so much grace, with such beauty, and such affability of manner, that when to all that was added the magnificence and adornment of dress, calculated to set off all the charms of her person[7] to the utmost, it is impossible to imagine anything more charming and exquisitely finished than she was. Her musical touch was so exquisite, and she managed her voice in singing so sweetly, that the first professors were astonished at her performance. She spoke with grace and with rare eloquence, so that whether in light conversation or serious discussion, she delighted and captivated her hearers, like a second Cleopatra; and at the same time, her lovely and ever cheerful features were not wanting in those more potent charms, which admirers of female beauty are wont to look for in a beautiful face." [Sidenote: HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS.] So richly had nature endowed, and so successfully had art cultivated the child of the rising churchman! Father and daughter were both, during those early years of the sixteenth century, perfecting themselves for their subsequent destinies in the strangely jumbled social world of that wonderful old Rome; he duly progressing towards scarlet stockings and hats; and she to the somewhat similarly coloured promotion, in the enjoyment of which, painfully blushing Mnemosyne next authentically falls in with her. CHAPTER II. ASPASIA REDIVIVA. It is fancied, with small reason probably, that to grow old is necessarily more disagreeable to women than to men. And dates are therefore popularly held to be especially detestable facts to the fair sex. If this be so, the world in this matter, as in most others, showed itself excessively complaisant to our fascinating sixteenth century, Aspasia. For her contemporaries have been most strangely silent on the subject as regards her. The year of her birth, and more strangely still, that of her death, are alike unknown and undiscoverable. Must we therefore conclude, that the departure of the superannuated beauty, was as little interesting to the world as the arrival of the "furtively received" infant?