criticisms who, in the description of Patroclus's obsequies in Homer, read [Greek omitted] ORATORS, and not [Greek omitted], DARTERS, ("Iliad," xxiii, 886.) as if Achilles had proposed a prize for the best speaker,--omitting all these, I said that Acastus at his father Pelias's funeral set a prize for contending poets, and Sibylla won it. At this, a great many demanding some authority for this unlikely and incredible relation, I happily recollecting myself produced Acesander, who in his description of Africa hath this relation; but I must confess this is no common book. But Polemo the Athenian's "Commentary of the Treasures of the City Delphi" I suppose most of you have diligently perused, he being a very learned man in the Greek Antiquities. In him you shall find that in the Sicyonian treasure there was a golden book dedicated to the god, with this inscription: Aristomache, the poetess of Erythraea, dedicated this after she had got the prize at the Isthmian games. Nor is there any reason, I continued, why we should so admire and reverence the Olympic games, as if, like Fate, they were unalterable, and never admitted any change since the first institution. For the Pythian, it is true, hath had three or four musical prizes added; but all the exercises of the body were for the most part the same from the beginning. But in the Olympian all beside racing are late additions. They instituted some, and abolished them again; such were the races of mules, either rode or in a chariot as likewise the crown appointed for boys that were victor's in the five contests. And, in short, a thousand things in those games are mere novelties. At Pisa they had a single combat, where he that yielded or was overcome was killed upon the place. But pray for the future require no author for my story, lest I may appear ridiculous if amidst my cups I should forget the name. QUESTION III. WHY WAS THE PINE COUNTED SACRED TO NEPTUNE AND BACCHUS? AND WHY AT FIRST THE CONQUEROR IN THE ISTHMIAN GAMES WAS CROWNED WITH A GARLAND OF PINE, AFTERWARDS WITH PARSLEY, AND NOW AGAIN WITH PINE. LUCANIUS, PRAXITELES.