execution? Yes; once hear her sing, Lycinus, and you will know
something of Sirens as well as of Gorgons: you have experienced
petrifaction; you will next learn what it is to stand entranced,
forgetting country and kindred. Wax will not avail you: her song
will penetrate through all; for therein is every grace that
Terpsichore, Melpomene, Calliope herself, could inspire. In a word,
imagine that you hear such notes as should issue from those lips,
those teeth that you have seen. Her perfect intonation, her pure
Ionic accent, her ready Attic eloquence, need not surprise you;
these are her birthright; for is not Smyrna Athens' daughter? And
what more natural than that she should love poetry, and make it her
chief study? Homer is her fellow citizen.--There you have my first
portrait; the portrait of a sweet-voiced songstress, though it
fall far short of its original. And now for others. For I do not
propose to make one of many, as you did. I aim higher: the complex
picture of so many beauties wrought into one, however artful be the
composition, cannot escape inconsistency: with me, each separate
virtue of her soul shall sit for its own portrait.

_Ly_. What a banquet awaits me! Here, assuredly, is good
measure. Mete it out; I ask for nothing better.

_Poly_. I proceed then to the delineation of Culture, the
confessed mistress of all mental excellences, particularly of all
acquired ones: I must render her features in all their manifold
variety; not even here shall my portraiture be inferior to your
own. I paint her, then, with every grace that Helicon can give.
Each of the Muses has but her single accomplishment, be it tragedy
or history or hymn: all these Culture shall have, and with them the
gifts of Hermes and of Apollo. The poet's graceful numbers, the