1826.] A Wyhehamite i Revenge against Adams's Antiquities. 145 



Unfortunately this youth's talent for vehicular investigation was, 

 through a spirit of jealousy or bigotted ignorance, checked with birchen 

 activity by the pedants of that time and place. And yet what could be 

 more natural than that Caesar, a general on active service, should take 

 the mail as the cheapest and the quickest mode of going safely to Gaul ? 



It would, perhaps, have been beneath Caesar to have gone to Ostia 

 in the basket of a safety coach. But we may appeal to every unpreju- 

 diced person whether Caesar, a man so famed for his combined expe- 

 dition and prudence, would have missed the opportunity of going a 

 thousand miles by the mail, when, as being on the public service, he 

 would be carried for nothing. 



But the remembrance of our Etonian predecessor in boohing Caesar, 

 being paradoxically ^oo-gerf for his diligence (a catastrophe fully authen- 

 ticated by Mr. Joseph Miller), suddenly reminds the writers of this 

 able article of the chance of magisterial eyes, whose inspection is mys- 

 teriously intimated to the guilty, by the awful breathing behind being 

 thrown over this contraband employment of toy-time (not, alas ! a time 

 destined to the toys of childhood, or the tcying of youth). Had he not, 

 perhaps, better own that he has not been translating with the same 

 seriousness as the learned Etonian ? and to extenuate this contraband 

 employment of evening hours ('■'■ un delit contre les droits de gabelle" ) ; a 

 judge loves good well enough to tolerate bad jokes, by owning that he 

 has attempted to ridicule that thirst of notoriety which prompts unre- 

 sisted critics to torture a defenceless passage into shapes and meanings 

 the most unmerited, estimating the intrepidity of their attacks by the 

 violence which they do the author, and the success of their efforts by 

 the distance which they establish between the new reading and the 

 received opinion ? 



THE OPENING SPEECH IN ATHALIE. 



Ahner. — I come to worship the eternal God, 

 And in his holy temple celebrate 

 The awful day when, from Mount Sinai's height. 

 The everlasting law in thunder spake. 

 How changed the times ! — In days of glory past. 

 Soon as the sacred trumpet's welcome sound 

 Announced the holy festival begun. 

 Then through the gorgeous temple's opened gates 

 Poured with their offerings countless multitudes; 

 And all in order at the holy altar 

 Gave with glad hearts the first-fruits of their fields, 

 A grateful sacrifice to nature's God ; 

 While scarcely could the numerous priests receive 

 The rich oblations lavishly bestowed. 

 An impious woman's ill directed power. 

 With darkness has obscured these glorious days. 

 And few are now the trembling worshippers 

 Who dare retrace the image of the past : 

 The rest forgetful of their God remain. 

 Or boldly impious bow the knee to Baal, 

 And, sharing in his mysteries of guilt, 

 Blaspheme the name their forefathers invoked. 



L.P. 



M. M. Nm Series. ^Yoi.. I, Ny.2. U 



