Less forgetful of a favourite dead wit was the patron of the comic poet, Timocreon of Rhodes; famous alike for his sharp appetite and verses, and for his power of pouring out wit and pouring in wine. It was a brother wit who would not venture to praise him, but who contrived to make the dead jester censure, by celebrating, himself in the apparently autograph lines, “Multa bibens, et multa vorans, mala denique dicens Multis, hîc jaceo Timocreon Rhodius.” “Having drunk much, eaten much, and spoken much evil, here I lie, Timocreon of Rhodes.” This heathen jester lived nearly five centuries before the Christian era; I might perhaps, had I a right to act “Censor,” suggest that his epitaph would not be unsuitable over many a serious but defunct gentleman, born since that era commenced. Let me rather do justice to the wit and independence of the old poets, generally. While doing so, I cannot but add my conviction that the philosophers were, on the whole, more independent in their jests than the poets. When Apollonius repaired from Chalcis to Rome, to become the tutor of Marcus Antoninus, he refused to go to the palace at all, saying that it was fitter for the pupil to come to the house of the instructor than for the latter to go to the dwelling of the pupil. The imperial hint, good-humouredly conveyed, that he had himself commenced this latter process by repairing from Chalcis to Rome, could not move him. It has been usual, and Flögel[A] has done it, among others, to rank the elder Aristippus among the ancient court wits. Inasmuch as that he was the chief flatterer of Dionysius of Sicily, and loved Epicurean voluptuousness, the founder of the Cyrenaic sect may be allowed to pass under that title, but he had little in common with the court jester of more modern times. He was as different from the latter in some respects, as he was from Crassus, the grandfather of Crassus the Rich, who according to Pliny was never known to laugh,--not even when his best friend broke his thigh. It is certain that Dionysius treated his flatterers as later sovereigns did their official jesters,--allowing for the difference of manners, morals, and customs. The poor jester whose head was placed on the executioner’s block by the sportive order of the ducal sovereign of Ferrara, proved indeed to be even worse off than the parasite Damocles, when Dionysius seated him on his throne, beneath an unsheathed sword suspended from a horse-hair.