to inspire anything but confidence. His only consolation was that they had been introduced by Pomponius, through whose exertions he hoped possibly to obtain their silence; for Gallus still firmly believed in the sincerity of his friendship, and paid no attention even to a discovery which his slaves professed to have made on the way homeward. It was as follows: His road, in returning from the mansion of Lentulus, passed not far from that of Largus; and the slaves who preceded him with the lantern had seen three men, resembling very much Pomponius and the two Perusians, approach the house. One of them struck the door with the metal knocker, and they were all immediately admitted by the ostiarius. Gallus certainly thought so late a visit strange; but, as it was no uncommon thing for Largus to break far into the night with wine and play, he persuaded himself that it must be some acquaintances who had called upon him on their return from an earlier party.

At last the drowsy god had steeped him in a beneficial oblivion of these cares, and although the sun was by this time high in the heavens, yet Chresimus was carefully watching lest any noise in the vicinity of his bed-chamber should abridge the moments of his master's repose. The old man wandered about the house uneasily, and appeared to be impatiently waiting for something. In the atrium he was met by Leonidas, approaching from the door.

"Well, no messenger yet?" he hastily inquired of him. "None," replied the vicarius.

"And no intelligence in the house?" Chresimus again asked.

"None since his departure," was the answer. He shook his head, and proceeded to the atrium, where a loud knocking at the door was heard. The ostiarius opened it. It was an express with a letter from Lycoris.

"At last," cried Chresimus, as he took the letter from the tabellarius.

"My lady," said the messenger, "enjoined me to make all possible haste, and bade me give the letter only to yourself or your lord. Present it to him directly."

"Your admonition is not wanted," replied Chresimus: "I have been long expecting your arrival."

The faithful servant had indeed anxiously expected the letter. Although Gallus had strictly forbidden him from

letting the cause of his departure from the villa become known, yet Chresimus believed that he should be rendering him an important service by acquainting Lycoris with the unfortunate occurrence. She had at Baiæ only half broken to him the secret, which confirmed but too well his opinion of Pomponius. He had therefore urged her not to lose a moment in making Gallus acquainted, at whatever sacrifice to herself, with the danger that was threatening him, and immediately return herself, in order to render lasting the first impression caused by her avowal. He now hastened toward the apartment in which his master was still sleeping, cautiously fitted the three-toothed key into the opening of the door, and drew back the bolts by which it was fastened.

Gallus, awakened by the noise, sprang up from his couch. "What do you bring?" cried he to the domestic, who had pushed aside the tapestry and entered.

"A letter from Lycoris," said the old man, "just brought by a courier. He urged me to deliver it immediately, and so I was forced to disturb you."

Gallus hastily seized the tablets. They were not of the usual small and neat shape which afforded room for a few tender words only, but from their size they evidently inclosed a large epistle. "Doubtless," said he, as he cut the threads with a knife which Chresimus had presented to him, "doubtless the poor girl has been terrified by some unfavorable reports about me.

He read the contents, and turned pale. With the anxiety of a fond heart, she accused herself as the cause of what had befallen her lover, and disclosed to him the secret which must enlighten him on the danger that threatened him from Pomponius. Without sparing herself, she alluded to her former connection with the traitor, narrated the occurrences of that evening, his attempt to deceive her, and his villainous threats. She conjured Gallus to take, with prudence and resolution, such steps as were calculated to render harmless the intrigues of his most dangerous enemy. She would herself arrive, she added, soon after he received the letter, in order to beg pardon with her own mouth for what had taken place.

There stood the undeceived Gallus in deep emotion. "Read," said he, handing the letter to the faithful freedman, who shared all his secrets.

Chresimus took it, and read just what he had expected.

"I was not deceived," said he, "and thank Lycoris for clearly disclosing to you, although late, the net they would draw around you. Now hasten to Cæsar with such proofs of treachery in your hand, and expose to him the plot which they have formed against you. Haply the gods may grant that the storm which threatens to wreck the ship of your prosperity may yet subside."

"I fear it is too late," replied his master, "but I will speak with Pomponius. He must know that I see through him; perchance he will not then venture to divulge what, once published, must be succeeded by inevitable ruin. Dispatch some slaves immediately to his house, to the forum, and to the tabernæ, where he is generally to be met with at this hour. He must have no idea that I have heard from Lycoris. They need only say that I particularly beg he will call upon me as soon as possible."

