Oleum, who was so very nice— what a dreadful
pity! I suppose this was the sort of thing
that really went on. I suppose human nature
has always been the same, and that when
Publius Claudius heard young Castor Oleum
called nice, his very gorge rose at the idea, and
that he pronounced C. O. to be much too
smooth and slippery for his taste, and disparaged
him— just as we do in the present day, when we
get tired of hearing Aristides called the just.

While P. C. and his fair companion are talking
thus, the Metellus Cimbers themselves sweep
into the—I was going to say room- into the
marble hall—and Publia makes a little grimace,
and asks the youth with whom she has been
gossiping, if he thinks her remarks were
overheard? " How cautious one ought to be," she
says; " here are the very people.—Dear Mrs.
Cimber, how glad I am to hear we are to have
you for neighbours; you know our villa is next
but one to the Corneliuses, which I hear you
have taken." " How very pleasant," says the
lady addressed, gathering he'r robes about her
with a graceful air. " How often have the
Corneliuses spoken of the many graces of the
fair Publia Claudia. How much we shall
see of you!" " And then," says Publia, "we
are to have a wedding, I understand—your dear
little Sophronia. Really, Mr. Castor Oleum is
a most fortunate person." " Ah, well!" the
other remarks, " we are all very well pleased.
There is not much money, to be sure, but there's
a nice little property just beyond the marshes.
We spent a good deal of time there during the
Ides of March, when there is the least danger
of ague. Of course his property is chiefly
cognoscas, in buffaloes—such herds of the monsters!
Poor little Sophronia used to be frightened out
of her wits." " Ah! very good property too,"
puts in Publius Claudius, who has been standing
by. " I wish I had a few hundreds instead
of a lot of shares in that confounded Aqueduct
Company." But here old Cimber draws our
friend aside, and begins to question him.
"By-the-by, now, tell me about that Aqueduct
Company. How is it getting on?" " How
is it getting on ? Do you want some shares?
You shall have them for half their value," says
poor deluded Publius; " the thing may turn up
trumps, you know, only I've been kept waiting
so long that I'm thoroughly sick of the whole
concern."

Was it like this? And while old Cimber and
young Publius were talking about shares, did
Publia Claudia and Sophronia Cimber eye each
other's dress and begin to talk of the robes of
the period, and how they were to be worn next
season? Did one praise the lovely fillet in the
other's hair, and receive, in turn, congratulations
on the girdle with which she was encircled?
And Mrs. Cimber and Publia Claudia's mother,
what were they about? Were they discoursing
about servants, and the difficulty of getting
them to send up warm plates to eat the venison
upon? No doubt the talk was of this kind;
and next morning one of the two young ladies
ran round to the house of the other, and they
both had a good long chat about the party,
as they sat and warmed themselves at a brazen
chafing-dish on three legs, perfectly classical, and
perfectly uncomfortable.

And then as to what are called the dark ages,
the time between the period called ancient, and
the middle ages. I am inclined to believe that
if ever there were a time when there was no
small-talk at all, it was during the dark ages.
One cannot imagine a Goth making himself
agreeable in general society. I suspect that in
utter default of this valuable commodity of
Small-Beer conversation, these benighted people
used to have professional bards to amuse them
and do the talking. There can be little doubt
that this was so, these wretched boors being
entirely incapable of using any of the milder
forms of speech, and only able to ask for meat
and drink, and to defy each other to mortal
combat. The fight over or the hunt over, or
the victorious descent upon a neighbour's
property over, the young Goth flings himself down
upon a bear's skin, eats a haunch or two of
venison, swigs off a gallon of wine, and then—
when he ought to be in the humour for a little
light conversation—roars out in a loud voice for
the bard. The bard appears with a bald head
and a three-stringed harp, and the " entertainment"
begins.

With regard to the middle ages it was
different, and one sees one's way more clearly. We
have got to the "Grammercy" and " Marry-come-up"
period, and know where we are. Not that
even now we are in a flourishing age for small-
talk. Small-Beer conversation— great and
glorious institution—requires a high state of
civilisation for its development, and with the
progress of civilisation it progresses too. We
cannot, then, expect to find it in the condition in
which we could wish to see it, even in the middle
ages; all we can say of it is, that there was
more of it than in the dark period just preceding.
And here it would seem natural that we should
refer for information to the pages of those among
our writers of romance who have sought to
illustrate these periods in their works, and who
have, doubtless, been at considerable pains to
search out the manners and customs of the time.
I have, however, no intention of trusting in so
important a matter to these speculative gentry.
I cannot fall in with their notions of the Small-
Beer talk of the mediæal period. I cannot
believe that there was in the conversation of the
time so much " Grammercy;" or that the
expressions " Nay, mistress," and "Mine host,"
were so continually in requisition as they would
have us believe. Why should we put any
confidence in these writers of mediæval fictions?
Do we not catch them napping in their reports
of modern conversation? Does any one, for
instance, ever say " Humph," or " Pshaw," in
the present day? Yet the same writers who are
most liberal with their " grammercies" and
"marry-comes-up" in the mediæval romances,
will be certain, when they condescend to
portray modern times, to adorn their pages with
"humphs" and "pshaws" innumerable. Now,