540 PROSE HALIEUTICg. 



in the circulation of wine ; and if he saw a gentleman 

 hanging back from doing full honours to a toast, reminded 

 him of his business in three pithy words, -Tridi, fj airiOi, 

 ' gulp or go !' a sentence which, heard at suitable inter- 

 vals, stirred up the whole company to do its best. The 

 gentlemen pledged the ladies con spirito, and the ladies, 

 in place of coldly assenting like our own to a ' glass of 

 port if we please^ (as if, pretty souls, they had a Stoic in- 

 difference to it themselves), answered the challenge con 

 amore, with a heai-ty ' good health to you, Sir^ (^j^creta?; 

 or an acknowledgment a la Jenny Wren (Xa/M^dvco d-Trb 

 (70V lySeo)?), ' I take your offer kind.' The last part of the 

 entertainment was, alas ! frequently unfit for descrip- 

 tion. The ladies not retiring to tea did not keep the 

 men sober, nor, if report says true, even themselves; the 

 pretty ' gold grasshoppers' nodded fearfully in the green 

 foil foUage of their tiaras ; beautiful dresses and ivory 

 shoulders became stained, like Horace's Lydia's, with 

 wine-spots ; and many a Cyrus laid hands on a fair lock 

 of hair feebly guarded, and then surrendered up his 

 face to the will of gentle Amazons, who before sitting 

 down had taken due care, like her, properly to ' pare 

 their nails.' 



In the polite days of Greek feasting, the guests at- 

 tended studiously to the toilet ; each went gaily dressed, 

 for who ever sat down to a feast in black {quis unquam 

 ccenavit atratus)^* AU were highly pomatumed, and 

 the two sexes (like night-blooming flowers) might be 

 distinguished in the dark by a different perfume. 



At table they seem to have washed theu' handsf as 



* Cicero. 



t As fingers were in vogue long before forks, or the general 

 jise of spoons (fivarpa) or knives, and everytliing was conveyed 

 direct from the hand to the mouth, this practice -n-as certainly not 

 more nice than wise and needful ; unless indeed in such a frugal 



