This dream of bliss maintain, prolong these happy hours,
O, all-enchanting wines! perfumed with flowers
Which Cos and Cyprus rear;
Let nothing ever change this soul-felt, rich delight;
For I would say, when parting for the realms of night,
I never knew a tear.
This sensual philosophy found numberless echoes in that vainglorious Rome, who exhausted her disdain, outrage, and punishments on the (so called) new fantastic folly that the Nazarenes were endeavouring to introduce. A few years more, and their doctrine will subjugate the universe!
Time passed rapidly, and the meats, divided into equal portions, were served to the guests, who frequently did not touch them, but gave their share to their servants, or sent it home.[XXXV_81]
So soon as the major-domo perceived that appetite began to flag, he ordered the whole to be cleared, and the dessert, spread on ivory tables,[XXXV_82] to be substituted for the more substantial comestibles, with which the guests were satiated.
Exquisite drinks, artificial wines, delicate and light aliments,[XXXV_83] still came to titillate the palate and the burthened stomach—pears, apples, walnuts, dried-figs, grapes;[XXXV_84] a thousand different kinds of raw, cooked, and preserved fruits; tarts, cakes, and those incredible delicacies which the Latins designated by the collective generic term bellaria, wooed the epicurean—if we may be allowed the expression—with their mild, material, dangerous, and irresistible eloquence.
Some one proposed to replace the half-faded flowers by Egyptian wreaths, and every brow was soon bound with garlands of roses and myrtle, interspersed with little birds, which, by their fluttering and chirping, soon restored the drowsy company to that animation which seemed to wane.[XXXV_85]
Then began the amusements of the evening.
A troop of strolling players were admired for their agility and suppleness. Some rolled round a cord like a wheel which turns on its axle; they hung by the neck, by one foot, and varied these perilous exercises in a thousand different ways. Others slid down a cord, lying on the stomach, with their arms and legs extended. Some revolved as they ran along a descending cord. Some, in a word, performed feats of strength and address on the horizontal rope which were truly incomprehensible, and at an elevation from the flooring which would have rendered a fall fatal.[XXXV_86]
To these acrobats succeeded prestigiators, who appeared to receive a peculiar degree of attention. One placed under cups a certain number of shells, dry peas, or little balls, and he caused them to disappear and re-appear at will.[XXXV_87] The spectators strained their eyes without being able to comprehend anything. Another of these mountebanks wrote or read very distinctly while whirling rapidly round.[XXXV_88] Some vomited flames from the mouth, or walked, head downwards, on their hands, and beat with their feet the movements of the most agile dancers.[XXXV_89] Then a woman appeared, holding in her hand twelve bronze hoops, with several little rings of the same metal, which rolled round them. She danced gracefully, throwing and successively catching the twelve hoops, without ever allowing any of the rings to fall.[XXXV_90] After that, another juggler rushed, with his breast uncovered, into the midst of a forest of naked swords. Every one thought him to be covered with wounds, but he re-appeared, with a smile on his countenance, whole and sound.[XXXV_91]
These feats were followed by an interlude, in which the parts were amusingly sustained by marionettes. The Greeks knew this childish pastime,[XXXV_92] and Rome did not disdain it.[XXXV_93] These little bronze and ivory figures[XXXV_94] played some comic scenes tolerably well, and obtained the applauses of grave senators, who more than once forgot their senility as they contemplated the grotesque pantomime.