Where wine is not, no mirth the banquet knows:           Where wine is not, the dance all joyless goes.
          The man, oppressed with cares, who tastes the bowl,
          Shall shake the weight of sorrow from his soul.
 
     Bacchus, on the birth of the vine, predicting its benefits:
     in the twelfth book of the Dionysiaca of Nonnus.
The conversation at dinner turned on the occurrences of the morning and the phenomena² of electricity. The physician, who had been a traveller, related many anecdotes³ from his own observation: especially such as tended to show by similarity that the injury to Miss Gryll would not be of long duration. He had known, in similar cases, instances of apparent total paralysis⁴; but he had always found it temporary. Perhaps in a day or two, but at most in a very few days, it would certainly pass away. In the meantime, he recommended absolute repose⁵. Mr. Falconer entreated⁶ Mr. Gryll to consider the house as his own. Matters were arranged accordingly; and it was determined⁷ that the next morning a messenger should be despatched to Gryll Grange for a supply of apparel. The Rev⁸. Dr. Opimian, who was as fond as the Squire⁹ himself of the young lady, had been grievously discomposed by the accident of the morning, and felt that he should not thoroughly¹⁰ recover his serenity¹¹ till he could again see her in her proper character, the light and life of her society. He quoted Homer, Æschylus, Aristotle, Plutarch, Athenaeus, Horace, Persius, and Pliny, to show that all which is practically worth knowing on the subject of electricity had been known to the ancients. The electric telegraph he held to be a nuisance, as disarranging chronology, and giving only the heads of a chapter, of which the details lost their interest before they arrived, the heads of another chapter having intervened to destroy it. Then, what an amount of misery¹² it inflicted¹³, when, merely saying that there had been a great battle, and that thousands had been wounded or killed, it maintained an agony of suspense¹⁴ in all who had friends on the field, till the ordinary channels of intelligence brought the names of the suflferers. No Sicilian tyrant¹⁵ had invented such an engine of cruelty. This declamation¹⁶ against a supposed triumph of modern science, which was listened to with some surprise by the physician, and with great respect by his other auditors¹⁷, having somewhat soothed¹⁸ his troubled spirit, in conjunction with the physician's assurance, he propitiated¹⁹ his Genius by copious²⁰ libations of claret, pronouncing high panegyrics²¹ on the specimen²² before him, and interspersing²³ quotations²⁴ in praise of wine as the one great panacea²⁵ for the cares of this world.
 
A week passed away, and the convalescent had made good progress. Mr. Falconer had not yet seen his fair guest. Six of the sisters, one remaining with Miss Gryll, performed every evening, at the earnest request of Mr. Gryll, a great variety of music, but always ending with the hymn²⁶ to their master's saint. The old physician came once or twice, and stayed the night. The Reverend Doctor Opimian went home for his Sunday duties, but took too much interest in the fair Morgana not to return as soon as he could to the Tower. Arriving one morning in the first division of the day, and ascending²⁷ to the library, he found his young friend writing. He asked him if he were working on the Aristophanic comedy. Mr. Falconer said he got on best with that in the doctor's company. 'But I have been writing,' he said, 'on something connected with the Athenian drama. I have been writing a ballad²⁸ on the death of Philemon, as told by Suidas and Apuleius.' The doctor expressed a wish to hear it, and Mr. Falconer read it to him.
 
THE DEATH OF PHILEMON{1}
 
     1 Suidas: sub voce (Greek), Apuleius: Florid, 16.
 
          Closed was Philemon's hundredth year:
          The theatre was thronged²⁹ to hear
          His last completed play:
          In the mid³⁰ scene, a sudden rain
          Dispersed³¹ the crowd—to meet again
          On the succeeding day.
 
          He sought his home, and slept, and dreamed.
          Nine maidens³³ through his door, it seemed,
          Passed to the public street.
          He asked them, 'Why they left his home?'
          They said, 'A guest will hither come
          We must not stay to meet.'
 
          He called his boy with morning light,
          Told him the vision of the night,
          And bade his play be brought.
          His finished page again he scanned,
          Resting his head upon his hand,
          Absorbed in studious thought
          He knew not what the dream foreshowed:
          That nought³⁴ divine may hold abode³⁵
          Where death's dark shade is felt:
          And therefore were the Muses³⁶ nine
          Leaving the old poetic³⁷ shrine³⁸,
          Where they so long had dwelt.
 
         ............