nosegays of rare flowers, or supported in their arms
small statues and pictures in mosaic. Of their number, some were
painters and poets, some orators and philosophers, and some statuaries
and musicians. Among such a motley assemblage of professions,
remarkable in all ages of the world for fostering in their votaries the
vice of irritability, it may seem strange that so quiet and orderly a
behaviour should exist as that just described. But it is to be
observed that in attending at the palace, these men of genius made sure
at least of outward unanimity among their ranks, by coming equally
prepared with one accomplishment, and equally animated by one hope:
they waited to employ a common agent--flattery; to attain a common
end--gain.

The chamber thus sacred, even from the intrusion of intellectual
inspiration, although richly ornamented, was of no remarkable extent.
At other times the eye might have wandered with delight on the
exquisite plants and flowers, scattered profusely over a noble terrace,
to which a second door in the apartment conducted; but, at the present
moment, the employment of the occupant of the room was of so
extraordinary a nature, that the most attentive observation must have
missed all the inferior characteristics of the place, to settle
immediately on its inhabitant alone.

In the midst of a large flock of poultry, which seemed strangely
misplaced on a floor of marble and under a gilded roof, stood a pale,
thin, debilitated youth, magnificently clothed, and holding in his hand
a silver vase filled with grain, which he ever and anon distributed to
the cackling multitude at his feet. Nothing could be more pitiably
effeminate than the appearance of this young man. His eyes were heavy
and vacant, his forehead low and retiring, his cheeks sallow, and his
form curved as if with a premature old age. An unmeaning smile dilated
his thin, colourless lips; and as he looked down on his strange
favourites, he occasionally whispered to them a few broken expressions
of endearment, almost infantine in their simplicity. His whole soul
seemed to be engrossed by the labour of distributing his grain, and he
followed the different movements of the poultry with an earnestness of
attention which seemed almost idiotic in its ridiculous intensity. If
it be asked, why a person so contemptible as this solitary youth has
been introduced with so much care, and described with so much
minuteness, it must be answered, t