Seneca speaks with all the freedom of a mask and as Roman Pasquino, and thus commences--"What happened on the 13th of October, in the consulship of Asinius Marcellus and Acilius Aviola, in the first year of the new Emperor, at the beginning of the period of blessing from heaven, I shall now deliver to memory. And in what I have to say, neither my vengeance nor my gratitude shall speak a word. If any one asks me where I got such accurate information about everything, I shall in the meantime not answer, if I don't choose. Who shall compel me? Do I not know that I have become a free man, since a certain person took his leave, who verified the proverb--One must either be born a king or a fool? And if I choose to answer, I shall say the first thing that comes into my head." Seneca now affirms, sneeringly, that he heard what he is about to relate from the senator who saw Drusilla [sister and mistress of Caligula] ascend to heaven from the Appian Way.[L] The same man had now, according to the philosopher, been a witness of all that had happened to Claudius on occasion of _his_ ascension. I shall be better understood, continued Seneca, if I say it was on the 13th of October; the hour I am unable exactly to fix, for there is still greater variance between the clocks than between the philosophers. It was, however, between the sixth and the seventh hour--Claudius was just gasping for a little breath, and couldn't find any. Hereupon Mercury, who had always been delighted with the genius of the man, took one of the three Parcæ aside, and said--"Cruel woman, why do you let the poor mortal torment himself so long, since he has not deserved it? He has been gasping for breath for sixty-four years now. What ails you at him? Allow the mathematicians to be right at last, who, ever since he became Emperor, have been assuring us of his death every year, nay, every month. And yet it is no wonder if they make mistakes. Nobody knows the man's hour--for nobody has ever looked on him as born. Do your duty, Give him to death, And let a better fill his empty throne." Atropos now cuts Claudius's thread of life; but Lachesis spins another--a glittering thread, that of Nero; while Phœbus plays upon his lyre. In well-turned, unprincipled verses, Seneca flatters his young pupil, his new sun--