it would have provoked the greater scorn of Mr. Addison about as many
after. There are many "ecphrases" or set descriptions of this kind, and
they show a good deal of stock convention. For instance, the wind is
always "most discreetly, most discreetly" ready, as indeed it was in
Mlle. de Scudery's own chaste stories, to blow up sleeves or skirts a
little, and achieve the distraction of the beholders by what it reveals.
But on the whole, as was hinted above, Gauthier de Costes de La
Calprenede is the most natural creature of the heroic band.

[Sidenote: _Cassandre._]

His earlier _Cassandre_ is not much inferior to _Cleopatre_, and has a
little more eccentricity about it. The author begins his Second Part by
making the ghost of Cassandra herself (who is not the Trojan Cassandra
at all) address a certain Calista, whom she mildly accuses of "dragging
her from her grave two thousand years after date," adding, as a boast of
his own in a Preface, that the very name "Cassandre" has never occurred
in the _First_ Part--a huge cantle of the work. The fact is that it is
an _alias_ for Statira, the daughter of Darius and wife of Alexander,
and is kept by her during the whole of her later married life with her
lover Oroondates, King of Scythia, who has vainly wooed her in early
days before her union with the great Emathian conqueror. Here, again,
the mere student of "unmixed" history may start up and say, "Why! this
Statira, who was also called Barsine [an independent personage here] was
murdered by Roxana after Alexander's death!" But, as was also said,
these romancers exercise the privilege of mercy freely; and though La
Calprenede's Roxana is naughty enough for anything (she makes, of
course, the most shameless love to Oroondates), she is not allowed to
kill her rival, who is made happy, after another series of endless
adventures of her own, her lover's, and other people's. The book opens
with a lively interest to students of the English novel; for the famous
two cavaliers of G. P. R. James appear, though they are not actually
riding at the moment, but have been, and, after resting, see two others
in mortal combat. Throughout there is any amount of good fighting, as,
for the matter of that, there is in _Cleopatre_ also; and there is less
duplication of detail here than in some other respects, for La
Calprenede is rather apt to repeat his characters and situations. For
instance, the fight between Lysimachus and Thalestris (La Cal