With such superlative examples of grace and beauty as those constantly observed among the daughters of the three British Isles, and the almost irresistible power exercised by these 'Queens of Creation' over the opposite sex, we need not call in question the effects recorded of this same irresistible power in ancient days. Jove himself, it is said, could not resist the exquisite form of Leda. Troy was besieged for ten years, and destroyed at last, to recover a matchless but naughty Greek lady, who ran away from her husband with a handsome scapegrace called Paris. Antony lost the dominion of the world for Cleopatra's smile. And, coming nearer to our own times, Diana of Poitiers at sixty, so historians tell us, retained so absolutely the affections of a king of France, that he simply doted on her ('doted on her simply' would be the better form of expression). And Ninon de L'Enclos, at seventy, drove all the young bloods of Paris demented by her beauty, which, it is positively affirmed, far surpassed that of all the younger ladies who approached her. One of the greatest of the Mogul Emperors, Jehangire, was so enchanted by the charms of a Turkoman maiden, who, when she grew up, was called 'Mhere ul Nissa,' the sun of women, and was afterwards the far-famed Nour Jehan, that he committed a dreadful crime to obtain her. This lady, in the early bloom of beauty, had been brought to Delhi, was seen by Prince Jehangire, and in both bosoms a mutual passion was kindled. But she had in her infancy been betrothed to Shere Afkun, a Turkoman of noble birth and distinguished merit. According to Indian notions nothing should be suffered to interfere with the fulfilment of such a pledge, and therefore the reigning Emperor (the celebrated Akbar), from a high sense of what he believed to be right, over-ruled the wishes of the lovers, and insisted that Mhere ul Nissa should be married to Shere Afkun. Jehangire bore his despair and disappointment as he best could, until, by the death of his father Akbar, he became the Emperor of India. Then power, united with his grief and passion, overcame his better nature, and he had the unfortunate Shere Afkun murdered, and at the same time he got possession of the person of Mhere ul Nissa. But for years the guilty monarch sued in vain. At last the lady consented to be his wife and the Empress of India.