shall you win the name of a very faithful lover and a good Christian. And to this end will I now leave you,” and so quits him and hies her away. My brother, (who is since dead), failed not to perform what she had said, and then went to see her again; whereupon she did somewhat take him to task and rally him, for she was familiar with folk,—in a good sense that is,—and had graceful skill in gentle mockery. Such then was the view this Princess did hold, but more by way of witty conceit and gentle sentiment than from actual belief, as I think. These gentle words of the Princess do further remind me of an epitaph over a courtesan that is buried at the Church of our Lady of the People (del Popolo) at Rome, which doth read thus: _Quaesco, viator, ne me diutius calcatam amplius calces_, “To him that passeth by: ‘I have been kicked and spurned enough in my lifetime; spurn me no more.’” The Latin expression hath more grace than the English equivalent. I do put the thing down here more by way of a jest than anything else. Well, to draw to an end, no need to be astonished that the Spanish lady named above did hold the maxim she did enunciate good of all such fair ladies as have been greatly loved of others, and have loved, and do love, themselves, and do take delight in being praised, albeit they may have but little left of their by-gone beauty. But yet ’tis ever the chiefest pleasure you can give them, and the one they do love the most, whenas you tell them they are still the same, and are in no wise changed or aged, and above all those of them which grow not old from the waist downwards. I have heard speak of a very fair and honourable lady which one day did say thus to her lover: “I know not whether for the future old age will bring me increasing inconvenience and incapacity,”—she was fifty-five years old; “but, God be thanked, I did never do myself pleasure so well as I do now, nor ever took greater joy therein. Whether this do last out and continue till my extremest old age or no, I have no fault to find, nor complaint to make of my days gone by.” Now as concerning love and concupiscence, I have both here and elsewhere adduced examples enough, without dwelling longer on this subject. Let us now consider a while the maxim as concerning this special beauty of fair ladies, how that it doth not diminish by reason of old age.