"On these conditions," said he, "I consent to spare your life. Otherwise you must die upon the spot.'

With a drawn sword hanging over her, the enchantress would readily have consented to do as much good as she had hitherto done mischief, however little she might like such employment. She therefore led Ulysses out of the back entrance of the palace, and showed him the swine in their sty. There were about fifty of these unclean beasts in the whole herd; and though the greater part were hogs by birth and education, there was wonderfully little difference to be seen betwixt them and their new brethren who had so recently worn the human shape. To speak critically, indeed, the latter rather carried the thing to excess, and seemed to make it a point to wallow in the miriest part of the sty, and otherwise to outdo the original swine in their own natural vocation. When men once turn to brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold to their brutality.

The comrades of Ulysses, however, had not quite lost the remembrance of having formerly stood erect. When he approached the sty, two and twenty enormous swine separated themselves from the herd, and scampered towards him, with such a chorus of horrible squealing as made him clap both hands to his ears. And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause. It was curious, in the midst of their distress, to observe them thrusting their noses into the mire, in quest of something to eat. The nymph with the bodice of oaken bark (she was the hamadryad of an oak) threw a handful of acorns among them; and the two and twenty hogs scrambled and fought for the prize, as if they had tasted not so much as a noggin of sour milk for a twelvemonth.

"These must certainly be my comrades," said Ulysses. "I recognize their dispositions. They are hardly worth the trouble of changing them into the human form again. Nevertheless, we will have it done, lest their bad example should corrupt the other hogs. Let them take their original shapes, therefore, Dame Circe, if your skill is equal to the task. It will require greater magic, I trow, than it did to make swine of them."

So Circe waved her wand again, and repeated a few magic words, at the sound of which the two and twenty hogs pricked up their pendulous ears. It was a wonder to behold how their snouts grew shorter and shorter, and their mouths (which they

seemed to be sorry for, because they could not gobble so expeditiously) smaller and smaller, and how one and another began to stand upon his hind legs, and scratch his nose with his fore trotters. At first the spectators hardly knew whether to call them hogs or men, but by and by came to the conclusion that they rather resembled the latter. Finally, there stood the twenty-two comrades of Ulysses, looking pretty much the same as when they left the vessel.

You must not imagine, however, that the swinish quality had entirely gone out of them. When once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it. This was proved by the hamadryad, who, being exceedingly fond of mischief, threw another handful of acorns before the twentytwo newly restored people; whereupon down they wallowed, in a moment, and gobbled them up in a very shameful way. Then, recollecting themselves, they scrambled to their feet, and looked more than commonly foolish.

“Thanks, noble Ulysses!" they cried. "From brute beasts you have restored us to the condition of men again."

"Do not put yourselves to the trouble of thanking me," said the wise king. "I fear I have done but little for you."

To say the truth, there was a suspicious kind of a grunt in their voices, and for a long time afterwards they spoke gruffly, and were apt to set up a squeal.

"It must depend on your own future behavior," added Ulysses, "whether you do not find your way back to the sty." At this moment, the note of a bird sounded from the branch of a neighboring tree.

"Peep, peep, pe-wee-ep!"

It was the purple bird, who, all this while, had been sitting over their heads, watching what was going forward, and hoping that Ulysses would remember how he had done his utmost to keep him and his followers out of harm's way. Ulysses ordered Circe instantly to make a king of this good little fowl, and leave him exactly as she found him. Hardly were the words spoken, and before the bird had time to utter another "Peweep," King Picus leaped down from the bough of the tree, as majestic a sovereign as any in the world, dressed in a long purple robe and gorgeous yellow stockings, with a splendidly wrought collar about his neck, and a golden crown upon his head. He and King Ulysses exchanged with one another the courtesies which belong to their elevated rank. But from that

time forth, King Picus was no longer proud of his crown and his trappings of royalty, nor of the fact of his being a king; he felt himself merely the upper servant of his people, and that it must be his lifelong labor to make them better and happier.

As for the lions, tigers, and wolves (though Circe would have restored them to their former shapes at his slightest word), Ulysses thought it advisable that they should remain as they now were, and thus give warning of their cruel dispositions, instead of going about under the guise of men, and pretending to human sympathies, while their hearts had the bloodthirstiness of wild beasts. So he let them howl as much as they liked, but never troubled his head about them.

