o
restore his comrades to human shape, he did not let pass the barrier of
his teeth any such winged words as 'Now will I bide no more under thy
roof, Circe, but fare across the sea with my dear comrades, even unto
mine own home, for that which thou didst was an evil thing, and one not
meet to be done unto strangers by the daughter of a god.' He seems to
have said nothing in particular, to have accepted with alacrity the
invitation that he and his dear comrades should prolong their visit, and
to have prolonged it with them for a whole year, in the course of which
Circe bore him a son, named Telegonus. As Matthew Arnold would have
said, 'What a set!'

My eye roves, for relief, to those shelves where the later annals are. I
take down a tome at random. Rome in the fifteenth century: civilisation
never was more brilliant than there and then, I imagine; and yet--no,
I replace that tome. I saw enough in it to remind me that the Borgias
selected and laid down rare poisons in their cellars with as much
thought as they gave to their vintage wines. Extraordinary!--but the
Romans do not seem to have thought so. An invitation to dine at the
Palazzo Borghese was accounted the highest social honour. I am aware
that in recent books of Italian history there has been a tendency to
whiten the Borgias' characters. But I myself hold to the old romantic
black way of looking at the Borgias. I maintain that though you would
often in the fifteenth century have heard the snobbish Roman say, in a
would-be off-hand tone 'I am dining with the Borgias to-night,' no Roman
ever was able to say 'I dined last night with the Borgias.'

To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme
type of all that a host and hostess should not be. Hence the marked
coolness of Scotsmen towards Shakespeare, hence the untiring efforts
of that proud and sensitive race to set up Burns in his stead. It is a
risky thing to offer sympathy to the proud and sensitive, yet I must say
that I think the Scots have a real grievance. The two actual, historic
Macbeths were no worse than innumerable other couples in other lands
that had not yet fully struggled out of barbarism. It is hard that
Shakespeare happened on the story of that particular pair, and so made
it immortal. But he meant no harm, and, let Scotsmen believe me, did
positive good. Scotch hospitality is proverbial. As much in Scotland as
in America does the English visitor blush when he thinks how