ting rude and unpolished, and had no taste for elegant pleasures. The same kind of character is to be traced in every generation; and ages after the men we have been speaking of had crackled on their pyres, Martial saw their representatives flourishing in Rome. A rival of these parasites was the aretalogus, whom we know not how to match in our own days. He combined the diner-out and moral philosopher, and used to talk at suppers of the summum bonum, and the Good and the Beautiful for the amusement of those who thought the scurra and the parasite frivolous. The Emperor Augustus was particularly fond of these philosophical declaimers. They seem principally to have been Stoics or Cynics, and were remarkable for their loquacity, their love of eleemosynary provender, and their long beards. Between them and the comic writers there was deadly war.

'All clear and well defined'

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Fond as the ancients were of conversation, it is not wonderful that they should have left books which may justly be included under the head of Table-Talk. At the head of these must be placed the 'Memorabilia' of Socrates by Xenophon, which, indeed, the ingenious Frenchman who has edited the Table-Talk' of Ménage was inclined to call Socratiana.' It is, no doubt, the prosaic aspect of Socrates which we have from Xenophon; but in the clear steelmirror of his lucid style, the face of the philosopher is reflected with a truth, of which nobody can lose the impression. We see the man as he appeared to his friends, to his wife, and are vell pleased to lose a little ideal beauty for the sake of the homely reality. We commonly,' says Pascal,

and who, as Casaubon observes, are not to be confounded. First comes the adoλsons or simple garrulus. He sits down,' Theophrastus tells us, by the side of a man whom he does not know, and begins to praise his own wife. Tells what he dreamed the night before, and what he had for dinner.' Have we not seen him in the flesh in our own day? The λáλos, again, was not only fond of talking, but was an inveterate chatterer, who interfered with every human pursuit-who haunted the schools and talked to the schoolmaster. Worse still was the Aoyororols, who dealt in rumours, and spread scandal-who was ever asking

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picture Plato and Aristotle in stately robes, and as personages always grave and solemn. They were good fellows, who laugh

Is there nothing new ?" Often, says Theo-ed like others with their friends; and when phrastus, while gathering crowds round they composed their laws and treatises of them in the baths, these gossips have lost policy it was done smilingly and to divert their clothes. themselves. It was the least philosophic and serious part of their life. Their highest philosophy was to live simply and tranquilly.' Now, it is just the charm of the Memorabilia' that it gives us the daily existence of Socrates; his constant public activity; his incessant and irresistible dialectics in the agora, in the gymnasia, in the shop of the corslet-maker, in the studio of the statuary, at the table. All that beautiful scene of human life, with its temples, its trees, its soft sky, and the hum and colour of its lively population, floats in the air about. We are in the presence of Socrates, in his habit as he lived'--barefooted, plainly clad, invincibly reasonable and moral, and the incarnation of common sense.

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which a book can but faintly reflect. Cicero appears to have thought that his own hilarity at the banquets of his political friends was really a public service at periods of public despondency: We cannot but profoundly regret that the Liber Jocularis,' or collection of his jokes made by Tiro, has not been preserved; for he was as thorough a table-talker as Socrates himself, and his mots preserved in Plutarch, Quintilian, and Macrobius, show that with Burke's eloquence he combined Canning's

wit.

The vivacity of the southern races was one great cause why this conversation had a tendency to degenerate into loquacity. The Greek to this day is pre-eminently a talker, and may be seen lolling outside his cafes, making a clatter as rapid and endless as that of the λáλos in Theophrastus from whom he descends. What babblers abounded in Athens in the period of its decay we know from the fact that Theophrastus gives us no less than three species of such cha

racters

To this corrupted taste for an enjoyment very profitable in its healthy condition, the ancients owed a class of table-talkers whom it would be improper to pass over, more particularly as they are represented in considerable force in modern Europe,-a class of diners-out. The wag was well known in antiquity, from the simple yskurorológ or laughter-maker, who attended suppers professionally, up to the smart conversationist who paid for the good things which he ate by the good things which he said. Of this gentleman, for so we call him in these polite times, there are excellent specimens in Plautus. Sometimes when invitations ran slack, he complained that the age was get

Xenophon is so anxious to show him as a good citizen that he even makes him talk what we, in our modern conceit, fancy rather obvious morality. The kindly reverent disciple wants to show how excellent his master's intentions were; how obedient he was to the laws; how soundly conservative in fact. He could not foresee that it would ever be argued that the sage was justly executed by the populace as a bore!

