prose and verse,
make a strange mixture. It may be compared to one of those dishes known
both to ancients and to moderns, in which a great variety of scraps is
enriched with condiments to the obliteration of all individual flavor.
The plan of execution is so cumbersome that its only defense is its
imitation of the inevitably disjointed talk when the guests of a dinner
party are busy with their wine and nuts. One is tempted to suspect
Athenaeus of a sly sarcasm at his own expense, when he puts the
following flings at pedantry in the mouths of some of his puppets:--

"And now when Myrtilus had said all this in a connected
statement, and when all were marveling at his memory,
Cynulcus said,--

'Your multifarious learning I do wonder at,
Though there is not a thing more vain and useless.'

"Says Hippo the Atheist, 'But the divine Heraclitus also
says, 'A great variety of information does not usually give
wisdom.' And Timon said, ... 'For what is the use of so many
names, my good grammarian, which are more calculated to
overwhelm the hearers than to do them any good?'"

This passage shows the redundancy of expression which disfigures so much
of Athenaeus. It is also typical of the cudgel-play of repartee between
his characters, which takes the place of agile witticism. But if he
heaps up vast piles of scholastic rubbish, he is also the Golden Dustman
who shows us the treasure preserved by his saving pedantry. Scholars
find the 'Feast of the Learned' a quarry of quotations from classical
writers whose works have perished. Nearly eight hundred writers and
twenty-four hundred separate writings are referred to and cited in this
disorderly encyclopedia, most of them now lost and forgotten. This
literary thrift will always give rank to the work of Athenaeus, poor as
it is. The best editions of the original Greek are those of Dindorf
(Leipzig, 1827), and of Meineke (Leipzig, 1867). The best English
translation is that of C.D. Yonge in 'Bonn's Classical Library,' from
which, with slight alterations, the appended passages are selected.

WHY THE NILE OVERFLOWS

From the 'Deipnosophistae'

Thales the Milesian, one of the Seven Wise Men, says that the
overflowing of the Nile arises from the Etesian winds; for that they
blow up the river, and that the mouths of the river lie exactly opposite
to the point from which they blow; and accordingly, that the wind
blowing in the opposi