uch an incentive to
drink much and talk loosely; not to add, such a necessity to speak
loud, which is clownish and odious in the extreme. On this mountain
summit I hear no noises, no voices, not even of salutation; we have no
flies about us, and scarcely an insect or reptile.

_Caesar._ Your amiable son is probably with his uncle: is he well?

_Lucullus._ Perfectly. He was indeed with my brother in his intended
visit to me; but Marcus, unable to accompany him hither, or
superintend his studies in the present state of his health, sent him
directly to his Uncle Cato at Tusculum--a man fitter than either of us
to direct his education, and preferable to any, excepting yourself and
Marcus Tullius, in eloquence and urbanity.

_Caesar._ Cato is so great, that whoever is greater must be the
happiest and first of men.

_Lucullus._ That any such be still existing, O Julius, ought to excite
no groan from the breast of a Roman citizen. But perhaps I wrong you;
perhaps your mind was forced reluctantly back again, on your past
animosities and contests in the Senate.

_Caesar._ I revere him, but cannot love him.

_Lucullus._ Then, Caius Julius, you groaned with reason; and I would
pity rather than reprove you.

On the ceiling at which you are looking, there is no gilding, and
little painting--a mere trellis of vines bearing grapes, and the
heads, shoulders, and arms rising from the cornice only, of boys and
girls climbing up to steal them, and scrambling for them: nothing
overhead; no giants tumbling down, no Jupiter thundering, no Mars and
Venus caught at mid-day, no river-gods pouring out their urns upon us;
for, as I think nothing so insipid as a flat ceiling, I think nothing
so absurd as a storied one. Before I was aware, and without my
participation, the painter had adorned that of my bedchamber with a
golden shower, bursting from varied and irradiated clouds. On my
expostulation, his excuse was that he knew the Danae of Scopas, in a
recumbent posture, was to occupy the centre of the room. The walls,
behind the tapestry and pictures, are quite rough. In forty-three days
the whole fabric was put together and habitable.

The wine has probably lost its freshness: will you try some other?

_Caesar._ Its temperature is exact; its flavour exquisite. Latterly I
have never sat long after dinner, and am curious to pass through the
other apartments, if you will trust me.

_Lucullus._ I attend you.

_Caesar._ Lucullus, who is