Within the temple of my purer mind      One imaged form shall ever live enshrined,
     And hear the vows¹, to first affection due,
     Still breathed: for love that ceases ne'er was true.
     —Leyden's Scenes of Infancy².
An interval³ of a week was interposed between the comedy and the intended ball. Mr. Falconer having no fancy for balls, and disturbed beyond endurance by the interdict⁴ which Miss Gryll had laid on him against speaking, for four times seven days, on the subject nearest his heart, having discharged with becoming self-command his share in the Aristophanic comedy, determined⁵ to pass his remaining days of probation⁶ in the Tower, where he found, in the attentions of the seven sisters, not a perfect Nepenthe, but the only possible antidote⁷ to intense vexation of spirit. It is true, his two Hebes, pouring out his Madeira, approximated as nearly as anything could do to Helen's administration of the true Nepenthe. He might have sung of Madeira, as Redi's Bacchus sang of one of his favourite wines:—
 
     Egli è il vero oro potabile,
     Che mandar suole in esilio
     Ogni male inrimediabile:
     Egli è d'Elena il Nepente,
     Che fa stare il mondo allegro⁸,
     Dai pensieri
     Foschi e neri
     Sempre sciolto, e sempre esente.{1}
 
     1 Redi: Bacco in Toscana.
Matters went on quietly at the Grange. One evening, Mr. Gryll said quietly to the Reverend Doctor Opimian—
 
'I have heard you, doctor, more than once, very eulogistic¹⁰ of hair as indispensable to beauty. What say you to the bald Venus of the Romans—Venus Calva?'
 
The Rev⁹. Dr. Opimian. Why, sir, if it were a question whether the Romans had any such deity¹¹, I would unhesitatingly maintain the negatur. Where do you find her?
 
Mr. Gryll. In the first place, I find her in several dictionaries.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. A dictionary is nothing without an authority. You have no authority but that of one or two very late writers, and two or three old grammarians, who had found the word and guessed at its meaning. You do not find her in any genuine classic. A bald Venus! It is as manifest a contradiction in terms as hot ice, or black snow.
 
Lord Curryfin. Yet I have certainly read, though I cannot at this moment say where, that there was in Rome a temple to Venus Calva, and that it was so dedicated¹² in consequence of one of two circumstances: the first being that through some divine anger the hair of the Roman women fell off, and that Ancus Martius set up a bald statue of his wife, which served as an expiation¹³, for all the women recovered their hair, and the worship of the Bald Venus was instituted; the other being, that when Rome was taken by the Gauls, and when they had occupied the city, and were besieging¹⁴ the Capitol, the besieged¹⁵ having no materials to make bowstrings, the women cut off their hair for the purpose, and after the war a statue of the Bald Venus was raised in honour of the women.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I have seen the last story transferred to the time of the younger Maximin.{1} But when two or three explanations, of which only one can possibly be true, are given of any real or supposed fact, we may safely conclude that all are false. These are ridiculous myths, founded on the misunderstanding of an obsolete¹⁶ word. Some hold that Calva, as applied¹⁷ to Venus, signifies pure; but I hold with others that it signifies alluring¹⁸, with a sense of deceit. You will find the cognate¹⁹ verbs, calvo and calvor, active,{2}
 
     1 Julius Capitolinus: Max. Jun. c. 7.
 
     2 Est et Venus Calva ob hanc causam, quod cum Galli
     Capitolium obsiderent, et deessent funes Romanis ad tormenta
     facienda, prima. Domitia crinem suum, post caeterae matron,
     imitatae earn, exsecuerune, unde facta tormenta; et post
     bellum statua Veneri hoc nomine collocata est: licet alii
     Calvam Venerem quasi puram tradant: alii Calvam, quod corda
     calviat, id est, fallat atque éludât. Quidam dicunt,
     porrigine olim capillos cecidisse fominis, et Ancum regem
     suae uxori statuam Calvam posuisse, quod constitit piaculo;
     nam mox omnibus fominis capilli renati sunt: unde institutum
     ut Calva Venus coleretur.
     —Servius ad Aen. i.
passive,{1} and deponent,{2} in Servius, Plautus, and Sallust. Nobody pretends that the Greeks had a bald Venus. The Venus Calva of the Romans was the Aphrodite Dolie of the Greeks.{3} Beauty cannot co-exist with baldness; but it may and does co-exist with deceit. Homer makes deceitful allurement²⁰ an essential element in the girdle of Venus.{4} Sappho addresses her as craft-weaving Venus.{5} Why should I multiply examples, when poetry so abounds²¹ with complaints of deceitful love that I will be bound every one of this company could, without a moment's hesitation²², find a quotation²³ in point?—Miss Gryll, to begin with.
 
     1 Contra ille calvi ratus.—Sallust: Hist. iii.
     Thinking himself to be deceitfully allured²⁴.
 
     2 Nam ubi domi sola sum, sopor manus calvitur.
     —Plautus in Casina.
     For when I am at home alone, sleep alluringly²⁵ deceives my hands.
 
     3 (Greek passage)
 
    &nbs............