easted on so many myself?"

But there is one speech of his which must ever make his memory dear to
all good men. When the Athenians wished to emulate the Corinthians by
exhibiting a gladiatorial combat, he said, "Do not vote this, Athenians,
before ye have taken down the Altar of Mercy."

Demonax lived to a ripe old age, and we are told that he was so much
beloved in Athens that, as he passed the bread-shops, the bakers would
run out to beg his acceptance of a loaf, and thought it a good omen if
he complied; and that the little children called him father, and would
bring him presents of fruit.

Apuleius wrote in Latin in the second century. He was a native of
Carthage--not the celebrated Carthage of Terence, but that of Cyprian--a
new city. He travelled like many of the learned men of his time to
Athens and Alexandria, and thus, most probably, became acquainted with
his contemporary Lucian. At any rate, his "Golden Ass" seems taken from
the work by that author. Bishop Warburton has seen in his production a
subtle attack upon Christianity, but we may take it as intended to
ridicule magical arts, and those who believed in them. He was likely to
feel keenly on this subject, for having married a rich widow,
Pudentilla, her relatives accused him of having obtained her by
witchcraft, and even dragged him into a court of justice.

Lucian ridiculed the religion of his day, Apuleius its superstitions.
Apuleius speaks of his "book of jests," but it is lost--the few lines he
gives out of it are a somewhat matter-of-fact recommendation of
tooth-powder. His enemies thought that tooth-powder was something
magical and unholy--at any rate, they made his mention of it a charge
against him. In reply, he says that perhaps a man who only opens his
mouth to revile ought not to have tooth-powder.

In the "Golden Ass," Apuleius gravely supposes that transformations take
place between men and the lower animals. He makes Aristomenes tell a
story in which a witch appears, "able to drag down the firmament, to
support the world on her shoulders, crumble mountains, raise the dead,
dethrone gods, extinguish the stars, and illuminate hell." She changed
one of her lovers, of whom she was jealous, into a beaver, and
persecuted him with hunters. She punished the wife of another of them,
who was about to increase her family, by condemning her to remain in
that condition. "It is now eight years since she has been growing larger
and larger, and seems