose duty it was to carve, and who valued himself on his science, had just performed that office on the kid to the sound of music, his knife keeping time, beginning with a low tenor, and accomplishing the arduous feat amid a magnificent diapason.

"Your cook is of course from Sicily?" said Pansa.

"Yes, of Syracuse."

"I will play you for him," said Clodius; "we will have a game between the courses."

"Better that sort of game, certainly, than a beast-fight; but I cannot stake my Sicilian--you have nothing so precious to stake me in return."

"My Phillida--my beautiful dancing girl!"

"I never buy women," said the Greek, carelessly rearranging his chaplet.

The musicians, who were stationed in the portico without, had commenced their office with the kid; they now directed the melody into a more soft, a more gay, yet it may be a more intellectual, strain; and they chanted that song of Horace beginning "Persicos odi," &c. so impossible to translate, and which they imagined applicable to a feast that, effeminate as it seems to us, was simple enough for the gorgeous revelry of the time. We are witnessing the domestic and not the princely feast--the entertainment of a gentleman, not of an emperor or a senator.

"Ah, good old Horace," said Sallust, compassionately; "he sang well of feasts and girls, but not like our modern poets."

"The immortal Fulvius, for instance," said Clodius.

"Ah, Fulvius the immortal!" said the umbra.

"And Spuræna, and Caius Mutius, who wrote three epics in a year--could Horace do that, or Virgil either?" said Lepidus. "Those old poets all fell into the mistake of copying sculpture instead of painting. Simplicity and repose--that was their notion: but we moderns have fire, and passions, and energy--we never sleep, we imitate the colors of painting, its life and its action. Immortal Fulvius!"

"By-the-way," said Sallust, "have you seen the new ode by Spuræna, in honor of our Egyptian Isis?--it is magnificent--the true religious fervor."

"Isis seems a favorite divinity at Pompeii," said Glaucus.

"Yes!" said Pansa, "she is exceedingly in repute just at this moment; her statue has been uttering the most remarkable oracles. I am not superstitious, but I must confess that she has more than once assisted me materially in my magistracy with her advice. Her priests are so pious too! none of your gay, none of your proud ministers of Jupiter and Fortune; they walk barefoot, eat no meat, and pass the greater part of the night in solitary devotion!"

"An example to our other priesthoods, indeed!--Jupiter's temple wants reforming sadly," said Lepidus, who was a great reformer for all but himself.

"They say that Arbaces the Egyptian has imparted some most solemn mysteries to the priests of Isis," observed Sallust; "he boasts his descent from the race of Ramases, and declares that in his family the secrets of remotest antiquity are treasured."

"He certainly possesses the gift of the evil eye," said Clodius; "if I ever come upon that Medusa front without the previous charm, I am sure to lose a favorite horse, or throw the _canes_[6] nine times running."

[Footnote 6: _Canes_, or _caniculæ_, the lowest throw at dice.]

"The last would be indeed a miracle!" said Sallust, gravely.

"How mean you, Sallust?" returned the gamester, with a flushed brow.

"I mean what you would _leave_ me if I played often with you; and that is--nothing."

Clodius answered only by a smile of disdain.

"If Arbaces were not so rich," said Pansa, with a stately air, "I should stretch my authority a little, and inquire into the truth of the report which calls him an astrologer and a sorcerer. Agrippa, when ædile of Rome, banished all such terrible citizens. But a rich man--it is the duty of an ædile to protect the rich!"

"What think you of this new sect, which I am told has even a few proselytes in Pompeii, these followers of the Hebrew God--Christus?"

"Oh, mere speculative visionaries," said Clodius; "they have not a single gentleman among them; their proselytes are poor, insignificant, ignorant people!"

"Who ought, however, to be crucified for their blasphemy," said Pansa, with vehemence; "they deny Venus and Jove! Nazarene is but another name for atheist. Let me catch them, that's all!"

The second course was gone--the feasters fell back on their couches--there was a pause while they listened to the soft voices of the South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucus was the most rapt and the least inclined to break the silence, but Clodius began already to think that they wasted time.

