nowhere to be found out of the Olympian
Belgravia. "What are we the better," asks
the father of gods and men, "for our nectar
and ambrosia? See how hard we toil for
mortals. Here's poor Helios, for example,
who has to get up early every morning, put
his horses to, and gallop round the sky,
trapped all over in fire, and stuck full of
rays. Then poor Selene can't close her eyes
all night, but must take her everlasting
round, lighting tipsy, disorderly people to
their homes. As to Apollo, it is a wonder
he is not as deaf as a post, so many persons
come to consult him about future events.
Then there's Æsculapius, plagued to death
with his patients; the Winds tired of wafting
ships and winnowing corn! Sleep weary of
hovering round all living creatures, and
Dream obliged to watch the livelong night.
But all that the other gods have to do is
nothing compared to what I have to go
through. For, first, I must take care that
the rest of the deities who help me to govern
the world do their work without bungling.
Then I've a thousand things to do for myself
—one must mind one's own business
sometimes—collecting rain, thunder, and lightning.
Then I must be here, there, and
everywhere; at Olympia to attend a hecatomb;
at Babylon to survey a battle. I
must hail on the Getæ, and feast with the
Ethiopians. And, when all the other gods
and mortals sleep, I must not close my eyes
for a moment."

Lucian indulges in the same delightful
banter in his Icaromenippus. Menippus,
weary of the endless disputes about ideas,
incorporealities, finites, and infinites, makes
himself wings (like Icarus), and flies from
Hymettus to Taygetua, then to Olympus, and
then to the moon. Here he has an interview
with Empedocles, who, having leapt into the
crater of Ætna, in search of the platonic
immortality, was carried up, he tells us, with
the ascending smoke. As he prepares to
resume his aerial flight, Luna calls after him,
in a delicate female voice, and troubles him
with a commission to Jupiter. "I lose all
patience," says the fair inconstant (that
monthly changes in her circled orb), "at
the treatment I receive from philosophers.
One would think they had nothing else to do
but to meddle with my affairs. They are
always asking who I am? How big, long,
and broad I am? Why I sometimes look
like half a plate,and sometimes have horns?
Some say I am inhabited. Some that I hang
like a looking-glass over the sea. And some
spread a report that my light is not genuine,
and I steal it from the sun. Small thanks to
them, if mischief is not made between my
brother and me! Pray tell Jupiter all this,
that he may break the heads of these
naturalists, stop the mouths of logicians, blow up
the Porch, set fire to the Academe, and put
an end to the talk of the Peripatetics."

Thus Lucian shook Olympus with his
laughter, dethroned the gods with his raillery,
and took from the pagan sages and
poets their ancient prestige and canonical
authority. The sworn foe of all shams and
cheats, and quackeries, of all the posture-
makers of religion and philosophy, he worked
conscientiously to undermine the temple of
the old superstition, unconsciously to introduce
a higher hope, a purer love, a nobler
faith than Rome or Greece ever knew. The
divine hierarchy faded. Jupiter dropped
his thunder. Venus laid aside her cestus.
Phœbus unstrung his bow. "They live no
longer in the faith of reason." The time will
come when even the youngest Englishman
will practically disprove the unpleasant
imputation "that the great system of facts with
which the juvenile Briton is the most
perfectly acquainted are the intrigues of the
heathen gods."

ONLY A GOVERNESS.

IF you look over the advertising columns
of the Times, you are struck with the number
of people in the world wanting to earn their
daily bread. It is very rare indeed to see
the same advertisement twice; so that it
is evident that, for obtaining employment
advertising is the best medium. But do
all succeed in gaining what they seek?
Does the tradesman who advertises for a
loan of thirty pounds for a few weeks to
meet some pressing engagement, and who
offers security to four times that amount
find some benevolent usurer to help him
out of his difficulties? Does the nobleman's
family find that combination of cook and
housekeeper for the sixty pounds per annum,
without perquisites, which it offers? Does
the careful mother find the desired young
person of ladylike manners and superior
education to undertake the entire charge,
not only of her six children, but of their
wardrobes, for a fifth of that sum. I had
formerly speculated during the hour I hired
the Times upon what the result of such
advertisements would be.

A time came when I found my curiosity
gratified. Circumstances compelled me to
have recourse to the advertising sheet. I
drew up a neat advertisement, and it was
inserted conspicuously after "Required a
Family's Washing." I suppose washing is a
higher art than teaching. For, the half-
dozen advertisements setting forth the
advantages of a good drying-ground, and that
families' washing is done in the first style at
moderate charges, are always placed first on
the list. Mine stated that a lady of good
education and manners, would be happy to
devote several hours of the day to the
cultivation and improvement of others.

On the morning my advertisement appeared,
I waited with feverish anxiety for the
messenger who was to bring the letters from
the library at which, for a consideration, the