them, in leaving the house with Pamphilus, he could not help feeling that it was the Christian deputy who understood the true secret of opening a home for the afflicted.

CHAPTER IX.

A Roman Villa. The Deputy of the Emperor.
The Midnight Assemblage.

Hence, vain, deluding joys!

The brood of folly, without father bred:
How little you bested

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!

Come, pensive nun, devout and
Sober, stedfast, and demure;
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train.

pure,

Il Penseroso.

A FEW days after the departure of Pamphilus, Rutilius received an invitation to visit his father's friend in the neighbourhood of Cæsarea. His compliance was the more ready, because he felt that it would afford an opportunity for renewing his intercourse with Pamphilus. He had heard much also of Milo's magnificent hospitality; and was not without curiosity to see what was meant by the fascinating charms of an Asiatic villa. He arrived on the second day after leaving Tyre; and on his way heard of nothing so much as the sumptuousness of the place which he was about to visit. Not far from the house he

1 The following description of the mode of life at a Roman villa is borrowed from Petronius's account of Nero.

found a tennis court, where Milo was at the time amusing himself. The great man was attended by a number of youths, whose long hair reached nearly to their girdles; while at the end of the court stood an attendant with a large silver bowl of water to be ready for his refreshment: Milo would occasionally call him, and dipping his hands in water, dry them on the hair of the attendant pages. The whole place, and the persons who were in waiting, spoke of a softness and effeminacy which disgusted Rutilius, the more when, passing through it to an adjoining door of the house, he saw inscribed on a tablet, which hung on a pillar at the side,—“ Every servant who goes out without his master's permission shall receive a hundred lashes."

"Such," said the young man, is the marriage of license and of servitude. Thus is oppression the next neighbour to luxury and sloth." The paintings which covered the walls of the court, which he now entered, were, in like manner, a singular contrast to one another. On one side there were various pictures of heathen gods, the figure of Milo, the host of the place, being singularly mixed with them; here he was entering Rome in a triumphal car, conducted by Minerva; there Mercury was lifting him up by the chin, and placing him upon a lofty tribunal. Rutilius was at no loss to understand what was meant by the introduction of these patron deities -that Milo's learning was implied to have introduced him to notice in the Capitol, and his eloquence to have

raised him to the judgment-seat. No less significant was the figure of Fortune, which stood by him on one side with a cornucopia, to express the abundance of his wealth; while on the other were the three Fates, spinning a golden thread, as an emblem of his good fortune. But there were other circumstances of a personal nature depicted; his being taught to reckon; his being appointed treasurer: and as the artist who had executed the designs was less remarkable for his skill than his flattery, their meaning was obligingly explained by suitable inscriptions.

Rutilius was not less amused by all this parade in praise of a person, who, he knew, had no claims to distinction, except from the accidents of birth and fortune, than by the puerile device which he saw joined to it: the figure of a great dog, painted close by the corner of the porter's lodge, and surmounted by an inscription, in great letters,--"TAKE CARE OF the DOG." The animal was drawn naturally enough; and as it was so placed that on entering you came upon it on a sudden, the servant who carried Rutilius's effects, and who was looking in another direction when he approached, was so scared, that he nearly broke his neck in starting out of the way. All this was laughable enough; but it was painfully contrasted with the opposite side of the court, on which might be seen the picture of a slave-market. There the native Syrian or Paphlagonian thrall; the Scythian or Goth captured in war, and carried into a distant captivity, contrasted with the peculiar features of the

negro; while round the neck of each were labels indicating their prices. Rutilius's own feelings revolted at this contrast between his host's overgorged prosperity, and the misery of so many of his fellowcreatures; and the spectacle reminded him of what he had heard from Pamphilus-that all men were in truth brethren; that slavery was a state which, instead of being paraded as an accession to the splendour of the few, ought to be deplored as a fearful consequence of the degradation of the many; and that the extension of the Christian faith would lead to its total abolition.

It was just supper-time; and Rutilius, after he had bathed, entered the principal apartment; a lad, whose office it was, calling out as he crossed the threshold, "Your right foot forwards:" lest he should enter in an unlucky manner. The feast which followed partook of the overwrought luxury of the period. Not only was there such profuse abundance as to pall upon the most unrestrained appetite, but every device was adopted to prolong the pleasure of the feast, and provoke the languid palate.

Rutilius could not help feeling how much the habits of the age had degenerated from that simple elegance which breathed through the drinking-song of Horace :

"I hate the Persian banquet's pride:
Boy, fling those gaudy wreaths aside,
No linden knot for me