But, though Claret is pleasant to taste for the present, So to keep it all clever, and comfort your liver, When 't has sailed for the Indies, a cure for all wind 't is, And colic 't will put to the rout: All doctors declare a good glass of Madeira The best of all things for the gout. VI. Campanum! Campanum! quo gaudio lagenam Ad dominæ oculum, exhauriam poculum, Et si cum Bacchus urget, ad labia surgit, Then Champagne, dear Champagne, ah! how gladly I drain a To the eye of my charmer, to make my love warmer, If cool that love ever could be. I could toast her for ever, but never, oh never, Would I her dear name so profane; So, if e'er when I'm tipsy, it slips to my lips, I The second production may be found in Croker's Legends. We had intended to give some extracts from Maginn's prose works. But this our limits will not allow. Still we cannot avoid inserting the following, from "Daniel O'Rourke. " Now, you "At last, where should we come but to the moon itself. can't see it from here, but there is, or there was in my time, a handle sticking out from it like a reaping hook. So I sat down on the moon, and a mighty cold seat it was, I can tell you that. At last a door opened, and who should come out but the man in the moon himself. I knew him by his bush. 'How are you, this morning, Daniel O'Rourke,' says he. Pretty well, your honor,' says I. • How did you come here, Daniel,' says he. So I told him." The Doom of Mitylene.* CHAPTER I. It was sunset on the Ægean. A mild south wind wafted the perfume of the flowers and vineyards through the pillared portico of the most elegantly finished edifice in the suburbs of Mitylene. A young girl, beautiful even in that island so celebrated for the loveliness of its women, was carelessly touching her lyre in accompaniment to one of the spirit-stirring odes-breathing liberty in every line-of Alcæus. Sweetly the full rich tones floated on the soft evening air of that delicious clime, over that bright, tideless sea, falling, like the angel's song in the Christian's first dream of heaven, on the delighted ear of a finely formed young man of martial appearance, who was guiding a light bark to the beach below. Quietly fastening his little vessel, he silently approached and waited the conclusion of the song, as if unwilling to break the spell which melody had thrown over his senses. Wondrously like, that fair girl looked, (so thought the person now gazing admiringly upon her,) to the sculptured Psyche standing in a recess beyond, with her long locks of golden hair flowing unconfined, her head thrown back, her gently swelling throat, and her eye now soft and swimming as she sang of her wronged and enslaved fatherland, now bright and flashing as she sang of victory and her country's freedom. There was the same faultlessness of outline, and the same expression of spirituality which the sculptor had labored not unsuccessfully to delineate. "Most divinely sung, Oh! lovely Methene !" he exclaimed as she finished. "But it is time you were forgetting those sad strains which breathe of slavery and oppression: the time will soon come when Lesbos will be enslaved no longer, when the glad pæans of liberty will alone be sung in our free and happy island. By Hercules! that will be glorious! will it not, Methene? The mere anticipation of those days when we will be free from the oppression and extortions of the haughty Athenians fills my soul with gladness. You must forget the mournful lamentations of our patriot bard, and the soft love songs of the divine Sappho, and learn some triumphant hymn in honor of the free and brave." *In the year 427 B. C., "the Lesbians of Mitylene had revolted, and sought the assistance of the Peloponnesians; but the tardy and selfish policy of Lacedemon delayed the succors until the insurgents were forced to surrender at discretion. When the fate of Mitylene was discussed in the Athenian assembly, the populace, instigated by Cleon, a vulgar demagogue, decreed that the city should be destroyed, and the male inhabitants put to the sword. But night brought better counsels; a general feeling of pity and regret spread among the people; and on the following day the sanguinary decree was revoked, and a fast sailing vessel sent to prevent its execution. The messengers of mercy made such speed, that they entered the harbor of Mitylene a few hours after the preceding boat, and thus saved Lesbos from desolation."-Taylor's Manual of History. "What has happened, Arion ?" she asked, as he ceased. "Has the council determined to throw off the Athenian yoke and form an alliance with the Peloponnesians? But where did you come from so suddenly? You can not imagine how you startled me!" "Allured by the beautiful evening and this delightful breeze I have been out on the bright sea; dost not see my boat?" answered Arion, pointing to where it nestled like a white winged bird in the bay. "Yes," he continued in answer to her first question, "you conjecture aright. We have determined to be slaves no more; and Terpander and your own Arion leave our sweet island on the morrow as embassadors to Sparta. But come, will you not go out with me on the blue waters? I have much to say to you ere we part: we may be long separated, my beautiful one; and I love