MANURES. 89 



vantage as to vigor or beauty ; and even on the 

 leaf the effect is transitory. 



Nor in the guano of animal iniphime — not 

 in the soil called night. The Romans reverenced 

 Cloacina, the goddess of the sewers, and the 

 statue which they found of her in the great 

 drains of Tarquinius was beautiful as Venus's 

 self; but they honored her, doubtless, only as a 

 wise sanatory commissioner who removed their 

 impurities, and, so doing, brought health to their 

 heroes and loveliness to their maidens. They 

 only knew half her merits ; but in Olympus, v/e 

 may readily believe, there was fuller justice done. 

 Although weaker goddesses may have been un- 

 kind — may have averted their divine noses when 

 Cloacina passed, and made ostentatious use of 

 scent-bottle and pocket-handkerchief — Flora, and 

 Pomona, and Ceres would ever admire her virtues, 

 and beseech her benign influence upon the garden, 

 the orchard, and the farm. But the terrestrials never 

 thought that f(2x tcrbis might be lux orbis, and 

 they polluted their rivers, as we ours, with that 

 which should have fertilized their lands. And we 

 blame the Romans very much indeed ; and we 

 blame everybody else very much indeed ; and we 

 do hope the time will soon be here when such a 

 sinful waste will no longer disgrace an enlightened 



