[6]. A peasant, driving an ass, met Octavianus as he came out of his tent at daybreak; and being asked his name, he replied, “Eutyches”—And your ass’s name?—“Nicon.”
[7]. Childe Harold, ii. 45.
[8]. Irene, Act i. scene 1.
[9]. Leake’s Northern Greece, iv. 46.
[10]. Admiral Smyth, in his Cabinet of Roman Imperial Medals.
[11]. Iliad, ii. 739.
[12]. “An Old Contributor at the Sea-side,” Nos. CCCCLXXX. and CCCCLXXXI.
[13]. Here, by the way, let us cite in a foot-note a description of statuary from the Golden Ass of Apuleius. It illustrates the mode of regarding sculpture in a very realistic period. It is a description of the entrance-hall to Byrrhœna’s house. “Conversing in this way, we had proceeded but a few paces ere we arrived at Byrrhœna’s house. The hall was most beautiful, and had statues of the Goddess of Victory, raised on pillars which stood at the four corners. The wings of the figures were expanded; their dewy feet seemed to brush the surface of a rolling sphere, although it moved not; and they looked not as if they were attached to it, but hovered in the air. A statue of Diana, in Parian marble, occupied a level space in the middle of the enclosure. The figure was singularly beautiful: the garments of the goddess were blown back by the wind; she seemed in the act of running directly towards you as you entered, and awed you by the majesty of her godlike form. Dogs supported the goddess on either side, and these too were of marble. Their eyes were fierce and threatening, their ears erect, their nostrils open, their jaws agape to devour; and had any barking been heard in the neighbourhood, you would have thought it proceeded from their marble throats. A thing, also, in which the excellent sculptor had given proof of the most consummate art, was this, that the fore-feet of the dogs, uplifted to their chests, were in the act of running, while the hind feet pressed the ground. At the back of the goddess stood a rock wrought to resemble a grotto, overgrown with moss, grass, leaves, and brushwood, with vines and shrubs here and there; and the reflection of the statue gleamed from the polished marble within the grotto. Over the extreme edge of the rock hung apples and grapes, most exquisitely wrought, and in which art, rivalling nature, had so counterfeited their originals that you would have thought they might be gathered for eating, when fragrant autumn had breathed upon them the tints of maturity. And if, leaning forward, you had beheld the streamlets, which gently rippled as they ran beneath the feet of the goddess, you would have thought that, like clusters of grapes which hang from the vine, they too resembled real life in the faculty of motion.
[14]. It is curious to see the amount of fun which these writers extract from every little peculiarity of Cockney speech. There is an insane use of the relative pronoun, which is of immense service. We cannot remember a good quotation from the play-writers, but here is one from Thackeray:—
“Gallant gents and lovely ladies,