nt to separate you from the dearest of them; when the slaves
who came to you from their palaces underwent long ceremonies of
ablution before they approached your presence; and remembering this,
reflect that most, perhaps all of us, now meet here plague-tainted
already; and then say, of what advantage is it to languish for a life
which is yours no longer?

'No, my friends, my brethren of the banquet; feeling that when life is
worthless it is folly to live, you cannot shrink from the lofty
resolution by which we are bound, you cannot pause on our joyful
journey of departure from the scenes of earth--I wrong you even by a
doubt! Let me now, rather, ask your attention for a worthier
subject--the enumeration of the festal ceremonies by which the progress
of the banquet will be marked. That task concluded, that last ceremony
of my last welcome to you these halls duly performed, I join you once
more in your final homage to the deity of our social lives--the God of
Wine!

'It is not unknown to you--learned as you are in the jovial antiquities
of the table--that it was, among some of the ancients, a custom for a
master-spirit of philosophy to preside--the teacher as well as the
guest--at their feasts. This usage it has been my care to revive, and,
as this four meeting is unparalleled in its heroic design, so it was my
ambition to bid to it one unparalleled, either as a teacher or a guest.
Fired by an original idea, unobserved of my slaves, aided only by my
singing-boy, the faithful Glyco, I have succeeded in placing behind
that black curtain such an associate of our revels as you have never
feasted with before, whose appearance at the fitting moment must strike
you irresistibly with astonishment, and whose discourse--not of human
wisdom only--will be inspired by the midnight secrets of the tomb. By
my side, on this parchment, lies the formulary of questions to be
addressed by Reburrus, when the curtain is withdrawn, to the Oracle of
the Mysteries of other Spheres.

'Before you, behold in those vases all that remains of my once
well-stocked cellars, and all that is provided for the palates of my
guests! We sit at the Banquet of Famine, and no coarser sustenance than
inspiring wine finds admittance at the Bacchanalian board. Yet, should
any among us, in his last moments, be feeble enough to pollute his lips
with nourishment alone worthy of the vermin of the earth, let him seek
the wretched and scanty table, type of the w