"_Bene vobis_ (your health,) my Glaucus," said he, quaffing a cup to each letter of the Greek's name, with the ease of the practised drinker. "Will you not be avenged on your ill-fortune of yesterday? See, the dice court us."

"As you will!" said Glaucus.

"The dice in August, and I an ædile," said Pansa, magisterially; "it is against all law."

"Not in your presence, grave Pansa," returned Clodius, rattling the dice in a long box; "your presence restrains all license; it is not the thing, but the excess of the thing, that hurts."

"What wisdom!" murmured the umbra.

"Well, I will look another way," said the ædile.

"Not yet, good Pansa; let us wait till we have supped," said Glaucus.

Clodius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with a yawn.

"He gapes to devour the gold," whispered Lepidus to Sallust, in a quotation from the Aulularia of Plautus.

"Ah! how well I know these polypi, who hold all they touch," answered Sallust, in the same tone, and out of the same play.

The second course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio nuts, sweetmeats, tarts, and confectionary tortured into a thousand fantastic and airy shapes, was now placed upon the table, and the ministri, or attendants, also set there the wine (which had hitherto been handed round to the guests) in large jugs of glass, each bearing upon it the schedule of its age and quality.

"Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa," said Sallust; "it is excellent."

"It is not very old," said Glaucus, "but it has been made precocious, like ourselves, by being put to the fire; the wine to the flames of Vulcan, we to those of his wife, to whose honor I pour this cup."

"It is delicate," said Pansa, "but there is perhaps the least particle too much of rosin in its flavor."

"What a beautiful cup!" cried Clodius, taking up one of transparent crystal, the handles of which were wrought with gems, and twisted in the shape of serpents, the favorite fashion at Pompeii.

"This ring," said Glaucus, taking a costly jewel from the first joint of his finger and hanging it on the {245} handle, "gives it a richer show, and renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, my Clodius, whom may the gods give health and fortune long and oft to crown it to brim!"

"You are too generous, Glaucus," said the gamester, handing the cup to his slave, "but your love gives it a double value."

"This cup to the Graces!" said Pansa, and he thrice emptied his calix. The guests followed his example.

"We have appointed no director to the feast," cried Sallust.

"Let us throw for him, then," said Clodius, rattling the dice-box.

"Nay," cried Glaucus; "no cold and trite director for us; no dictator of the banquet; no _rex convivii_. Have not the Romans sworn never to obey a king? shall we be less free than your ancestors? Ho! musicians, let us have the song I composed the other night; it has a verse on this subject, 'The Bacchic Hymn of the Hours.'"

The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionic air, while the youngest voices in the band chanted forth in Greek words, as numbers, the following strain:

THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS.

I.

Through the summer day, through the weary day,
We have glided long;
Ere we speed to the night through her portals gray,
Hail us with song!
With song, with song,
With a bright and joyous song,
Such as the Cretan maid,
While the twilight made her bolder,
Woke, high through the ivy shade,
When the wine-god first consoled her.
From the hush'd low-breathing skies,
Half-shut, look'd their starry eyes,
And all around,
With a loving sound,
The Ægean waves were creeping;
On her lap lay the lynx's head;
Wild thyme was her bridal bed;
And aye through each tiny space,
In the green vine's green embrace,
The fauns were slyly peeping;--
The fauns, the prying fauns--
The arch, the laughing fauns--
The fauns were slyly peeping!

II.

Flagging and faint are we
With our ceaseless flight,
And dull shall our journey be
Through the realm of night.
Bathe us, O bathe our weary wings,
In the purple wave, as it freshly springs
To your cups from the fount of light--
From the fount of light--from the fount of light:
For there, when the sun has gone down in night,
There in the bowl we find him.
The grape is the well of that summer sun,
Or rather the stream that he gazed upon,
Till he left in truth, like the Thespian youth,[7]
His soul, as he gazed, behind him.

III.

