engaged in cultivating their blissful abode. Poets have always been
delighted with the beauties of a garden. Lucan is represented by Juvenal
as reposing in his garden. Virgil's _Georgies_ prove him to have been
captivated with rural scenes; though to the surprise of his readers he
has not assigned a book to the subject of a garden. But let not the rich
suppose they have appropriated the pleasures of a garden. The possessor
of an acre, or a smaller portion, may receive a real pleasure from
observing the progress of vegetation, even in the plantation of culinary
plants. A very limited tract properly attended to, will furnish ample
employment for an individual, nor let it be thought a mean care; for the
same hand that raised the cedar, formed the hyssop on the wall."

P.T.W.

[3] In the street called Brook Street, was Brook House.

* * * * *


GRECIAN FLIES--SPONGERS.

(_For the Mirror_.)


In modern days we should term _Grecian Flies, Spongers; alias Dinner
Hunters_. Among the Grecians (according to Potter) "They who forced
themselves into other men's entertainments, were called _flies_, which
was a general name of reproach for such as insinuated themselves into
any company where they were not welcome." In Plautus, an entertainment
free from unwelcome guests is called _hospitium sine muscis_, an