As it rolled past, traces of the rich
liquor were left in the tracks of its wheels.
Then came the sacrifice, the chant, and the dance, as in most of the
preceding exhibitions, each of which, like this of Bacchus, had contained
allusions to the peculiar habits and attributes of the different deities.
The bacchanal that closed the scene was performed in character; the
trumpets flourished, and the procession departed in the order in which it
had arrived.
Peter relented a little from his usual political reserve, as he witnessed
these games in honor of a deity to whom he so habitually did practical
homage, for it was seldom that this elaborate functionary, who might be
termed quite a doctrinaire in his way, composed his senses in sleep,
without having pretty effectually steeped them in the liquor of the
neighboring hills; a habit that was of far more general use among men of
his class in that age than in this of ours, which seems so eminently to be
the season of sobriety.
"This is not amiss, of a verity;" observed the contented bailiff, as the
Fauns and Bacchantes moved off the sward, capering and cutting their
classical antics with far more agility and zeal than grace.
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