The epigram on a suicide puts, in a pointed manner, the illogical behavior of the unhappy felo-de-se. But cui bono? Who in his sane moments can tell how unwisely he may think and act when he has lost his reason? Perhaps the most cogent| argument against self-murder was written by the author of Lacon, who afterwards died by his own hand.

DE FANNIO.

Poor Fannius, who greatly feared to die,
Embraced the enemy he fain would fly.
Strange contradiction, weary of the strife,
He ceased to live from very love of life;
With his own hand he stops his vital breath;
Madness extreme !-to die for fear of death!

Many of the epigrams of Martial are more distinguished for wisdom than wit, and aim less at humorous effect than at philosophical instruction expressed in a poetic aphorism. The brevity of human life suggested to the philosophical Pagan, no less than to the pious Christian, the value of the passing hour; and Martial, with Horace and Juvenal, delights in lessons on economy of time, as the Greek voluptuaries

did before them.

"'Tis time to live, if I grow old!"

was the reflection of Anacreon, when his lady-friends told him, with gratuitous incivility, that his locks were whitening with the frosts of age. This is Martial's view

of

THE WISE MAN'S MORROW.

To-morrow you will live, you always say;
In what blest region is that happy day?
So very long it lingers, prithee tell,
In Parthia or Armenia does it dwell?
So vast the distance, if it do not fail,

I fear you'll find the boon both dear and stale.
The wise man's morrow, I am bold to say,
Is always safe-he had it yesterday!

In the same spirit of amiable worldly wisdom is the epigram, "Ad Fuscum,"

IN FAVOR OF MAKING NEW FRIENDS.

You, worthy man, whose noble life commends
Your generous heart-and gives you many friends;
If in your breast a place there yet may be
For one friend more, oh! give that place to me!
Reject me not because I am not proved;
'Till they were known, not one of all was loved;
New as I am-the trial fairly past-

I'll prove, perhaps, "a good old friend" at last!

Maro's dear friend was sick, and like to take
A trip, untimely, o'er the Stygian lake;
So Maro vowed, if Heaven would kindly spare
His crony's life, in answer to his prayer,
He'd build a church, to show his gratitude.
The friend gets well. Quoth Maro, "I conclude,
Since prayers alone so perfectly succeed,
Of building churches there is little need."

Legacy-hunting is a favorite topic with all Roman satirists. The following epigram is pointed, very humorously, at a rich man, who sought to please his friends by promises of posthumous liberality:

AD MARONEM.

O foolish man! who never spend

A generous shilling while you live,
But tell us, often, you intend

Some handsome legacies to give-
Pray, can't you see you thus contrive
To put it in the listener's head,
How much one person, now alive,

Would be improved by being dead?

The following, on a spendthrift, tells the story of many a youngster whose estatefor his own advantage-would be much safer in the custody of the living testator than in the hands of the improvident heir:

AD PHILOMUSUM.

To you, while yet he lived, your father lent Two thousand pounds a month-in folly spent ; Though large the stipend, each succeeding day Brought fresh demands to melt the sum away. Now, all his wealth is yours without his care; You're disinherited by being heir!

A poor man of extravagant habits may wisely accept the admonition which Martial gives in his epigram,

AD CASTOREM.

Such lavish purchases, my giddy friend,
To thoughtful minds an auction-sale portend;
It needs no prophet, surely, to foretell,
Who buys so much will soon have all to sell!

The epigram De Cinna is a neat and subtle exposition of a character who may, in the paradoxical manner of the author, be termed

THE TRUTHFUL PRETENDER.

Cinna, who lives in such a splendid style
That many deem him rich, still wears a smile
Of mock humility, which says, "Be sure,
Whatever folks may fancy, I am poor;"
Ah! vain pretense to cheat familiar friends,
Who know full well he is what he pretends!

Juvenal declares that, of all the ills of poverty, one of the most intolerable is, that it subjects a man to be laughed at. When, however, an impecunious rogue is a pretender to economy and clever dealing, the ridicule is well deserved, as in the case of Martial's Bassus :

"See here!" cries Bassus, in a brand-new coat, Worth, at the least, a fifty-dollar note; "I got it at a bargain. Please to guess

How much it cost. A hundred? Vastly less!
There's not one man in twenty who can buy
A coat or hat one-half so cheap as I."
"That's true," quote Tom; "his surely is the praise
Of buying mighty cheap-who never pays !"

The poet's reply to a gentleman (Fabullus) who invited him to dine with strangers, is rather truculent than witty:

You bid me dine with folks unknown,
And wonder I decline;

Well, when I choose to dine alone,

I stay at home and dine!

Very witty and sensible is the author's comment on the criticism of a brother poet:

AD AUCTUM.

A brother scribbler calls my verses wrong
In point of art; small merit he can see;
Well, since my readers like my simple song,
That, I am sure, is quite enough for me.
The man who gives a public dinner looks
To please his guests-not other people's cooks!

You stand in the road looking up and west. Before you stretches the gorge between the stark mountains that tower in- | hospitable on either hand, above the two lines of buildings that have to burrow into the crowding feet of the opposite heights to make room for the road between them. At the upper end a sharp mountain face wedges down and splits the gorge into two, and on a shelf of this face are perched the school and the newly-built church. This is Cinnabar City.

