Manning.
GREEK ANTHOLOGY.—No. IV.
Pray, accept a cold dish for a desert—a crab apple, as it were, and a glass of water, to wash down previous articles and assist digestion. I have purposely excluded all brightnesses; for temperance is the vogue, and after so diversified and incongruous a meal, the cracking of a joke might be as pernicious to your mind as the cracking of a bottle would be deleterious to your body. You may, if you choose, apply to me the Latin cant phrase, “ab ovo usque ad mala,” meaning by ‘mala,’ not ‘apples,’ but ‘evils;’ yet will I meet the thrust with calmness—proudly reflecting that I myself suggested the sarcastical equivoque.
Agathias’ narrative of the little ruse, whereby he tore the veil of feminine hypocrisy from the heart of his mistress. Let some of my condisciples improve upon the hint.
Eager to know my place in Cynthia’s heart,
I probed her hidden soul with cunning art.
“To a far land, my Cynthia, while I go,
Oh, let mine image to thy memory grow!”
Groaning she sprang in anguish from her chair,
Beat her fair face and tore her shining hair.