Chresimus hastened to fulfill the commands of his lord. The slaves went and returned without having found Pomponius. The porter at his lodgings had answered that his master had set out early in the morning on a journey; but one of the slaves fancied that he had caught a glimpse of him in the carinæ, although he withdrew so speedily that he had not time to overtake him. At last, Leonidas returned from the forum ; he had been equally unsuccessful in his search, but brought other important intelligence, communicated to him by a friend of his master. "An obscure report," said this man, "is going about the forum, that Largus had, in the assembled senate, accused Gallus of high treason, and of plotting the murder of the emperor; that two strangers had been brought into the curia as witnesses, and that Augustus had committed to the senate the punishment of the outrage."

The intelligence was but too well founded. In order to anticipate any steps that Gallus might take for his security, Pomponius had announced to Largus, on the very night of the supper with Lentulus, that his artifice had met with complete success. At daybreak Largus repaired to the imperial palace, and portrayed in glaring colors the treasonable designs which Gallus, when in his cups, had divulged. Undecided as to how he should act, yet solicitous for his own safety, Augustus had referred the matter to the decision of the senate, most of the members of which were far from displeased at the charge. It is true that many voices were raised, demanding

that the accused should not at least be condemned unheard: but they availed nothing against the louder clamor of those who declared that there were already previous charges sufficient to justify extreme severity; and that they themselves. should be guilty of high treason did they, by delay or forbearance, expose the life of Cæsar and the welfare of the republic to danger. The result of the debate was a decree, by which Gallus was banished to an inhospitable country on the Pontus Euxinus, and his property confiscated to the emperor. He was also ordered to leave Rome on the following morning, and Italy within ten days.

At the seventh hour Calpurnius rushed into the house of Gallus bringing confirmation of the dread decree, and was soon followed by others from all quarters. Gallus received the news, which cleared up the last doubts concerning his fate, with visible grief but manly composure. He thanked his friend for his sympathy, warning him at the same time to be more cautious on his own account for the future. He then requested him to withdraw, ordered Chresimus to bring his double tablets, and delivered to him money and jewels to be saved for Lycoris and himself. Having pressed the hand of the veteran, who wept aloud, he demanded to be left alone. The domestic loitered for a while, and then retired full of the worst forebodings.

Gallus fastened the door, and for greater security placed the wooden bar across it. He then wrote a few words to Augustus, begging him to give their freedom to the faithful servants who had been in most direct attendance upon him. Words of farewell to Lycoris filled the other tablets. After this, he reached from the wall the sword, to the victories achieved by which he owed his fatal greatness, struck it deep into his breast, and as he fell upon the couch, dyed yet more strongly the purple coverlet with the streams of his blood.

The lictor, sent to announce to him the sentence of banishment, arrived too late. Chresimus had already, with faithful hand, closed the eyes of his beloved master, and round the couch stood a troop of weeping slaves, uncertain of their future lot, and testifying by the loudness of their grief that a man of worth was dead.

LATIN POETIC RHYTHMS.

BY F. W. H. MYERS.

[FREDERICK W. H. MYERS: English essayist and poet; born February 6, 1843. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow. He published his charming poem "St. Paul" in 1867, "Renewal of Youth and Other Poems" in 1882. His "Essays Modern and Classical" came out in 1885; his "Science and a Future Life" in 1893. He has been greatly interested in the speculations regarding spiritualism, and is one of the honorable secretaries of the Society of Psychical Research. He is an inspector of schools, and resides in Cambridge.]

No words that men can any more set side by side can ever affect the mind again like some of the great passages of Homer. For in them it seems as if all that makes life precious were in the act of being created at once and together-language itself, and the first emotions, and the inconceivable charm of song. When we hear one single sentence of Anticleia's answer, as she begins

out' emeg' en megaroisin euskopos iocheaira·

what words can express the sense which we receive of an effortless and absolute sublimity, the feeling of morning freshness and elemental power, the delight which is to all other intellectual delights what youth is to all other joys? And what a language! which has written, as it were, of itself those last two words for the poet, which offers them as the fruit of its inmost structure and the bloom of its early day! Beside speech like this Virgil's seems elaborate, and Dante's crabbed, and Shakespeare's barbarous.

There never has been, there never will be, a language like the dead Greek. For Greek had all the merits of other tongues without their accompanying defects. It had the monumental weight and brevity of the Latin without its rigid unmanageability; the copiousness and flexibility of the German without its heavy commonness and guttural superfluity; the pellucidity of the French without its jejuneness; the force and reality of the English without its structureless comminution. But it was an instrument beyond the control of any but its creators. When the great days of Greece were past, it was the language which made speeches and wrote