But God disposes.
David had left to-morrow's dangers for to-morrow to care for. It seemed to promise him that he must be in arms against Saul. But, unlike us in our eagerness to anticipate our conflicts of duty, David waited.
And the Lord delivered him. While they were singing by the brookside, the proud noblemen of the Philistine army had forced an interview with their king; and, in true native Philistine arrogance, insisted that "this Hebrew" and his men should be sent away.
With the light of morning the king sent for the minstrel, and courteously dismissed him, because "the princes of the Philistines have said, 'He shall not go up with us to the battle.'"
So David marched his men to Ziklag.
And David and Homer never met on earth again.
Note.—This will be a proper place to print the following note, which I was obliged to write to a second cousin of Miss Dryasdust after she had read the MS. of the article above:—
"Dear Madam:—I thank you for your kind suggestion, in returning my paper, that it involves a piece of impossible history. You inform me, that, 'according to the nomenclatured formulas and homophonic analogies of Professor Gouraud, of never-to-be-forgotten memory, "A Needle is less useful for curing a Deaf Head, than for putting ear-rings into a Miss's lily-ears"; and that this shows that the second king of Judah, named David (or Deaf-head) began to reign in 1055 B.C., and died 1040 B.C.'; and further, that, according to the same authority, 'Homer flourished when the Greeks were fond of his Poetry'; which, being interpreted, signifies that he flourished in 914 B.C., and, consequently, could have had no more to do with David than to plant ivy over his grave, in some of his voyages to Phœnicia.
"I thank you for the suggestion. I knew the unforgetting professor; and I do not doubt that he remembered David and Homer as his near friends. But, of course, to such a memory, a century or two might easily slip aside.
"Now, did you look up Clement? And did you not forget the Arundelian Marbles? For, if you will take the long estimates, you will find that some folks think Homer lived as long ago as the year 1150, and some that it was as 'short ago' as 850. And some set David as long ago as 1170, and some bring him down to a hundred and fifty years later. These are the long measures and the short measures. So the long and short of it is, that you can keep the two poets 320 years apart, while I have rather more than a century which I can select any night of, for a bivouac scene, in which to bring them together. Believe me, my dear Miss D., always yours, &c.
"Confess that you forgot the Arundelian Marbles!"
FOOTNOTES:
[1] After Chapman.
[2] After Cowper and Pope. Long after!