ABSTRACT
Two or three generations ago, when it was our wont to have extensive dealings with the Muses, and invoke these venerable ladies for every page of turgid verse or inflated prose ‘composition,’ the Muse of History – a matron of the direst respectability – was something awful to approach or venture upon. Who does not remember the rustling echo of these prodigious brocades of hers, as she swept by in hoop and farthingale, keeping her solemn antique fashion, with a grave disdain of the scanty draperies of her less decorous sisters? Thalia 1 might be extravagant, or Melpomene 2 forget her gravity; but the historic muse was always proper, always observant of becoming decorums – a general chaperone and mistress of the ceremonies, taking care of all the young ladies of Olympus, and preserving a moderate degree of order and propriety even in the much-invaded court of these poetic deities. We might trifle with the others as we would, but who dared be less than respectful of this severe and ‘unimpassioned’ dowager – this impartial observer of everything, who sat aloft like a second Justice, weighing the nations in her gigantic scales?
