398 PROSE HALIBUTICS. 



would as easily, and much more speedily, gnaw him to 

 the bones, than a colony of mice, with free access to a 

 cheese, will nibble and clear it to the rind ; and as the 

 device was inhuman, we need not stay to consider what 

 might be offered by counsel on the other side. Enter- 

 taining, as we hope we do, kindly and forbearing feelings 

 to our neighbour, it is far from our wish to see a return 

 of ante-abolition days, nor to have men and maids, what- 

 ever their misdeeds, thrown to mursense in a pond ; still, 

 it may be meekly wished that they would, and mildly 

 hinted that they should, learn to show a little more care 

 and precaution while fulfilling their responsible functions 

 in dining and drawing-room. Now, if anything could 

 awaken a proper consideration here, it ought to be, the 

 altered and ' inverted position' in which masters and me- 

 nials at present stand related. In these days of — ours, 

 we were going to phrase it, — ^but no, of theirs, since it is 

 their own will they follow, — the man has become master, 

 and the master the man. Well has each varlet got up his 

 Dean Swift,* and ripe proficients are they in the art of 

 mischief. The only resource, if there be any, lies in ex- 

 tensively pubhshing and circulating the story of Vedius 

 PoUio, for the use of the rising generation of Johns and 

 Annes-t The chief point to work would be the contrast 

 between an English servant and a Latin servus ; and 



* Swift's ' Hints to Servants,' wherein tLey are taught to do 

 everything they ought not to do. 



t Vedius PoUio was not the only person who entertained fish 

 on his own kind. Mopsus the Lydian, as we have seen, gave Queen 

 Gatis and her son up to the scaly community of the Lake Ascalon ; 

 and Cressa, Agamemnon's mother, was for her misconduct also 

 given by her own. father to the deep, for the benefit of sharks and 

 mursenas, o (\>i,Ti(Tas narfip e(j)rJKev eXXoiy Ix6v<tiv SiacpBopdv. 



That hero's dam, but mighty punk, 



Was for her courses lewd 

 Surrender'd by her sire, and sunk 



To make dumb fishes food. 



