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truly to be put in example to all coming time. Oh! that such a chance had happened to me.

Clementia. You would not leave Isabella!

Flaminio. I would leave her, or any one thing else, for such a blessing. Tell me, who is she?

Clementia. Tell me, first, what would you do, if the case were your own?

Flaminio. I swear to you, by the light of heaven, may I never more hold up my head among honourable men, if I would not rather take her for a wife, even if she had no beauty, nor wealth, nor birth, than the daughter of the Duke of Ferrara.

Clementia. This you swear.

Flaminio. This I swear, and this I would do.

Clementia. You are witness.

Crivello. I am.

Clementia. Fabio, come down.

Scene III.

CLEMENTIA, FLAMINIO, CRIVELLO, LELIA in female dress, afterwards PASQUELLA.

Clementia. This, Signor Flaminio, is your Fabio; and this, at the same time, is the constant, loving girl of whom I told you. Do you recognize him? Do you recognize her? Do you now see the worth of the love which you rejected?

Flaminio. There cannot be on earth a more charming deceit than this. Is it possible that I can have been so blind as not to have known her?

Pasquella. Clementia, Virginio desires that you will come to our house. He has given a wife to his son Fabrizio, who has just returned, and you are wanted to put everything in order.

Clementia. A wife? and whom?

Pasquella. Isabella, the daughter of my master Gherardo. Flaminio. The daughter of Gherardo Foiani?

Pasquella. The same. I saw the ring put on the bride's finger.

Flaminio. When was this?

Pasquella. Just now. And I was sent off immediately to call Clementia.

Clementia. Say, I will come almost directly.

Lelia. Oh, heaven! all this together is enough to make me

die of joy.

Pasquella. And I was to ask, if Lelia is here.

has said she is.

Gherardo

Clementia. Yes; and they want to marry her to the old phantom of your master, who ought to be ashamed of himself.

Flaminio. Marry her to Gherardo!

Clementia. See, if the poor girl is unfortunate.

Flaminio. May he have as much of life as he will have of her. I think, Clementia, this is certainly the will of heaven, which has had pity no less on this virtuous girl than on me; and therefore, Lelia, I desire no other wise than you, and I vow to you most solemnly, that if I have not you, I will never have any.

Lelia. Flaminio, you are my lord. I have shown my heart in what I have done.

Flaminio. You have, indeed, shown it well. And forgive me if I have caused you affliction; for I am most repentant, and aware of my error.

Lelia. Your pleasure, Flaminio, has always been mine. I should have found my own happiness in promoting yours. Flaminio. Clementia, I dread some accident. I would not lose time, but marry her instantly, if she is content. Lelia. Most content.

Clementia. Marry, then, and return here. In the meantime, I will inform Virginio, and wish bad night to Gherardo.

Scene IV.-The Street, with the hotels and the house of GHERARDO.

PASQUELLA and GIGLIO.

Pasquella again befools the Spaniard, who goes off, vowing that this is the last time that she shall impose on him.

Scene V.-The Street, with the houses of VIRGINIO and

CLEMENTIA.

CITTINA.

Flaminio and Lelia have been married, and have returned to Clementia's house. Cittina comes out from it, and delivers an untranslatable soliloquy.

Scene VI.-The Street, with the hotels and the house of GHERARDO.

ISABELLA and FABRIZIO, afterwards CLEMENTIA.

Isabella. I most certainly thought that you were the page of a gentleman of this city. He resembles you so much, that he must surely be your brother.

Fabrizio. I have been mistaken for another more than once to-day.

Isabella. Here is your nurse, Clementia.

Clementia. This must be he who is so like Lelia. dear child, Fabrizio, how is it with you? Fabrizio. All well, my dear nurse.

Lelia?

Oh! my

And how is it with

Clementia. Well, well; but come in. I have much to say to you all.

Scene VII.

VIRGINIO and CLEMENTIA.

