Above three hundred of the nobility and people of fashion in the neighbourhood were invited. Lord and Lady Darnley, Lord Munster, Lady Eliza, and Mr Worthy, were the only people unmarked. They received the company in the temple of Minerva, which faced a fine piece of water, on which there is an island. The river represented the Styx[42], the island Elysium, and Charon ferried over passengers. His boat landing, the names of Demosthenes, Aristotle, Pindar, Plato, Apelles, Phidias, and Praxiteles, were announced to Lady Darnley--They were all dressed in Grecian habits. Demosthenes, in an elegant harangue, acquainted her, that the wise Minos had indulged them in their request, of taking that opportunity of doing homage to her superlative merit, and to return her thanks for reviving their memories in the encouragement she gave to the arts and sciences, as under her patronage the Muses had made Munster Village their capital seat. He then expatiated on the advantages she had procured to society--the influence of the philosophic spirit in humanizing the mind, and preparing it for intellectual exertion and delicate pleasures--in exploring, by the help of geometry, the system of the universe--in promoting navigation, agriculture, medicine, and moral and political science. Lady Darnley (though totally unprepared, being ignorant of her nephew's plans) made a very ready and polite answer, returning them thanks for the honor they did her, which (she said) as it could afford them no other _pleasure_, than that of _obliging_, rendered the obligation greater. Demosthenes replied, that great geniuses are always superior to their own abilities. Some time after Charon was observed to land some passengers in Roman habits; they proved to be Cicero, Lucretius, Livy, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Varro, Tibullus, and Vitruvius. Cicero advancing, made Lady Darnley a speech similar to that of Demosthenes--as like thoughts will be ever born of the like subjects, by people who live in corresponding periods of the _progression of manners_. In such cases some considerable _similarity_ of expression may be occasioned by the agency of _general principles_. Lady Darnley made a gracious reply, intimating her small merit, and the apprehensions she felt that physical causes might impede her good intentions; that her powers had been limited; but that she was far from thinking with Boileau, that wherever there is a Mæccenas, a Virgil or an Horace will arise, (curtsying to these gentlemen.) Cicero observed to her the happiness she enjoyed in living at a _period_ distinguished by men of such shining abilities in every department!