the same instant he had robed her in all the majesty of a queen. There was no part grave or gay in which he did not place her; in each he figured her to himself, serious, lively, prudent, quick, and above all, virtuous; extremes which seldom are to be found in an actress of low comedy. Ye Heavens, with what facility does the poet's imagination disperse a thousand impossibilities: what grand chimeras does he not build upon the weakest foundations! He can do anything, all is easy and plain; hope can support him even when fortune fails. Thus it was with this our present poet; when he by chance saw the picture in which all the adventures of Periander were portrayed. He there saw, more than he had ever conceived in his whole life, and thereupon he felt a strong desire to write a drama about it, only he was puzzled whether to make it a tragedy or a comedy, or a tragi-comedy; and if he knew the middle, he did not know either the beginning or the end. But what troubled him most was, how he could possibly introduce a _lacquey_[M], a merry-andrew personage amongst all these islands and seas, fires, and snows; nevertheless, he did not despair, he would still make the play, and bring the merry-andrew in, in spite of all the rules of poetry and the drama; and so fully was he taken up with his idea, that he found an opportunity to speak to Auristella, and open his intention to her, consulting her as to what part she would take if she became an actress, telling her that she would find the theatre a mine of gold, for the princes of that age were like alchymists, who changed your copper into gold; that she might have her garments all of cloth of gold, for all the gentlemen would be at her feet. He represented the pleasure of the journeys she would make, and how she would carry in her train two or three young nobles in disguise, who would be her servants as much as her lovers; and, above all, he extolled up to the very skies the honour and glory she would have in representing all the first parts, and he wound up all, by telling her, that if one thing more falsified than another the old Castilian saying, "That honour and money are seldom found together," it was in the life of a beautiful actress. Auristella replied that she had not understood a single word of all he had been saying, for that she was ignorant of the Castilian language, as he might plainly see; but when it was explained to her, she said, her views were very different, and that she had other prospects to look forward to, if not so agreeable, at least more suited to her taste. The poet was in despair at this reply, which at once destroyed all the castles in the air he had been building in his folly and vanity.