“I rejoice to find you at so classical a pastime,” said the vicar, as he approached Tom, who was busily engaged in spinning his top. “The top, my boy, is a subject which the great Mantuan bard did not consider beneath the patronage of his muse: but, hey-day! this is not the ‘_volitans sub verbere turbo_’ of the immortal Virgil; the top of antiquity was the whip-top, the peg-top is a barbarous innovation of modern times: a practical proof of the degeneracy of the race. Even boys, forsooth, must now-a-days have their activity cramped by inventions to supersede labour: well may we regard the weapons, which our sturdy ancestors wielded as instruments rather calculated for giants than men, if such pains be taken to instil into the minds of youth the mischievous spirit of idleness.” “My dear sir,” said Tom, who was always grieved at displeasing the vicar, “if it will gratify you, I will spin my _whip_-top, for I have an excellent one which my papa has lately given me.” “Well said! my dear boy. ‘_Puer bonæ spei._’--What a pity would it be to damp so noble a spirit; get your whip-top.” Tom accordingly placed the Virgilian top upon the ground, and as the boy plied the whip, so did the vicar lash the air with his quotation; running round the top in apparent ecstasy, while he repeated the well-known lines from the seventh Æneid:--           “Ille actus habena Curvatis fertur spatiis; stupet inscia turba, Impubesque manus, mirata volubile buxum: Dant animos plagæ.”[21] As Mr. Twaddleton thus gave vent to that fervour which was ever kindled by collision with Virgil, Tom gave motion to his top, which swaggered about with such an air of self-importance, that, to the eye of fancy, it might have appeared as if proudly conscious of the encomiums that had been so liberally lavished upon it. “The Grecian boys, as Suidas informs us, played also with this top,” continued the vicar. “And pray, may I ask,” said Mr. Seymour, “whether it was not introduced into this country by the Romans?” “Probably,” replied the vicar. “Figures representing boys in the act of whipping their tops first appear in the marginal paintings of the manuscripts of the fourteenth century; at which period, the form of the toy was the same as it is at present, and the manner of impelling it by the whip can admit of but little if any difference. In a manuscript,[22] at the British Museum, I have read a very curious anecdote which refers to Prince Henry, the eldest son of James the First; with your permission I will relate it to you.” Here the vicar extracted a memorandum-book from his pocket, and read the following note:--