be remembered, was their proper domain), they chant a strain of which the rhythm, at least, is fairly preserved in Mr Frere's translation:—
"Follow faster, all together! search, inquire of every one.
Speak—inform us—have you seen him? whither is the rascal run?
'Tis a point of public service that the traitor should be caught
In the fact, seized and arrested with the treaties he has brought."
Then they separate into two bodies, mutually urging each other to the pursuit, and leave the scene in different directions as Dicæopolis reappears. He is come to hold a private festival on his own account to Bacchus, in thanksgiving for the Peace which he, at all events, is to enjoy from henceforward. But he will have everything done in regular order, so far as his resources admit, with all the pomp and solemnity of a public festival. His daughter is to act as "Canephora," or basket-bearer, carrying the sacred emblems of the god—a privilege which the fairest and noblest maidens of Athens were proud to claim—and her mother exhorts her to move and behave herself like a lady,—if on this occasion only. Their single slave is to follow behind with other mystic emblems. But a spectacle is nothing, as Dicæopolis feels, without spectators; so he bids his wife go indoors, and mount upon the housetop to see the procession pass. Next to a caricature of their great men, an Athenian audience enjoyed a caricature of their religion. They had this much of excuse, that Paganism was full of tempting themes for
