ust
in the _Clouds_, and in other scenes of Aristophanes, you have ancient
specimens of something very like _tensons_, except that love has not
much share in them. Let us for a moment suppose this same spirit-rapping
to be true--dramatically so, at least. Let us fit up a stage for the
purpose: make the invoked spirits visible as well as audible: and
calling before us some of the illustrious of former days, ask them
what they think of us and our doings? Of our astounding progress of
intellect? Our march of mind? Our higher tone of morality? Our vast
diffusion of education? Our art of choosing the most unfit man by
competitive examination?

1 Not even boys believe it: but suppose it to be true.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ You had better not bring on many of them at
once, nor ask many similar questions, or the chorus of ghostly laughter
will be overwhelming. I imagine the answer would be something like
Hamlets: 'You yourselves, sirs, shall be as wise as we were, if, like
crabs, you could go backward.' It is thought something wonderful that
uneducated persons should believe in witchcraft in the nineteenth
century: as if educated persons did not believe in grosser follies:
such as this same spirit-rapping, unknown tongues, clairvoyance,
table-turning, and all sorts of fanatical impositions, having for the
present their climax in Mormonism. Herein all times are alike. There
is nothing too monstrous for human credulity. I like the notion of the
Aristophanic comedy. But it would require a numerous company, especially
as the chorus is indispensable. The _tenson_ may be carried on by two.

_Mr. Gryll._ I do not see why we should not have both.

_Miss Gryll._ Oh pray, doctor! let us have the comedy. We hope to have
a houseful at Christmas, and I think we may get it up well, chorus and
all. I should so like to hear what my great ancestor, Gryllus, thinks
of us: and Homer, and Dante, and Shakespeare, and Richard the First, and
Oliver Cromwell.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ A very good _dramatis personae_. With these,
and the help of one or two Athenians and Romans, we may arrive at a
tolerable judgment on our own immeasurable superiority to everything
that has gone before us.

Before we proceed further, we will give some account of our
interlocutors.

CHAPTER II

THE SQUIRE AND HIS NIECE

FORTUNA . SPONDET . MULTA . MULTIS . PRAESTAT .
NEM1NI . VIVE . IN . DIES . ET . HORAS . NAM .