Virginio. I am so delighted to have recovered my son, that I am content with everything.

Clementia. It was the will of heaven that she should not be married to that withered old stick, Gherardo. But let us go into the hotel, and complete our preparations.

STRAGUALCIA.

[They go into the hotel.

Spectators, do not expect that any of these characters will reappear. If you will come to supper with us, I will expect you at the Fool; but bring money, for there entertainment is not gratis. If you will not come (and you seem to say, "No!"), show us that you have been satisfied here; and you, Intronati, give signs of rejoicing.

* It would seem that the nuptial feast is to be held at the Fool. Stragualcia had previously said, "Let us sup here this evening."Act iv., scene 3.

AELIA LAELIA CRISPIS.

AN ATTEMPT TO SOLVE THE ENIGMA.

ANY learned men have offered explanations of this
None of these explanations have been

Menigma.

found satisfactory. If that which I have to offer should meet with acceptance, it will appear that my erudite predecessors have overlooked the obvious in seeking for the recondite.

About two hundred years ago, a marble was found near Bologna, with the following inscription:

D. M.

AELIA. LAELIA CRISPIS.

NEC VIR. NEC. MULIER. NEC. ANDROGYNA
NEC. PUELLA NEC. JUVENIS

NEC.

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NEC ANUS.
CASTA. NEC. MERETRIX. NEC. PUDICA

SED. OMNIA .

SUBLATA

NEQUE. FAME. NEQUE. FERRO. NEQUE. VENENO

SED. OMNIBUS .

NEC. COELO. NEC AQUIS. NEC. TERRIS

SED. UBIQUE JACET.

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LUCIUS AGATHO. PRISCUS .

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NEC. MARITUS. NEC. AMATOR. NEC NECESSARIUS
NEQUE. MOERENS. NEQUE GAUDENS

.

NEQUE

HANC . NEC MOLEM. NEC. PYRAMIDEM.

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NEC. SEPULCHRUM.

SED. OMNIA.

SCIT. ET. NESCIT.

CUI. POSUERIT.

TO THE GODS OF THE DEAD.

Aelia Laelia Crispis,

Not man, nor woman, nor hermaphrodite :
Not girl, nor youth, nor old woman:
Not chaste, nor unchaste, nor modest :
But all:
Carried off,

FLENS

Not by hunger, nor by sword, nor by poison:

VOL. III.

But by all:

21

Lies,

Not in air, not in earth, not in the waters:
But everywhere.
Lucius Agatho Priscus,

Not her husband, nor her lover, nor her friend :
Not sorrowing, nor rejoicing, nor weeping:

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:

I believe this ænigma to consist entirely in the contrast, between the general and particular consideration of the human body, and its accidents of death and burial. Abstracting from it all but what is common to all human bodies, it has neither age nor sex; it has no morals, good or bad; it dies from no specific cause: lies in no specific place is the subject of neither joy nor grief to the survivor, who superintends its funeral has no specific monument erected over it; is, in short, the abstraction contemplated in the one formula: "Man that is born of a woman;" which the priest pronounces equally over the new-born babe, the maturer man or woman, and the oldest of the old.

But considered in particular, that is, distinctively and individually, we see, in succession, man and woman, young and old, good and bad; we see some buried in earth, some in sea, some in polar ice, some in mountain snow. We see a funeral superintended, here by one who rejoices, there by one who mourns; we see tombs of every variety of form. The abstract superintendent of a funeral, abstractedly interring an abstract body, does not know to whom he raises the abstract monument, nor what is its form; but the particular superintendent of a particular funeral knows what the particular monument is, and to whose memory it is raised.

So far the inscription on the marble found at Bologna. Another copy, in an ancient MS. at Milan, adds three lines, which do not appear to me to belong to the original inscription :

Hoc est sepulchrum, cadaver intus non habens :
Hoc est cadaver, sepulchrum extra non habens :
Sed idem cadaver est et sepulchrum sibi.

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