This is good; but even "English readers" may know that A, B, C, is not the right name of the Greek alphabet. Let us respectfully propose a slight change:

Cadmus am I then grudge me not the boast, that, though I am a Phoenician born, I taught you Greeks your Alpha, Beta, Gamma.

The medical profession as usual comes in for some of those touches which we are ready enough to give or to enjoy when we are not actually in their hands.

A CONVENIENT PARTNERSHIP.

(Anonymous.)

Damon, who plied the Undertaker's trade,
With Doctor Crateas an agreement made.

What linens Damon from the dead could seize,

He to the doctor sent for bandages;

While the good Doctor, here no promise breaker,
Sent all his patients to the Undertaker.

GRAMMAR AND MEDICINE.

(By Agathias.)

A thriving doctor sent his son to school

To gain some knowledge, should he prove no fool;
But took him soon away with little warning,
On finding out the lesson he was learning-
How great Pelides' wrath, in Homer's rhyme,
Sent many souls to Hades ere their time.
"No need for this my boy should hither come;
That lesson he can better learn at home-

For I myself, now, I make bold to say,

Send many souls to Hades ere their day,

Nor e'er find want of Grammar stop my way."

Musical attempts, when unsuccessful, are a fruitful and fair subject of ridicule. The following is by Nicarchus :

Men die when the night raven sings or cries:
But when Dick sings, e'en the night raven dies.

COMPENSATION.

(By Leonidas.)

The harper Simylus, the whole night through,
Harped till his music all the neighbors slew:
All but deaf Origen, for whose dull ears
Nature atoned by giving length of years.

THE MUSICAL DOCTOR.

(By Ammianus: the translation altered from Wellesley.)

Nicias, a doctor and musician,
Lies under very foul suspicion.
He sings, and without any shame

He murders all the finest music:
Does he prescribe ? our fate's the same,
If he shall e'er find me or you sick.

Unsuccessful painters, too, are sneered at.

Lucilius:

This is by

Eutychus many portraits made, and many sons begot;
But, strange to say! none ever saw a likeness in the lot.

Compliments to the fair sex are often paid by the epigrammatists in a manner at once witty and graceful.

We have seen how Sappho was described as a tenth Muse ; but this epigram by an unknown author goes further. The translation is old and anonymous, though borrowed apparently from one by Swift, on which it has improved. It has been slightly altered:

The world must now two Venuses adore;
Ten are the Muses, and the Graces four.
Such Dora's wit, so fair her form and face,

She's a new Muse, a Venus, and a Grace.

We find an adaptation of this to an accomplished Cornish lady, in an old magazine:

Now the Graces are four and the Venuses two,

And ten is the number of Muses;

For a Muse and a Grace and a Venus are you,
My dear little Molly Trefusis.

Finally, we have another edition of this idea with a bit of satire at the end, which has been maliciously added by the translator:

Of Graces four, of Muses ten,

Of Venuses now two are seen;
Doris shines forth to dazzled men,

A Grace, a Muse, and Beauty's Queen;-
But let me whisper one thing more;

The Furies now are likewise four.

The faults and foibles of women, springing often so naturally from their innate wish to please, have not escaped such of the epigrammatists as were inclined to satire, and some of them are bitter enough. The first we give must have been occasioned by some irritating disappointment, or have sprung from an unworthy opinion of the sex. It is by our friend Palladas:

All wives are plagues; yet two blest times have they, —
Their bridal first, and then their burial day.

The others we give are less sweeping, and more directed against individual failings, particularly the desire to appear more beautiful or more youthful than the facts warranted. This is by Lucilius:

Some people say you dye them black;

But that's a libel, I can swear,

For I know where you buy them black.

Our next deals with a very systematic dyer and getter-up of artificial juvenility, who seems to have been her own Madame Rachel. The Greek is Lucian's, and the translation by Merivale. There is also one by Cowper, which will be found among

his works:

Yes, you may dye your hair, but not your age,
Nor smooth, alas! the wrinkles of your face:
Yes, you may varnish o'er the telltale page,
And wear a mask for every vanished grace.

But there's an end. No Hecuba, by aid
Of rouge and ceruse, is a Helen made."

The inactive habits of most of the Greek women are thought to have created a temptation to the use of these artificial modes of heightening the complexion, which would have been better

effected by the natural pigments laid on by fresh air and exercise.

This is by Nicarchus, upon an old woman wishing to be married at rather an advanced period of life:

Niconoè has doubtless reached her prime:

Yes, for she did so in Deucalion's time.

We don't know as to that, but think her doom

Less fitted for a husband than a tomb.

This also is upon an old, or at least a plain woman, by Lucilius:

Gellia, your mirror's false; you could not bear,

If it were true, to see your image there.

ON A WOMAN SCORNFUL IN YOUTH PLAYING THE Coquette when

OLD.

(By Rufinus.)

You now salute me graciously, when gone

Your beauty's power, that once like marble shone;
You now look sweet, though forced to hide away
Those locks that o'er your proud neck used to stray.
Vain are your arts: your faded charms I scorn;
The rose now past, I care not for the thorn.

UPON A LADY'S COY, RELUCTANT, "UNAMOROUS" DELAY.

(By Rufinus.)

How long, hard Prodicè, am I to kneel,

And pray and whine, to move that breast of steel?

You e'en are getting gray, as much as I am;

We soon shall be-just Hecuba and Priam.

Deafness is an infirmity which is a proper object, not of ridicule, but of pity; but then the deaf person should not pretend to hear when he or she cannot, as was the case with the old lady now to be noticed:

ON A DEAF HOUSEKEEPER.

(Paraphrased.)

Of all life's plagues I recommend to no man

To hire as a domestic a deaf woman.

I've got one who my orders does not hear,
Mishears them rather, and keeps blundering near.
Thirsty and hot, I asked her for a drink;

She bustled out, and brought me back some ink.
Eating a good rump steak, I called for mustard;
Away she went, and whipped me up a custard.
I wanted with my chicken to have ham;
Blundering once more, she brought a pot of jam.
I wished in season for a cut of salmon,

And what she bought me was a huge fat gammon.
I can't my voice raise higher and still higher,
As if I were a herald or town-crier.

"Twould better be if she were deaf outright;
But anyhow she quits my house this night.

Those ladies generally, of course, such as were advanced in life who unblushingly betook themselves to the bottle, are an inevitable subject of satire. It has already been mentioned that even men were considered intemperate who drank wine without a large admixture of water; but apparently the female topers, having once broken bounds, took their wine unmixed.

EPITAPH ON MARONIS.

This rudely sculptured Cup will show
Where gray Maronis lies below.

She talked, and drank strong unmixed stuff,
Both of them more than quantum suff.

She does not for her children grieve,

Nor their poor father grudge to leave;

It only vexes her to think

This drinking cup's not filled with drink.

The last couplet might be more literally translated thus:

But in the grave she scarcely can lie still,

To think, what Bacchus owns, she can't with Bacchus fill.

Love is sometimes treated of in a vein of pleasantry, very different from the deep and impassioned tone in which it is exhibited in more serious compositions. Take some examples :