bt, in the original, the
capital was bigger and more menacing than ever, and was written with an
appropriate gnashing of teeth.

The traditional balance of luck and love, however, holds; and the armies
of Croesus and the King of Pontus begin to melt away; so that, after a
short but curious pastoral episode, they have to shut themselves up in
the capital. The dead body of Abradates is now found, and his widow
Panthea stabs herself upon it. This removes one of Mandane's possible
causes of jealousy, but Araminta remains; and, as a matter of fact, it
_is_ this Princess on whom her suspicion has been cast, arising partly,
though helped by makebates, from the often utilised personal resemblance
between her actual lover, Prince Spithridates, and Cyrus. The
treacherous King of Pontus has, in fact, shown her a letter from
Araminta (his sister, be it remembered) which seems to encourage the
idea.

All this, however, and more fills but a hundred pages or so, and then we
are as usual whelmed in a _Histoire de Timarete et de Parthenie_, which
takes up four times the space, and finishes the First Book. The Second
opens smartly enough with the actual siege of Sardis; but we cannot get
rid of Araminta (it is sad to have to wish that she was not "our own
Araminta" quite so often) and Spithridates. Conversations between the
still prejudiced Mandane and the Lydian Princess Palmis--a sensible and
agreeable girl--are better; but from them we are hurled into a _Histoire
de Sesostre_ (the Egyptian prince, son of Amasis, who is now an ally of
Cyrus) _et de Timarete_, which not only fills the whole of the rest of
the volume, but swells over into the next, being much occupied with the
villainies of a certain Heracleon, who is at the time a wounded prisoner
in Cyrus's Camp. The siege is kept up briskly, but Cyrus's courteous
release of certain captives adds fuel to Mandane's wrath as having been
procured by Araminta. He will do anything for Araminta! The releases
themselves give rise to fresh "alarums and excursions," among which we
again meet a pretty name (Candiope), borrowed by Dryden. Doralise is
also much to the fore; and we have a regular _Histoire_, though a
shorter one than usual, of _Arpalice and Thrasimede_, which will, as
some say, "bulk largely" later. The length of this part is, indeed,
enormous, the double volume running to over fourteen hundred pages,
instead of the usual ten or twelve. But its close is spirited and
sufficiently