t from Oxyrynchus), Jupiter, suffering from the chronic
headaches consequent on his acrimonious conversations with Athena,
decided to consult Vulcan, AEsculapius having come to be regarded as a
quack. Mulciber (as we must now call him, having used the name Vulcan
once), suggested an extraordinary remedy, one of the earliest records of
a homoeopathic expedient. He prescribed that the king of gods and men
should keep his ambrosial tongue in the side of his cheek for half an
hour three times a day. The operation produced violent retching in the
Capitoline stomach. And on the ninth day, from his mouth, quite unarmed,
sprang the twelfth muse. The other goddesses were very disgusted; and
even the gods declined to have any communication with the new arrival.
Apollo, however, was more tolerant, and offered her an asylum on the top
shelf of the celestial library. Ever afterwards Musagetes used to be
heard laughing immoderately, even for a librarian to the then House of
Lords. Jupiter, incensed at this irregularity, paid him a surprise visit
one day in order to discover the cause. He stayed, however, quite a long
time; and the other deities soon contracted the habit of taking their
nectar into the library. With the decline of manners, the twelfth muse
began to be invited to dessert, after Juno and the more reputable
goddesses had retired. To cut a long story short, when Pan died, in the
Olympian sense very shortly afterwards, all the gods, as we know, took
refuge on earth. Jupiter retired to Iceland, Aphrodite to Germany,
Apollo to Picardy, but the twelfth muse wandered all over Europe, and
found that she was really more appreciated than her sisters. The castle,
the abbey, the inn, the lone ale-house on the Berkshire moors, all made
her welcome. Finally she settled in Ireland, where, according to a
protestant libel, she took the black veil in a nunnery.

She is older than the chestnuts of Vallombrosa. Perhaps of all the
ancient goddesses time has chilled her least. Her unfathomable smile
wears a touch of something sinister in it, but she has a new meaning for
every generation. And yet for Aretino there was some further magic of
crimson on her lips and cheeks, lost for us. She is a solecism for the
convalescent, and has given consolation to the brave. She has been a
diver in rather deep seas and a climber in somewhat steep places. Her
censers are the smoking-rooms of clubs; and her presence-lamps are
schoolboys'