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142 a precarious dinner from day to day by making themselves agreeable or useful to their entertainers, the great men of the day were in the habit of receiving at their tables as daily guests, or even of entertaining altogether as members of their household,—often in the really or professed capacity of tutors to their sons,—guests of a different stamp. The man of wealth and position hardly thought his establishment complete, unless it comprised some of the representatives of literature and science—a philosopher or two, a poet, a rhetorician, or a historian. There was not necessarily anything degrading in the arrangement to the recipient of such hospitality. He might consider himself as the rightful successor of the bard of olden times, whose divine song was more than payment for his place at the feast, and to whom, by prerogative of genius, the highest seat at the king's board, and the best portion from the king's table, was by all willingly accorded. On such terms we may suppose that Plato, in spite of Simo's sarcasm, lived at the court of Dionysius; and with a scarcely less independent feeling, Horace would tell us that he accepted the gracious welcome of Mæcenas. But guests of the calibre of Plato and Horace were few; and men who had neither the munificence of Dionysius nor the taste of Mæcenas yet wanted to have the Muses represented at their banquets. If one was not a philosopher or a poet or play-writer one's self, at least it was well, since such things were the fashion, to be in the fashion so far as to have them in the house. If it was as troublesome for the rich man to do his own thinking for himself as the oriental