of some wild irregular power,
totally deficient in taste. Depend upon it, our contemporaries are our
best judges, and his contemporaries decided that Homer was nothing.
A great poet cannot be kept down. Look at my case. Marsyas said of my
first volume that it was pretty good poetry for a God, and in answer I
wrote a satire, and flayed Marsyas alive. But what is poetry, and what
is criticism, and what is life? Air. And what is air? Do you know? I
don't. All is mystery, and all is gloom, and ever and anon from out the
clouds a star breaks forth, and glitters, and that star is Poetry.'

'Splendid!' exclaimed Minerva.

'I do not exactly understand you,' said Neptune.

'Have you heard from Proserpine, lately?' inquired Jupiter of Ceres.

'Yesterday,' said the domestic mother. 'They talk of soon joining us.
But Pluto is at present so busy, owing to the amazing quantity of
wars going on now, that I am almost afraid he will scarcely be able to
accompany her.'

Juno exchanged a telegraphic nod with Ceres. The Goddesses rose, and
retired.

'Come, old boy,' said Jupiter to Ixion, instantly throwing off all his
chivalric majesty, 'I drink your welcome in a magnum of Maraschino.
Damn your poetry, Apollo, and, Mercury, give us one of your good
stories.'

'Well! what do you think of him?' asked Juno.

'He appears to have a fine mind,' said Minerva.

'Poh! he has very fine eyes,' said Juno.

'He seems a very nice, quiet young gentleman,' said Ceres.

'I have no doubt he is very amiable,' said Latona.

'He must have felt very strange,' said Diana.

Hercules arrived with his bride Hebe; soon after the Graces dropped in,
the most delightful personages in the world for a _soiree_, so useful
and ready for anything. Afterwards came a few of the Muses, Thalia,
Melpomene, and Terpsichore, famous for a charade or a proverb. Jupiter
liked to be amused in the evening. Bacchus also came, but finding that
the Gods had not yet left their wine, retired to pay them a visit.

Ganymede announced coffee in the saloon of Juno. Jupiter was in superb
good humour. He was amused by his mortal guest. He had condescended
to tell one of his best stories in his best style, about Leda, not too
scandalous, but gay.

'Those were bright days,' said Neptune.

'We can remember,' said the Thunderer, with a twinkling eye. 'These
youths have fallen upon duller times. There are no fine women now.
Ixion, I drink to the health of your wife.'

'With all