A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love,
And a cup to the son of Maia,
And honor with three, the band zone-free,
The band of the bright Agiaia.
But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure
Ye owe to the sister Hours,
No stinted cups, in a formal measure,
The Bromian law make ours.
He honors us most who gives us most,
And boasts with a Bacchanal's honest boast
He never will _count_ the treasure.
Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings,
And plunge us deep in the sparkling springs;
And aye, as we rise with a dripping plume,
We'll scatter the spray round the garland's bloom.
We glow--we glow.
Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave
Bore once with a shout to their crystal cave
The prize of the Mysian Hylas,
Even so--even so,
We have caught the young god in our warm embrace,
We hurry him on in our laughing race;
We hurry him on, with a whoop and song,
The cloudy rivers of Night along--
Ho, ho!--we have caught thee, Pallas!

[Footnote 7: Narcissus.]

The guests applauded loudly: when the poet is your host, his verses are sure to charm.

"Thoroughly Greek," said Lepidus: "the wildness, force, and energy of that tongue it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry."

"It is indeed a great contrast," said Clodius, ironically at heart, though not in appearance, "to the old-fashioned and tame simplicity of that ode of Horace which we heard before. The air is beautifully Ionic: the word puts me in mind of a toast--Companions, I give you the beautiful Ione."

"Ione--the name is Greek," said Glaucus, in a soft voice, "I drink the health with delight. But who is Ione?"

"Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would deserve ostracism for your ignorance," said Lepidus, conceitedly; "not to know Ione is not to know the chief charm of our city."

"She is of most rare beauty," said Pansa; "and what a voice!"

"She can feed only on nightingales' tongues," said Clodius.

"Nightingales' tongues!--beautiful thought," sighed the umbra.

"Enlighten me, I beseech you," said Glaucus.

"Know then," began Lepidus--

"Let me speak," cried Clodius; "you drawl out your words as if you spoke tortoises."

"And you speak stones," muttered the coxcomb to himself, as he fell back disdainfully on his couch.

"Know then, my Glaucus," said Clodius, "that Ione is a stranger, who has but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like Sappho, and her songs are her own composing; and as for the tibia, and the cithara, and the lyre, I know not in which she most outdoes the Muses. Her beauty is most dazzling. Her house is perfect; such taste--such gems--such bronzes! She is rich, and generous as she is rich."

"Her lovers, of course," said Glaucus, "take care that she does not starve; and money lightly won is always lavishly spent."

"Her lovers--ah, there is the enigma! Ione has but one vice--she is chaste. She has all Pompeii at her feet, and she has no lovers: she will not even marry."

"No lovers!" echoed Glaucus.

"No; she has the soul of Vesta, with the girdle of Venus."

"What refined expressions!" said the umbra.

"A miracle!" cried Glaucus. "Can we not see her?"

"I will take you there this evening," said Clodius; "meanwhile," added he, once more rattling the dice--

"I am yours!" said the complaisant Glaucus. "Pansa turn your face!"

Lepidus and Sallust played at odd and even, and the umbra looked on, while Glaucus and Clodius became gradually absorbed in the chances of the dice.

"Per Jove!" cried Glaucus, "this is the second time I have thrown the caniculæ" (the lowest throw.)

"Now Venus befriend me!" said Clodius, rattling the box for several moments, "O Alma Venus--it is Venus herself!" as he threw the highest cast named from that goddess,--whom he who wins money indeed usually propitiates!

"Venus is ungrateful to me," said Glaucus, gayly; "I have always sacrificed on her altar."

"He who plays with Clodius," whispered Lepidus, "will soon, like Plautus's Curculio, put his pallium for the stakes."

"Poor Glaucus--he is as blind as Fortune herself," replied Sallust, in the same tone.

"I will play no more," said Glaucus. "I have lost thirty sestertia."

"I am sorry," began Clodius.

"Amiable man!" groaned the umbra.

"Not at all!" exclaimed Glaucus; "the pleasure of your gain compensates the pain of my loss."

The conversation now became general and animated; the wine circulated more freely; and Ione once more {246} became the subject of eulogy to the guests of Glaucus.