It is said of some of the German jesters that they occasionally lived on the people of the town, with the lord of which they resided in exercise of their office. A parallel to this may be met with in the annals of the philosophers, in the person of Demonax, who, leaving to his patrons to clothe and lodge him, boarded himself in a very facetious and economical way, by entering the first house, after he felt himself hungry, and there fully satisfying his appetite. But Demonax belonged to a lower class of the order of philosophers, as some later fools did to that of the general order of their profession. There was as much difference between Demonax and Socrates, as there was between Sibilot, as described by Huguenot authors, and our own light and noble-hearted Will Sommers. The happiest idea one can have of Socrates is that of seeing him in the studio of his father Sophroniscus, carving that group of the three Graces, the simplicity and elegance of which excited universal admiration. He was ever the same,--a rough labourer patiently and certainly creating beauty. In him we fail to discern anything of the mere unlicensed jester. The Platonic and the Xenophontic Socrates may be said equally, though in different ways and measures, to challenge admiration. Leaving the philosopher, to encounter him again presently, let us look over antiquity for traces of the fool in people as in individuals. Among the ancients, perhaps the Tirynthians had the reputation of being the very merriest of fools. Theophrastus is cited by Athenæus in proof of this. Those people of Argolis were so continually merry that they at last got tired of it, and applied to the oracle at Delphos to save them from being any longer such joyous simpletons. “You shall be cured,” said the oracular authority, “if after sacrificing an ox to Neptune, you can throw the carcase into the sea, without laughing.” “That will be easy enough,” said the Tirynthians, laughing all the while, “if we can only keep children away from the sacred fire.” Of course, however, an _enfant terrible_ managed to be present at the show. He was no sooner discovered than the now solemn Tirynthians began to drive him away, lest he should laugh or raise laughter during the ceremony, by some childish remark or question. “What are you afraid of?” asked the sprightly lad,--“that I should upset the dish” (and he pointed to the sea) “that is to hold your beef?” Poor as the joke was, it so tickled the fancy of the Tirynthians, that they laughed till their sides ached; and so they remained merry fools for ever. No jester, at a royal table, was ever so highly esteemed as an uproariously gay buffoon from this old city of Hercules--roystering Tirynthia.