THE LONGING OF CIRCE.1

BY CAMERON MANN.

THE rapid years drag by, and bring not here
The man for whom I wait;
All things pall on me: in my

Lest I may miss my fate.

heart grows

I weary of the heavy wealth and ease,

Which all my isle enfold;

fear

The fountain's sleepy plash, the summer breeze
That bears not heat nor cold.

With dull, unvaried mien, my maid and I
Plod through our daily tasks;

Gather strange herbs, weave purple tapestry,
Distill in magic flasks.

Most weary am I of these men who yield
So quickly to my spell, -

The beastly rout now wandering afield,
With grunt and snarl and yell.

Ah, when, in place of tigers and of swine,
Shall he confront me whom

My song cannot enslave, nor that bright wine
Where rank enchantments fume?

Then with what utter gladness will I cast

My sorceries away,

And kneel to him, my lord revealed at last,
And serve him night and day!

THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE TO CIRCE.

BY AUSTIN DOBSON.

[HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON: English poet and biographer; born at Plymouth, England, January 18, 1840. He was educated as a civil engineer, but since 1856 has held a position in the Board of Trade, devoting his leisure hours to literary work. He domesticated the old French stanza form in English verse, and has done much to revive an interest in English art and literature of the eighteenth century. "Vignettes in Rhyme," "At the Sign of the Lyre," and "Proverbs in Porcelain" constitute his chief poetical works. In prose he has written biographies of Bewick, Walpole, Hogarth, Steele, and Goldsmith; "EighteenthCentury Vignettes," etc.]

HUDDLING they came, with shag sides caked of mire,-
With hoofs fresh sullied from the troughs o'erturned,-
With wrinkling snouts, yet eyes in which desire
Of some strange thing unutterably burned,
Unquenchable; and still where'er She turned
They rose about her, striving each o'er each,

With restless, fierce impórtuning that yearned

Through those brute masks some piteous tale to teach, Yet lacked the words thereto, denied the power of speech.

In truth, that small exploring band had been,
Whom wise Odysseus, dim precaution shaping,
Ever at heart, of peril unforeseen,

Had sent inland; -whom then the islet Queen, -
The fair disastrous daughter of the Sun,-
Had turned to likeness of the beast unclean,
With evil wand transforming one by one,

To shapes of loathly swine, imbruted and undone.

But "the men's minds remained," and these forever
Made hungry suppliance through the fire-red eyes;
Still searching aye, with impotent endeavor,

To find, if yet, in any look, there lies

A saving hope, or if they might surprise

In that cold face soft pity's spark concealed,
Which she, still scorning, evermore denies;
Nor was there in her any ruth revealed

To whom with such mute speech and dumb words they appealed.

What hope is ours—what hope! To find no mercy
After much war, and many travails done?·
Ah, kinder far than thy fell philters, Circe,
The ravening Cyclops and the Læstrigon!
And O, thrice cursèd be Laertes' son,

By whom, at last, we watch the days decline
With no fair ending of the quest begun,
Condemned in sties to weary and to pine

And with men's hearts to beat through this foul front of swine!

For us not now,—for us, alas! no more

The old green glamour of the glancing sea;
For us not now the laughter of the oar,

The strong-ribbed keel wherein our comrades be;

Not now, at even, any more shall we,

By low-browed banks and reedy river places,
Watch the beast hurry and the wild fowl flee;

Or steering shoreward, in the upland spaces,
Have sight of curling smoke and fair-skinned foreign faces.

Alas for us!-for whom the columned houses
We left aforetime, cheerless must abide;
Cheerless the hearth where now no guest carouses,-
No minstrel raises song at eventide;

And O, more cheerless than aught else beside,
The wistful hearts with heavy longing full;-
The wife that watched us on the waning tide, —
The sire whose eyes with weariness are dull,
The mother whose slow tears fall on the carded wool.

If swine we be, — if we indeed be swine,
Daughter of Persé, make us swine indeed,
Well-pleased on litter straw to lie supine,
Well-pleased on mast and acorn shales to feed,
Stirred by all instincts of the bestial breed;

But O Unmerciful! O Pitiless!

Leave us not thus with sick men's hearts to bleed! · To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress And memory of things gone, and utter hopelessness!