Behind you the road winds out of sight down toward the lonely foot-hills, and already you can hear the echoing rumble of the coach from below, and will presently catch the rattle of wheels and jingle of harness. On the box of that coach sits a tall, travel-worn, not handsome passenger, whom the driver has carried before and to whom he shows respect. The driver is telling him about the mines and the growth of the city in the months he has been away, in which time Cinnabar has doubled itself once or twice.

Before the coach stops at the "Quicksilver Hotel," I must tell you the history of the man on the box-seat. His name is Garrett Colyer. He was born in an eastVOL. VIII.-30

ern country town, studied law there and went away to the city to seek his fortune, went back at an hour's notice to defend a scape-grace whose friends had no money to pay counsel, got him off by the skin of his teeth and out of reach of other warrants none too soon. The scape-grace was to reform, having already repented, and await his father and sister in the far west, and provide for them when they came out to him. They had no money to go with; Colyer spent his last cent on their passage and his own. Arriving in Cinnabar, whence the scape-grace had written a glowing letter, they found no scape-grace, but another letter less glowing, and explaining the superior inducements of Quartz City, and his intention of writing for them as soon as he had things comfortable.

Father, daughter and friend were forced to go to work for very subsistence at anything they could find, but they prospered, and after a while Colyer set out farther west in search of the scape-grace, and after months in the wild country returned alone. He formed a partnership with a young attorney named Ridley, and becoming engaged in a suit, involving the title of the

little higher up, a small clump of pines grew on a shelf of the mountain, not hard to gain, and he led the thither. When way they stood among the trees he said:

66

Maggy, you said you believed Ridley was not very well. He says he is sick, and I don't think he was glad to have me back. He is much changed and acts very strangely. He left me to go to bed and I saw him on the street just now. Do you know what's the matter with him?"

He spoke steadily and gravely, and she turned pale visibly with the white moonlight on her upturned face. And she answered: "Yes, I suppose I do." Her voice was steady, though very low; but she put her arm about the trunk of a pine tree and hugged it ever so tightly to keep him from seeing that she shook from head to foot.

"And how long have you known?" he asked.

"Only since yesterday."

His eager ear caught the faintest tremor in her voice now, and it shook him like a great wind. He turned his face away and looked at the moon without saying or seeing anything for a little while. Then she said:

You ought not to be so offended with him. If any one's to blame, it is I, and not he. I don't know what I was thinking of not to see it before. He did not know about us, and is very much hurt. He is going away directly, and I think you ought to be sorry for him. I am very sorry.'

He looked at her without any apparent emotion, and only asked

"What did you say to him?"

She flushed up, and began to answer quickly, "I told him the truth, do you doubt ?" But when she saw him more plainly her voice broke up suddenly, and she sat down where she was, and began to sob and bemoan herself. And Colyer sat down near her, but not touching or speaking to her; and his hands finding the rocks beneath him strewn with loose shingle, he began idiotically tossing bits of stone over the ledge, and remembered having sat in the gravel so once when a child, and tossed pebbles into the water. And when her passionate sobbing was somewhat abated, he spoke again quite calmly; it seemed as if his heart and nerves were asleep or dead, he could feel neither pain nor compassion, and his voice sounded strange to himself: "Did you tell him the whole truth, Maggy ?"

And she answered passionately: “Oh, you have no right to ask me that. I do not deserve it. I have done you no wrong. I sent him away as soon as I knew of it. I was sorry, and told him so; but I told him I could never think of anybody but you, and I thought he knew all the time. I told him how good you had always been to me, and how easily you were hurt, and he promised to go away as soon as you came. Don't be unkind; it's not like you.' And she reached out both hands to him appealingly.

He looked at her, and down at her outstretched hands, but did not move towards her; and he asked just as before

"Is there nothing more?"

She drew back her hands, and lifted her head. "You have no right to ask me," she answered, speaking rapidly, and unsteady with passion. "You have no right to ask what I would not let him ask; what I would not ask myself, nor let myself think of. I am true to you, and that is all I can do, and all you have a right to expect. You are cruel, and if you keep on you will-" She stopped short in her rapid speech, and Colyer spoke slowly :

"I have a right to know the truth. I do know it. I knew it when I first met you to-day."

I

The girl began to rock herself, and to cry again, disconsolately now, and with fear. "Oh, I can't help it," she sobbed. don't know how it came about. I don't think we were to blame. It's a forsaken place, and I had no friends when you had gone. And you know you introduced us, and told me to be kind to him. And he was very pleasant, and helped me not to be lonely; and I know I meant no harm, nor thought any could come of it, any more than you."

"But it is none the less true," he continued slowly. "When you look back over all that has passed between us, it seems a little pitiful, doesn't it?"

They were silent, and seemed to listen for some intimation of an escape from their dismal quandary. But only the breeze sang under its breath in the pine boughs of the sea so hopelessly far away, and a stone, loosened from the frowning heights, clattered down the steeps aimlessly.

Colyer stood up, and looked down at her, lingering. "I'm going away now," he said. "Good night."

She stood up, and took hold of his arm. "No, don't go," she said, and looked down.