It may be, the ground of this custom was only this, that salt was constantly used at all entertainments, both of the gods and men, whence a particular sanctity was believed to be lodged in it:  it is hence called divine salt by Homer, and holy salt by others; and by placing of salt on the table, a sort of blessing was thought to be conveyed to them.  To have eaten at the same table was esteemed an inviolable obligation to friendship; and to transgress the salt at the table—­that is, to break the laws of hospitality, and to injure one by whom any person had been entertained—­was accounted one of the blackest crimes:  hence that exaggerating interrogation of Demosthenes, “Where is the salt? where the hospital tables?” for in despite of these, he had been the author of these troubles.  And the crime of Paris in stealing Helena is aggravated by Cassandra, upon this consideration, that he had contemned the salt, and overturned the hospital table.

P.T.W.

* * * * *

THE NOVELIST.

* * * * *

THE GAMESTER’S DAUGHTER.

From the Confessions of an Ambitious Student.

A fit, one bright spring morning, came over me—­a fit of poetry.  From that time the disorder increased, for I indulged it; and though such of my performances as have been seen by friendly eyes have been looked upon as mediocre enough, I still believe, that if ever I could win a lasting reputation, it would be through that channel.  Love usually accompanies poetry, and, in my case, there was no exception to the rule.

“There was a slender, but pleasant brook, about two miles from our house, to which one or two of us were accustomed, in the summer days, to repair to bathe and saunter away our leisure hours.  To this favourite spot I one day went alone, and crossing a field which led to the brook, I encountered two ladies, with one of whom, having met her at some house in the neighbourhood, I had a slight acquaintance.  We stopped to speak to each other, and I saw the face of her companion.  Alas! were I to live ten thousand lives, there would never be a moment in which I could be alone—­nor sleeping, and that face not with me!

“My acquaintance introduced us to each other.  I walked home with them to the house of Miss D——­(so was the strange, who was also the younger lady named.) The next day I called upon her; the acquaintance thus commenced did not droop; and, notwithstanding our youth—­for Lucy D——­ was only seventeen, and I nearly a year younger—­we soon loved, and with a love, which, full of poesy and dreaming, as from our age it necessarily must have been, was not less durable, nor less heart-felt, than if it had arisen from the deeper and more earthly sources in which later life only hoards its affections.