If, then, we set down the Memorabilia' as the earliest and most important book of Table-Talk extant, we shall be beginning well. The ancients had other collections, but they have perished; and we must search for the scattered fragments in Athenæus, Macrobius, Plutarch, and Aulus Gellius. A passage which the latter quotes from Varro would alone establish the taste of the ancients in colloquial matters:'Guests should be neither loquacious nor silent; because eloquence is for the forum, and silence for the bed-chamber.' And he goes on to say that conversation at such times should not be about anxious nor difficult affairs, but pleasant, attractive, and useful.

'If I should enumerate divers of his speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they are truly such as Solomon noteth, when he saith, "The words of the wise are as goads;" whereof I will only recite three, not so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour and efficacy. As, first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that could with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus:-The Romans, when their generals did speak to their army, did use the word "Milites," but when the magistrates spake to the people, they did use the word "Quirites." The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to be cashiered; not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to being resolute not to give way, after some draw Cæsar to other conditions; wherein he silence, he began his speech,-"Ego, Quirites," which did admit them already cashiered; wherewith they were so surprised, crossed, and con

In these old store-houses we shall find more than one bon-mot, which now adorns the brazen front of the plagiary. There are few better sayings attributed to Foote than his reply to Lord Stormont, who was boasting the great age of the wine which,

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in his parsimony, he had caused to be serv-fused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his speech, but relinquished their demands, and made it their suit to again called by the name Cæsar did extremely affect the name of king; of "Milites." The second speech was thus: and some were set on, as he passed by, in popular acclamation to salute him king: whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor, he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname; "Non rex sum, sed Cæsar;" I am not King, but Cæsar;-a speech, that if it be searched, the life and fulness of it can scarce be expressed: for, first, it was a refusal of the name, but yet not serious. Again, it did signify an infinite confidence and magnanimity, as if he presumed Cæsar was the greater title, as by his worthiness it is come to pass till this day: but chiefly it was a speech of great allurement toward his own purpose; as if the state did strive with him but for a name, whereof mean families were vested; for Rex was a surname with the Romans, as well as King is with us. The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus: when Cæsar, after war declared, did possess himself of the city of Rome, at which time entering into the inner treasury to take the money there accumulated, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him whereunto Cæsar said, "That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place." And presently, taking himself up, he added, "Young man, it is harder for me to speak than to do it." A speech compounded of the

ed in extremely small glasses, It is very little of its age.' Yet this identical witticism is in Athenæus, where it is assigned to one Gnathæna, whose jokes were better than her character. Cicero relates that Nasica called upon Ennius, and was told by the servant that he was out. Shortly afterwards Ennius returned the visit, when Nasica exclaimed from within that he was not at home. What,' replied Ennius, 'do not I know your own voice? You are an impudent fellow,' retorted Nasica; when your servant told me that you were not at home, I believed her, but you will not believe me though I tell you so myself.' This, in modern jest-books, is said to have passed between Quin and Foote. Wit, like gold, is circulated sometimes with one head on it and sometimes with another, according to the potentates who rule its realm. Few situations are more trying than to sit at dinner and hear a raconteur telling the capital thing said by Louis XIV.' to so-andso, with a distinct recollection that the same thing was said by Augustus to a provincial. You cannot quote Macrobius without the imputation of pedantry, even if you were

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devil, the founder having been born of a emblem of the devil in its crawling walk, and
succubus.'
bears his colours in its changing hue.'

