To quarrel with a man over his cups, or in any wise to molest him in his drink, is an offense against the proprieties that even the good-natured Epicurean can not find it in his easy heart to palliate or pardon. On this point he speaks mildly, but very firmly: Natis in usum laetitiae scyphis Pugnare, Thracum est. Tollite barbarum Morem: verecundumque Bacchum Sanguineis prohibete rixis. The ghost of Banquo was an uncivilized spectre, or--strong as was the provocation--it would have confronted Macbeth in any other place sooner than the banqueting-hall. The worst deed in the life of a cruel, false king was the setting on of the black bull's head before the doomed Douglases; and perhaps Pope Alexander, though singularly exempt from all vulgar prejudice, found it hard to obtain his own pontifical absolution for the poisoned wine in which he pledged the Orsini and Colonna. In these, and a hundred like instances, there was certainly the shadowy excuse of political expediency or necessity; but what shall we say of that individual who interrupts the harmony of a meeting solely to gratify his own private pique or pleasure? Truly, with such enormities Heaven "heads the count of crimes." I consider the most abominable act of which Eris was ever guilty was the selection of that particular moment for the production of the golden apple. If she was bound to make herself obnoxious, she might have waited till the Olympians were sitting in conclave, or at least at home again. It was infamous to disturb them while doing justice to the talents of Peleus's _cordon-bleu_. I wish very much that injured and querulous OEnone had met her somewhere on the slopes of Ida, and "given her a piece of her mind." On these grounds I venture to hope that all well-regulated readers will concur with me in pronouncing Mr. Fullarton's conduct totally indefensible. It would have been so easy to have communicated his intelligence to any that it might concern, discreetly, at a fitting place and time, instead of casting it into the midst of a convivial assembly like a fulminating ball. Under other circumstances, he would probably have taken the quieter course; but he had been smarting for some time under a succession of provocations, real and fancied, from Royston Keene, and his own misadventure that morning had filled the cup of irritation brimful. It was the old exasperating feeling-- Earl Percy sees my fall.