company! Can it be true that, as some say, much poring over books, and stuffing their heads with other people's ideas, makes men lose their common-sense? Such conduct cannot in this case be laid to the charge of the wine,—for the letter-writer at least was sober. Yet here are the unlearned portion of the company behaving themselves quietly and modestly, while such is the example set them by these professors of wisdom!"
Io, the Platonist, now tried to quiet the uproar by proposing a subject for discussion, upon which, after the fashion of the Dialogues of Plato, each should be allowed to speak in his turn and without interruption. He suggested "Marriage" as an appropriate theme, and proceeded to deliver his own opinion thereupon, which is, of course, that of his great master, as broached in his 'Republic,' and as we have had it sot forth by Socrates in his examination at the "Sale."[1] It would be far better if men would make up their minds to do without it altogether; but as this seems improbable, at least he would recommend the abolition of the prejudice in favour of having separate wives. Lucian thought this expression of opinion somewhat curious, to say the very least, upon such au occasion. The literary gentleman, instead of giving his own views on the question, took the opportunity of reciting to the company an epithalamium of his own composition, which is no doubt a fair burlesque of the common style of such productions. Then, as it grew late, the guests began to make their
- ↑ See p. 104.
