retched and scanty food
that covers it, placed yonder in obscurity behind me. There will he
find (in all barely sufficient for one man's poorest meal) the last
morsels of the vilest nourishment left in the palace. For me, my
resolution is fixed--it is only the generous wine-cup that shall now
approach my lips!

'Above me are the ten lamps, answering to the number of my friends here
assembled. One after another, as the wine overpowers us, those burning
images of life will be extinguished in succession by the guests who
remain proof against our draughts; and the last of these, lighting this
torch at the last lamp, will consummate the banquet, and celebrate its
glorious close, by firing the funeral pile of my treasures heaped
yonder against my palace walls! If my powers fail me before yours,
swear to me that whoever among you is able to lift the cup to his lips
after it has dropped from the hands of the rest, will fire the pile!
Swear it by your lost mistresses, your lost friends, your lost
treasures!--by your own lives, devoted to the pleasures of wine and the
purification of fire!'

As, with flashing eyes and flushed countenance, Vetranio sank back on
his couch, his companions, inflamed with the wine they had already
drunk, arose cup in hand, and turned towards him. Their voices,
discordantly mingled, pronounced the oath together; then, as they
resumed their former positions, their eyes all turned towards the black
curtain in ardent expectation.

They had observed the sinister and sarcastic expression of Vetranio's
eye as he spoke of his concealed guest; they knew that the hunchback
Reburrus possessed, among his other powers of buffoonery, the art of
ventriloquism; and they suspected the presence of some hideous or
grotesque image of a heathen god or demon in the hidden recess, which
the jugglery of the parasite was to gift with the capacity of speech.
Blasphemous comments upon life, death, and immortality were eagerly
awaited. The general impatience for the withdrawal of the curtain was
perceived by Vetranio, who, waving his hand for silence,
authoritatively exclaimed--

'The hour has not yet arrived. More draughts must be drunk, more
libations poured out, ere the mystery of the curtain is revealed! Ho,
Glyco!' he continued, turning towards the singing-boy, who had silently
entered the room, 'the moment is yours! Tune your lyre, and recite my
last ode, which I have addressed to you! Let the charms of Poetr