nt writers, what do we see!--Lemons! bring in some lemons,
Mickey.--What do we see, I say, but that the very highest enjoyment
of the haythen gods was--Hot wather! why won't they send in more hot
wather?"

"Begorra, if I was a haythen god, I 'd like a little whisky in it,"
muttered Terry, dryly.

"Where was I?" asked Billy, a little disconcerted by this sally, and the
laugh it excited. "I was expatiatin' upon celestial convivialities. The
_nodes coenoeque deum_,--them elegant hospitalities where wisdom was
moistened with nectar, and wit washed down with ambrosia. It is not, by
coorse, to be expected," continued he, modestly, "that we mere mortials
can compete with them elegant refections. But, as Ovid says, we can at
least _diem jucundam decipere_."

The unknown tongue had now restored to Billy all the reverence and
respect of his auditory, and he continued to expatiate very eloquently
on the wholesome advantages to be derived from convivial intercourse,
both amongst gods and men; rather slyly intimating that either on the
score of the fluids, or the conversation, his own leanings lay towards
"the humanities."

"For, after all," said he, "'tis our own wakenesses is often the
source of our most refined enjoyments. No, Mrs. Cassidy, ye need n't
be blushin'. I 'm considerin' my subject in a high ethnological and
metaphysical sinse." Mrs. Cassidy's confusion, and the mirth it excited,
here interrupted the orator.

"The meeting is never tired of hearin' you, Billy," said Terry Lynch;
"but if it was plazin' to ye to give us a song, we'd enjoy it greatly."

"Ah!" said Billy, with a sigh, "I have taken my partin' kiss with the
Muses; _non mihi licet increpare digitis lyram_:--

"'No more to feel poetic fire,
No more to touch the soundin' lyre;
But wiser coorses to begin,
I now forsake my violin.'"

An honest outburst of regret and sorrow broke from the assembly, who
eagerly pressed for an explanation of this calamitous change.

"The thing is this," said Billy: "if a man is a creature of mere
leisure and amusement, the fine arts--and by the fine arts I mean music,
paintin', and the ladies--is an elegant and very refined subject of
cultivation; but when you raise your cerebrial faculties to grander and
loftier considerations, to explore the difficult ragions of polemic
or political truth, to investigate the subtleties of the schools, and
penetrate the mysteries of science, then, take my word