wer might take occasion to tax his piety in thus composing
human legends in neglect of the Gods, Hesiod, forestalling him, replies:
'You're out there, my friend; we were both pious, and we put our piety
into hymns addressed to the Gods, which, with cabinetmakers' skill, we
used also as interludes of transition from one legend to another.' For
it is noticed frequently and especially by a Scholiast on Aristophanes
(Pac. 826), that generally speaking the _proaemia_ to the different parts
of narrative-poems were entirely detached, [Greek: kai ouden pros to
pragma delon], and explain nothing at all that concerns the business.

2.--Mrs. Evans and the 'Gazette.'

In his autobiographic sketch, 'Introduction to the World of Strife,' he
tells of his brother's enterprise in establishing the _Gazette_, which
was to record their doings, and also of Mrs. Evans's place on the
_Gazette_. The following is evidently a passage which was prepared for
that part of the article, but was from some cause or other omitted:

I suppose no creature ever led such a life as I led on the _Gazette_;
sometimes running up, like Wallenstein, to the giddiest pinnacles of
honour, then down again without notice or warning to the dust;
cashiered--rendered incapable of ever serving H. M. again; nay, actually
drummed out of the army, my uniform stripped off, and the 'rogue's
march' played after me. And all for what? I protest, to this hour, I
have no guess. If any person knows, that person is not myself; and the
reader is quite as well able to furnish guesses to me as I to him--to
enlighten _me_ upon the subject as I _him_.

Mrs. Evans was a very important person in the play; I don't suppose that
things could have gone on without _her_. For, as there was no writer in
the _Gazette_ but my brother, so there was no reader of it except Mrs.
Evans. And here came in a shocking annoyance to me that, as often as
any necessity occurred (which was every third day) for restoring me to
my rank, since my brother would not have it supposed that he could be
weak enough to initiate such an indulgence, the _Gazette_ threw the
_onus_ of this amiable weakness, and consequently of my gratitude, upon
Mrs. Evans, affirming that the major-general had received a pardon and
an amnesty for all his past atrocities at the request of 'a
distinguished lady,' who was obscurely indicated in a parenthesis as
'the truly honourable Mrs. Evans.' To listen to the _Gazette_ one would
have su