let us have the song I composed the other night; it has a verse on this subject, The Bacchic Hymn of the Hours." "

The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionic air, while the youngest voices in the band chanted forth in Greek words, as numbers, the following strain:

THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS.

I

Through the summer day, through the weary day,
We have glided long;

Ere we speed to the night through her portals gray,
Hail us with song !

With song, with song,

With a bright and joyous song,
Such as the Cretan maid,

While the twilight made her bolder,
Woke, high through the ivy shade,

When the wine-god first consoled her.
From the hush'd low-breathing skies,
Half-shut, look'd their starry eyes,
And all around,

With a loving sound,

The Egean waves were creeping,
On her lap lay the lynx's head;
Wild thyme was her bridal bed;
And aye through each tiny space,
In the green vine's green embrace,
The fauns were slyly peeping;—
The fauns, the prying fauns-
The arch, the laughing fauns-
The fauns were slyly peeping!

II.

Flagging and faint are we

With our ceaseless flight,
And dull shall our journey be
Through the realm of night.

Bathe us, O bathe our weary wings,
In the purple wave, as it freshly spring

To your cups from the fount of light-
From the fount of light-from the fount of light:
For there, when the sun has gone down in night,
There in the bowl we find him.

The grape is the well of that summer sun,
Or rather the stream that he gazed upon,
Till he left in truth, like the Thespian youth,*
His soul as he gazed, behind him.

III.

A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love,

And a cup to the son of Maia,

And honour with three, the band zone-free,
The band of the bright Aglaia.

But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure
Ye owe to the sister Hours,

No stinted cups in a formal measure,

The Bromian law make ours.

He honours us most who gives us most,

And boasts with a Bacchanal's honest boast
He never will count the treasure.

*Narcissus.

Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings,

And plunge us deep in the sparkling springs;
And aye, as we rise with a dripping plume,
We'll scatter the spray round the garland's bloom.
We glow-we glow.

Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave

Bore once with a shout to their crystal cave
The prize of the Mysian Hylas,

Even so-even so,

We have caught the young god in our warm embrace,
We hurry him on in our laughing race;

We hurry him on, with a whoop and song,
The cloudy rivers of Night along-

Ho, ho!-we have caught thee, Psilas!

The guests applauded loudly: when the poet is your host, his verses are sure to charm.

"Thoroughly Greek," said Lepidus: "the wildness, force, and energy of that tongue it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry."

not in

"It is indeed a great contrast," said Clodius, ironically at heart, though <6 appearance, 'to the old-fashioned and tame simplicity of that ode of Horace which we heard before. The air is beautifully Ionic: the word puts me in mind of a toast Companions, I give you the beautiful Ione." "Ione-the name is Greek," said Glaucus, in a soft voice, "I drink the health with delight. But who is Ione?"

"Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would deserve ostracism for your ignorance" said Lepidus, conceitedly; not to know Ione is not to know the chief charm of our city."

"She is of most rare beauty," said Pansa; "and what a voice!" "She can feed only on nightingales' tongues," said Clodius.

"Nightingales' tongues!-beautiful thought," sighed the umbra. 'Enlighten me, I beseech you," said Glaucus..

"Know then," began Lepidus

'Let me speak," cried Clodius; "you drawl out your words as if you spoke tortoises."

And you speak stones," muttered the coxcomb to himself, as he fell back disdainfully on his couch.

"Know then, my Glaucus," said Clodius, "that Ione is a stranger, who has but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like Sappho, and her songs are her own composing; and as for the tibia, and the cithara, and the lyre, I know not in which she most outdoes the Muses. Her beauty is most dazzling. Her house is perfect; such taste-such gems-such bronzes! She is rich, and generous as she is rich."

"Her lovers, of course," said Glaucus, "take care that she does not starve; and money lightly won is always lavishly spent."

"Her lovers--ah, there is the enigma! Ione has but one vice - she is chaste. She has all Pompeii at her feet, and she has no lovers: she will not even marry."

وو

"No lovers!" echoed Glaucus.

"No;

she has the soul of Vesta, with the girdle of Venus." "What refined expressions !" said the umbra.

"A miracle!" cried Glaucus.

"Can we not see her?"

"I will take you there this evening," said Clodius; "meanwhile," added he, once more rattling the dice

"I am yours!" said the complaisant Glaucus. "Pansa, turn your face!" Lepidus and Sallust played at odd and even, and the umbra looked on, while Glaucus and Clodius became gradually absorbed in the chances of

the dice.

"Per Jove!" cried Glaucus, "this is the second time I have thrown the canicula" (the lowest throw).

"Now Venus befriend me!" said Clodius, rattling the box for several moments, "O Alma Venus-it is Venus herself!" as he threw the highest cast named from that goddess, — whom he who wins money indeed usually propitiates!

