costly velvets and silks. The loveliest maidens in Verona stood inside to defend the castle from its besiegers, armed with flowers, sweetmeats, and jets of perfumed waters. The attack was gallantly conducted and gallantly withstood! After several assaults however a host of youths from Vicenza perceived that one side of the rock was left undefended. They rushed forward, and though checked for a moment by a rain of the most exquisite comfits they stormed the breach, gained an entry into the castle and the damsels were vanquished! The rage and jealousy of the other combatants at the success of the Vicentins threatened for a moment to convert this toy war into real and deadly strife; but peace was decreed by the directors of the sports, and a grand feast given by the bride herself became the signal for universal harmony and goodwill. The cost of this banquet and of the other festivities celebrated on this occasion was enormous, and laid the taste for the expenditure and extravagance which now became the rule at the Court of the Scaligers,[6] and proved, according to one old chronicler, “the destruction of Verona.”[7] For several centuries after the fall of the Scaligers the Amphitheatre was used chiefly for tournaments and feats of arms, though for some time during the fifteenth century it was set apart as the abode of the prostitutes of the town, and stern laws were passed with regard to their inhabiting no other quarter save that alone. Under the Venetian government measures were also taken for the preservation of the Arena, and from that time forward Verona has studiously used all the means in her power to guard with scrupulous devotion this glorious memory of the Past. Some excavations made of late years have led to the discovery that water could be conveyed into it by pipes, so that nautical games and naval displays could also be given when any occasion called for such a pastime. There were also, according to Seneca, some hidden tubes laid in connection with these water-pipes, which spurted odorous water from the base of the Amphitheatre right up to the top. From there they spread like a fine drizzle through the air and were known as “the sweet-scented rains.”