'Luther was one day being shaved, and having
his hair cut in the presence of Dr. Jonas, he
said to the latter:-Original sin is in us like the
beard. We are shaved to-day, and look clean,
and have a smooth chin; to-morrow our beard
has grown again, nor does it cease growing
original sin cannot be extirpated from us; it
whilst we remain on earth. In like manner,
springs up in us as long as we exist. Never-
theless, we are bound to resist it to the utmost
of our strength, and to cut it down unceasingly.'

'When I am assailed with heavy tribulations, I rush out among my pigs, rather than remain alone by myself. The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under flour. If you put no wheat, it still grinds on; it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to but then 'tis itself it grinds and wears away.'

"When I lay sucking at my mother's breasts, I
had no notion how I should afterwards eat,
drink, or live. Even so we on earth have no
idea what the life to come will be.'

like a planet, but a bastard among planets. It
'A comet is a star that runs, not being fixed
is a haughty and proud star, engrossing the
whole element, and carrying itself on as if it
were there alone. 'Tis of the nature of heretics,
who also will be singular and alone, bragging
and boasting above others, and thinking they
are the only people endowed with under-
standing.'

The men of that age lived in an element of reverent wonder, which sometimes took such shapes as this. In Luther's case, too, there was a liability to hypochondria, and he had spiritual and physical fits of depression which it is impossible to contemplate without awe. 'The sour sweat has drizzled from me,' he says. But what a light of faith and hope, strangely tinged, too, by his essential humour, shone through those clouds ! ""Thou art a great sinner," said he. I replied, "Canst thou not tell me something new, Satan?" "The devil often casts this into my breast: How if thy doctrine be false and erroneous? I gave him this answer: Avoid, Satan; address thyself to my God, and talk with him about it, for the doctrine is not mine, but his."

The domestic and social aspects of Luther, as the Table-Talk shows them, complete the picture, and we see him in the ruddy light of his fire a cheerful, solid, kindly humorous man. "The hair is the finest ornament wom en have. I like women to let their hair fall down their back; 'tis a most agreeable sight. What defects women I have we must check them for, in private, by word of mouth, for woman is a frail vessel." The Doctor then turned round and said, "Let us talk of something else!" With what reality the scene rises before us! Then we all know how he loved and valued music; society he valued equally. have myself found that I never fell into more sin than when I was alone.' He was fond of children's prattle, and his sorrow for the death of his little daughter Magdalen is most affecting. All these traits, no doubt, might have been narrated to us by a biographer; but what art could have made them so winning and so real as they appear in the Table-Talk?

I

We should show little regard for the dignity of the Reformer if we inquired what 'conversational talent' he possessed, or affected to lay stress upon the purely literary side of this book. He talked perfectly simply and openly, and even vehemently and passionately; he was intent on far higher objects than colloquial success; and we cannot, moreover, be sure of the perfect discretion and competency of the recorders. Nevertheless we venture to think that his Table-Talk gives a fair specimen of the force of his intellect, as it unquestionably represents the tone of his character. A picturesque power of illustration is one of its qualities:

These are, to borrow a figure from a well-known medieval art, illuminated thoughts. To call the faculty a mere talent for illustration, would be to speak coldly and inadequately. He coloured his conceptions with these various hues, because he had a heart which felt sympathy with all created beauty, and which indissolubly associated moral with human and physical truths.

Just about the time that Luther's TableTalk appeared, namely, in 1566, JOSEPH SCALIGER was in the prime of his youth, twenty-six years of age,,and, we suppose, uttering SCALIGERANA' every day. Joseph was on his travels then. We know that he was in Scotland soon after the slaughter of Rizzio, which happened on 9th March of that year; for he tells us so himself,*When I was there she was on bad terms with her husband on account of the death of this David,' and he adds, emphatically, 'She was a beautiful creature!' This is a distinct, historic, impartial testimony to Mary's beauty, and just one of those little facts the preservation of which is a valu able part of books of Table-Talk.

We should like to indulge in a reverie about Joseph Scaliger's stay at Edin

* Strange to say, this has escaped his elegant biographer, M. Nisard, who speaks of his travel'Luther, taking up a caterpillar, said, 'Tis an ling in Scotland as rumoured only.