rib's plaguy sore)--

_Semi-chorus_ With my croak, croak, croak.

Semi-chorus (_diminuendo_.) With my croak, croak, croak.

_Full Chorus_ (_in a dying cadence_.) With my
croak--croak--croak.

(_The Frogs disappear_)

BACCHUS (_looking over the boat's edge_.)
Spoke, spoke, spoke.
(To _Charon_.) Pull away, my old friend,
For at last there's an end
To their croak, croak, croak.

(_Bacchus pays his two obols, and is landed_)

[1] The comic performances of the Athenians were usually brought
out at a festival of Bacchus, which lasted for three days. The
first of these was devoted to the tapping of their wine-casks;
the second to boundless jollity (Plato specifies a town, but not
Athens, every single inhabitant of which was found in a state of
intoxication on one of these festivals,) and the third to
theatrical exhibitions in the temple of the patron of the feast.
In this state of excitement it will be easily imagined that some
coarser ingredients were required by the clever but licentious
rabble of Athens, to whom these representations were more
particularly addressed, besides the better commodities of rich
poetry and wit; and hence the deformities which have been so much
complained of in the writings of Aristophanes.

* * * * *

NOTES OF A READER.

* * * * *

LAYING A GHOST.

In the Memoirs of J.F. Oberlin, Pastor of a poor Protestant flock, in
one of the wildest parts of France, we find the following pleasant
recipe for laying a ghost:--

An honest tradesman, relying on the power of his faith, came to him one
day, and after a long introduction, informed him, that a ghost, habited
in the dress of an ancient knight, frequently presented itself before
him, and awakened hopes of a treasure buried in his cellar; he had
often, he said, followed it, but had always been so much alarmed by a
fearful noise, and a dog which he fancied he saw, that the effort had
proved fruitless, and he had returned as he went. This alarm on the
one hand, and the hope of acquiring riches on the other, so entirely
absorbed his mind, that he could no longer apply to his trade with his
former industry, and had, in consequence, lost nearly all his custom.
He therefore urgently begged Oberlin would go to hi