'_As you were_' (to speak in the phraseology of military drill), was in effect the word of command. All things reverted to their original condition. And two centuries of darkness again enveloped this famous perplexity of Roman literature. The darkness had for a few moments seemed to be unsettling itself in preparation for flight: but immediately it rolled back again; and through seven generations of men this darkness was heavier, because less hopeful than before. Now then, I believe, all things are ready for the explosion of the catastrophe; 'which catastrophe,' I hear some malicious reader whispering, 'is doubtless destined to glorify himself' (meaning the unworthy writer of this little paper). I cannot deny it. A truth _is_ a truth. And, since no medal, nor riband, nor cross, of any known order, is disposable for the most brilliant successes in dealing with desperate (or what may be called _condemned_) passages in Pagan literature, mere sloughs of despond that yawn across the pages of many a heathen dog, poet and orator, that I could mention, the more reasonable it is that a large allowance should be served out of boasting and self-glorification to all those whose merits upon this field national governments have neglected to proclaim. The Scaligers, both father and son, I believe, acted upon this doctrine; and drew largely by anticipation upon that reversionary bank which they conceived to be answerable for such drafts. Joseph Scaliger, it strikes me, was drunk when he wrote his letter on the present occasion, and in that way failed to see (what Casaubon saw clearly enough) that he had commenced shouting before he was out of the wood. For my own part, if I go so far as to say that the result promises, in the Frenchman's phrase, to 'cover me with glory,' I beg the reader to remember that the idea of 'covering' is of most variable extent: the glory may envelope one in a voluminous robe--a princely mantle that may require a long suite of train-bearers, or may pinch and vice one's arms into that succinct garment (now superannuated) which some eighty years ago drew its name from the distinguished Whig family in England of Spencer. Anticipating, therefore, that I _shall_--nay, insisting, and mutinously, if needful, that I _will_--be covered with glory by the approaching result, I do not contemplate anything beyond that truncated tunic, once known as a 'spencer,' and which is understood to cover only the shoulders and the chest.