the labouring classes, if but for a moment, or during the performance of a single act, upon the same level with those who do not labour, is highly advantageous to them; and thus, admitting that the Athenians go to church as well to save their pockets as to compound for the doings of the week, the said Athenians do, upon that account, deserve nothing but praise. Leaving the church-going, and subsequent feasting and flirtation out of the question, there is something peculiar in an Athenian Sabbath: it seems as though useful labour and innocent amusements were the only things that deserve to be suspended. The advocates are a privileged class, and it is no scandal in them to drudge at their cases. As little is there any harm whatever in oral discussion of any subject imaginable; but if a maid-servant were to hum a tune, an advocate’s wife to give a thump to the piano-forte, or a boarding-school miss to peep into a new novel, the Athens would be in the utmost jeopardy of sinking in the Forth, in which the sinner would have some chance of being ducked. It must not, however, be supposed that among such a people as the Athenians, the Sunday is a day of idleness. It is no such thing; for with both men and women, it is the choice and chosen day of the week, set apart to all manner of gossip and enjoyment; and though it be not the fashion for the people to listen to the music of instruments, or read profane books, yet the music of woman’s tongue is soft and sweet, and the book of fate is opened. Whether the present church-going propensity of the Athens shall continue, is a question that it would be difficult to solve; but that the Athens will continue to enjoy herself upon Sunday nights, may be received into the catalogue of truths that are demonstrated. CHAPTER XI. SUNDRY QUALITIES OF THE ATHENS, IN SUPPLEMENT. “In Ethiopia there is a lizard, Green on the grass, but golden on the sand, Of slender form and many-tinctured skin: Of this, when you suppose that you have counted The tints and glosses, straight the creature turns, Or you but step aside, when lo, it seems As new and strange as ever. What you noted Is all errata, and your task of telling Is never at an end.”