Venus is ungrateful to me," said Glaucus, gayly; "I have always sacrificed on her altar."

"He who plays with Clodius," whispered Lepidus, "will soon, like Plautus's Curculio, put his pallium for the stakes."

"Poor Glaucus-he is as blind as Fortune herself," replied Sallust, in the same tone.

"I will play no more," said Glaucus. "I have lost thirty sestertia." "I am sorry," began Clodius.

"Amiable man!" groaned the umbra.

"Not at all!" exclaimed Glaucus; "the pleasure of your gain compensates the pain of my loss."

The conversation now became general and animated; the wine circulated more freely; and Ione once more became the subject of eulogy to the guests of Glaucus.

"Instead of outwatching the star, let us visit one at whose beauty the stars grow pale," said Lepidus.

Clodius, who saw no chance of renewing the dice, seconded the pro posal; and Glaucus, though he civilly pressed his guests to continue the banquet, could not but let them see that his curiosity had been excited by the praises of Ione; they therefore resolved to adjourn (all at least but Pansa and the umbra) to the house of the fair Greek. They drank, there fore, to the health of Glaucus and of Titus- they performed their last libation they resumed their slippers - they descended the stairs-passed the illumined atrium-and walking unbitten over the fierce dog painted on the threshold, found themselves beneath the light of the moon just risen, in the lively and still crowded streets of Pompeii. They passed the jew ellers' quarter, sparkling with lights, caught and reflected by the gems dis played in the shops, and arrived at last at the door of Ione. The vestibule blazed with rows of lamps; curtains of embroidered purple hung on either aperture of the tablinum, whose walls and mosaic pavement glowed with the richest colours of the artist; and under the portico which surrounded the odorous viridarium, they found Ione already surrounded by adoring and app lauding guests.

"Did you say she was Athenian?" whispered Glaucus, ere he passed into the peristyle.

"No, she is from Neapolis."

"Neapolis!" echoed Glaucus; and at that moment, the group dividing on either side of Ione gave to his view that bright, that nymph-like beauty which for months had shone down upon the waters of his memory.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TEMPLE OF ISIS-ITS PRIEST THE CHARACTER OF ARBACES DEVELOPS ITSELF.

THE story returns to the Egyptian. We left Arbaces upon the shores of the noon-day sea, after he had parted from Glaucus and his companions. As he approached to the more crowded part of the bay, he paused and

gazed upon that animated scene with folded arms, and a bitter smile upon his dark features.

"Gulls, dupes, fools that ye are!" muttered he to himself; "whether business or pleasure, trade or religion be your pursuit, you are equally cheated by the passions that ye should rule! How I could loathe you, if I did not hate-yes, hate! -Greek or Roman, it is from us, from the dark lore of Egypt, that ye have stolen the fire that gives you souls-your knowledge-your poesy-your laws-your arts--your barbarous mastery of war (all how tame and mutilated, when compared with the vast original!) -ye have fi'ched, as a slave filches the fragments of the feast, from us! And now, ye nu.ics of a mimic, - Romans forsooth! the mushroom herd of robbers! ye are our masters! the Pyramids look down no more on the race of Rameses the eagle cowers over the serpent of the Nile. Our masters-no, not mine! My soul, by the power of its wisdom, controls and chains you, though the fetters are unseen. So long as craft can master force, so long as religion has a cave from which oracles can dupe mankind, the wise hold an empire over earth. Even from your vices Arbaces distils his pleasures; pleasures unprofaned by vulgar eyes-pleasures vast, wealthy, inexhaustible, of which your enervate minds, in their unimaginative sensuality, cannot conceive or dream. Plod on, plod on, fools of ambition and of avarice! your petty thirst for fasces and questorships, and all the mummery of servile power, provokes my laughter and my scorn. My power can extend wherever man believes. I ride over the souls that the purple veils. Thebes may fall, Egypt be a name; the world itself furnishes the subjects of Arbaces."

Thus saying, the Egyptian moved slowly on; and, entering the town, his tall figure towered above the crowded throng of the forum, and swept towards the small but graceful temple consecrated to Isis. (d)

That edifice was then but of recent erection; the ancient temple had been thrown down in the earthquake sixteen years before, and the new

(d)" The small but graceful temple consecrated to Isis."

