drink is of costly essences.' He had no mercy on them here. 'Very
bunglers in sensuality, who know not her laws, and confound her
ordinances, flinging down their souls to be trampled beneath the heels
of luxury! As the play has it, Door or window, all is one to them.
Such pleasures are rank solecism.' One observation of his in the same
spirit fairly caps the famous censure of Momus. Momus found fault with
the divine artificer for not putting his bull's horns in front of the
eyes. Similarly, Nigrinus complained that when these men crown
themselves in their banquets, they put the garlands in the wrong
place; if they are so fond of the smell of violets and roses, they
should tie on their garlands as close as may be under their nostrils;
they could then snuff up the smell to their hearts' content.

Proceeding to the gentlemen who make such a serious work of their
dinner, he was exceedingly merry over their painful elaborations of
sauce and seasoning. 'Here again,' he cried, 'these men are sore put
to it, to procure the most fleeting of enjoyments. Grant them four
inches of palate apiece--'tis the utmost we can allow any man--and I
will prove to you that they have four inches of gratification for
their trouble. Thus: there is no satisfaction to be got out of the
costliest viands before consumption; and after it a full stomach is
none the better for the price it has cost to fill it. _Ergo_, the
money is paid for the pleasure snatched _in transitu_. But what are we
to expect? These men are too grossly ignorant to discern those truer
pleasures with which Philosophy rewards our resolute endeavours.'

The Baths proved a fertile topic, what with the insolence of the
masters and the jostlings of their men;--'they will not stand without
the support of a slave; it is much that they retain enough vitality to
get away on their own legs at all.' One practice which obtains in the