While we were contemplating a graceful retreat the Judge happened to discover in the ``Natural History’’ of Pliny a passage which proved to our satisfaction that, so far from being a new or a modern thing, the extra-illustration of books was of exceptional antiquity.  It seems that Atticus, the friend of Cicero, wrote a book on the subject of portraits and portrait-painting, in the course of which treatise he mentions that Marcus Varro ``conceived the very liberal idea of inserting, by some means or another, in his numerous volumes, the portraits of several hundred individuals, as he could not bear the idea that all traces of their features should be lost or that the lapse of centuries should get the better of mankind.’’

``Thus,’’ says Pliny, ``was he the inventor of a benefit to his fellow-men that might have been envied by the gods themselves; for not only did he confer immortality upon the originals of these portraits, but he transmitted these portraits to all parts of the earth, so that everywhere it might be possible for them to be present, and for each to occupy his niche.’’

Now, Pliny is not the only one who has contributed to the immortalization of Marcus Varro.  I have had among, my papers for thirty years the verses which Judge Methuen dashed off (for poets invariably dash off their poetry), and they are such pleasant verses that I don’t mind letting the world see them.

Marcus Varro

Marcus Varro went up and down
The places where old books were sold;
He ransacked all the shops in town
For pictures new and pictures old. 
He gave the folk of earth no peace;
Snooping around by day and night,
He plied the trade in Rome and Greece
Of an insatiate Grangerite.

  ``Pictures!’’ was evermore his cry—­
      ``Pictures of old or recent date,’’
   And pictures only would he buy
      Wherewith to ``extra-illustrate.’’
   Full many a tome of ancient type
      And many a manuscript he took,
   For nary purpose but to swipe
      Their pictures for some other book.

   While Marcus Varro plied his fad
      There was not in the shops of Greece
   A book or pamphlet to be had
      That was not minus frontispiece. 
   Nor did he hesitate to ply
      His baleful practices at home;
   It was not possible to buy
      A perfect book in all of Rome!

   What must the other folk have done—­
      Who, glancing o’er the books they bought,
   Came soon and suddenly upon
      The vandalism Varro wrought! 
   How must their cheeks have flamed with red—­
      How did their hearts with choler beat! 
   We can imagine what they said—­
      We can imagine, not repeat!

   Where are the books that Varro made—­
      The pride of dilettante Rome—­
   With divers portraitures inlaid
      Swiped from so many another tome? 
   The worms devoured them long ago—­
      O wretched worms! ye should have fed
   Not on the books ``extended’’ so,
      But on old Varro’s flesh instead!