In the

Sylla is said to have transported to Italy the worship of the Egyptian Isis.* It soon became "the rage," and was peculiarly in vogue with the Roman ladies. Its priest hood were sworn to chastity, and, like all such brotherhoods, were noted for their licentiousness. Juvenal styles the priestesses by a name (Isiacæ lena) that denotes how convenient they were to lovers; and under the mantle of night many an amorous intrigue was carried on in the purlieus of the sacred temples. A lady vowed for so many nights to watch by the shrine of Isis; it was a sacrifice of continence towards her husband, to be bestowed on her lover! While one passion of human nature was thus appealed to, another scarcely less strong was also pressed into the service of the goddess namely, credulity. The priests of Isis arrogated a knowledge of magic and of the future. Among women of all classes, and among many of the hardier sex, the Egyptian sorceries were consulted and revered as oracles. Voltaire, with much plausible ingenuity, endeavours to prove that the gipsies are a remnant of the ancient priest and priestesses of Isis, intermixed with those of the goddess of Syria. time of Apuleius these holy impostors had lost their dignity and importance; despised and poor, they wandered from place to place, selling prophecies and curing disorders; and Voltaire shrewdly bids us remark, that Apuleius has not forgot their peculiar skill in filching from out-houses and court-yards; after they practised palmistry and singular dances (query, the Bohemian dances?) "Such," says the too conclusive Frenchman, "has been the end of the ancient religion of Isis and Osiris, whose very names still impress us with awe," At the time in which my story is cast, the worship of Isis was, however, in the highest repute; and the wealthy devotees sent even to the Nile, that they might sprinkle its mysterious waters over the altars of the goddess. I have introduced the ibis, in the sketch of the temple of Isis, although it has been supposed that that bird languished and died when taken from Egypt. But from various reasons, too long now to enumerate, I believe that the ibis was by no means unfrequent in the Italian temples of Isis, though it rarely lived long, and refused to breed in a foreign climate.

In the Campanian cities, the trade with Alexandria was probably more efficaciou than the piety of Sylla (no very popular example perhaps) in establishing the wohi · if the favourite deity of Egypt.

building had become as much in vogue with the versatile Pompeians as a new church or a new preacher may be with us. The oracles of the goddess at Pompeii were indeed remarkable not more for the mysterious language in which they were clothed, than for the credit which was attached to their mandates and predictions. If they were not dictated by a divinity, they were framed at least by a profound knowledge of mankind; they applied ́themselves exactly to the circumstances of individuals, and made a notable contrast to the vague and loose generalities of their rival temples. As Arbaces now arrived at the rails which separated the profane rom the sacred place, a crowd, composed of all classes, but especially of the commercial, collected, breathless and reverential, before the many altars which rose in the open court. In the walls of the cella, elevated on seven steps of Parian marble, various statues stood in niches, and those walls were ornamented with the pomegranate consecrated to Isis. An oblong pedestal occupied the interior building, on which stood two statues, one of Isis, and its companion represented the silent and mystic Orus. But the building contained many other deities to grace the court of the Egyptian deity: her kindred and many-titled Bacchus, and the Cyprian Venus, a Grecian disguise for herself, rising from her bath, and the dog-headed Anubis, and the ox Apis, and various Egyptian idols of uncouth form and unknown appellations.

But we must not suppose that among the cities of Magna Græcia, Isis was worshipped with those forms and ceremonies which were of right her own. The mongrel and modern nations of the south, with a mingled arrogance and ignorance, confounded the worships of all climes and ages; and the profound mysteries of the Nile were degraded by a hundred meretricious and frivolous admixtures from the creeds of Cephisus and of Tibur. The temple of Isis in Pompeii was served by Roman and Greek priests, ignorant alike of the language and the customs of her ancient votaries; and the descendant of the dread Egyptian kings, beneath the appearance of reverential awe, now secretly laughed to scorn the puny mummeries which imitated the solemn and typical worship of his burning clime.

Ranged now on either side the steps was the sacrificial crowd, arrayed in white garments, while at the summit stood two of the inferior priests, the one holding a palm-branch, the other a slender sheaf of corn. In the narTow passage in front thronged the bystanders.

"And what," whispered Arbaces to one of the bystanders, who was a merchant engaged in the Alexandrian trade, which trade had probably first introduced in Pompeii the worship of the Egyptian goddess—“what occasion now assembles you before the altars of the venerable Isis? It seems, by the white robes of the group before me, that a sacrifice is to be rendered, and by the assembly of the priests, that ye are prepared for some oracle. To what question is it to vouchsafe a reply ?"

"We are merchants," replied the bystander (who was no other than Diomed,) in the same voice, "who seek to know the fate of our vessels, which sail for Alexandria to-morrow. We are about to offer up a sacrifice, and implore an answer from the goddess. I am not one of those who have petitioned the priest to sacrifice, as you may see by my dress, but I have some interest in the success of the fleet: -per Jove! yes. I have a pretty trade, else how could I live in these hard times?"

-

The Egyptian replied gravely, "that though Isis was properly the goddess of agriculture, she was no less the patron of commerce." Then turning his head towards the east, Arbaces seemed absorbed in silent prayer.

And now in the centre of the steps appeared a priest robed in white from head to foot, the veil parting over the crown: two new priests relieved those hitherto stationed at either corner, being naked half-way down the breast, and covered, for the rest, in white and loose robes. At the same time.