to listen to your voice as it mingles with the murmurs of the ocean. It is your eyes that I see in every twinkling star that dances in the waves-it is your breath that fills the air with perfumes." "You must not speak thus, Arion. You surely forget that flatteries are unwelcome to me. They say that the insincere alone make use of soft speeches." And saying this, Methene looked up into his face with a bright smile, which plainly declared that to her, as to every woman in every age, a lover's flatteries were never unwelcome. "But do you not fear," she continued as they descended together to the beach, "that the Lacedemonians may refuse to receive us into their alliance? If they should, you know, we will not be able to withstand the Athenian power alone, and Cleon who has such influence at Athens will do all that he can to destroy us utterly." "Never fear but that the Lacedemonians will receive us favorably. They know that if we throw off the yoke, the other islands will follow our example, and there is no more effectual method of weakening the power of Athens. But why do you speak of Cleon particularly? Has Mitylene any reason to fear his malice?" "You remember when Cleon was in Mitylene, two moons before the last vintage, he was frequently with my father Terpander, consulting about the political relations of Lesbos and Athens. I occasionally carried in fruit and wine for their refreshment; and sometimes Cleon, fatigued with public affairs, would come out into the porch and listen to my songs and lyre. When I was weary of singing, he would tell me of the glories of Athens, of the beauty of the Parthenon, of the Bema, of the Peiræus with its countless vessels from every land, and of the silver groves that skirt the Ilyssus. One evening after Cleon had been more than usually entertaining, while I was twining some of Chloris' choicest gifts in a garland for my favorite Psyche, the one you say resembles me so much, I noticed Terpander and Cleon speaking very earnestly though in a low tone. Cleon appeared to be warmly pressing some suit which Terpander seemed to receive rather coldly, and finally interrupted him by saying aloud that it was useless to speak of the matter farther; and as Cleon seemed about to reply, he angrily continued, that no plebeian should wed his daughter; that no tanner nor son of a tanner, should mingle his blood with the blood of the royal family of Lesbos. Many hot words followed and Cleon swore with an awful oath as he left the house, that Terpander and all Lesbos should rue the day when he had been so grossly insulted. Terpander laughed at it as the idle threat of a braggadocio and demagogue, but I felt an unaccountable gloom, and the same feeling of apprehension depresses me now in connection with the recollection of this circumstance." "You are needlessly timid, Methene," answered Arion; "neither Athens nor Cleon is able to injure us, even if we should be refused the Spartan alliance. But why is it that I heard nothing of this before?" "I asked Terpander not to mention it; and I did not think it of importance, besides I feared you might consider it vanity in me to mention it." "But do you not regret, Methene, that Terpander did not accept Cleon as your destined husband? You would then have been the wife of a celebrated and influential orator, in the most renowned and beautiful city on earth." "Oh! my father would not compel me to marry any one against my inclination, nor would I leave my own sweet Lesbos for all the glories of Athens. I had, moreover, an aversion to Cleon, and a partiality for Arion, which would forever have prevented me from complying willingly with any such arrangement." Thus answered Methene with a smile of beaming affection. A silent pressure of the soft white hand to his lips was Arion's only reply. And thus conversing, as lovers in all ages and all climes have ever and probably will ever converse, they glided on over that dark blue, waveless sea, beneath that deep blue, starlit sky, from which the moon, breaking through the light clouds floating athwart the serene heavens, shed that soft voluptuous light, so peculiar to the isles of Greece, conscious only of the smiles and brightness of love. Terpander, the father of Methene, was, as has been incidentally hinted, a descendant of the ancient kings of Lesbos, and the person of greatest wealth and influence in the island. Arion was an orphan, also descended from the ancient kings, whom Terpander had taken into his family and treated as his own son. Thus Arion and Methene had been thrown together from childhood. All their sports and amusements had been in common. When the glad songs of the vintagers resounded throughout the island, they had walked side by side to the vineyards, and Arion had always taken care that Methene's basket should be filled with the fullest, ripest clusters. Often, too, as they grew up, they wandered, in the soft twilight, to Sappho's rock. Methene would sing the unfortunate poetess' sweetest songs, and Arion would relate the sad story of her hapless love, occasionally kissing away the sympathetic tear that crept slowly down, as if loathe to leave Methene's damask cheek. "Nor stranger seemed, that hearts So gentle, so employed, should close in love, |