ot? Behold Sempronius, then, palpably
discovered. How comes it to pass, then, that instead of being hanged
up with the rest, he remains secure in the governor's hall, and there
carries on his conspiracy against the Government, the third time in the
same day, with his old comrade Syphax, who enters at the same time
that the guards are carrying away the leaders, big with the news of the
defeat of Sempronius?--though where he had his intelligence so soon is
difficult to imagine. And now the reader may expect a very extraordinary
scene. There is not abundance of spirit, indeed, nor a great deal of
passion, but there is wisdom more than enough to supply all defects.

"'SYPH. Our first design, my friend, has proved abortive;
Still there remains an after-game to play:
My troops are mounted; their Numidian steeds
Snuff up the winds, and long to scour the desert.
Let but Sempronius lead us in our flight,
We'll force the gate where Marcus keeps his guard,
And hew down all that would oppose our passage;
A day will bring us into Caesar's camp.
SEMP. Confusion! I have failed of half my purpose;
Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind.'

Well, but though he tells us the half-purpose he has failed of, he does
not tell us the half that he has carried. But what does he mean by

"'Marcia, the charming Marcia's left behind'?

He is now in her own house! and we have neither seen her nor heard of
her anywhere else since the play began. But now let us hear Syphax:--

"'What hinders, then, but that you find her out,
And hurry her away by manly force?'

But what does old Syphax mean by finding her out? They talk as if she
were as hard to be found as a hare in a frosty morning.

"'SEMP. But how to gain admission?'

Oh! she is found out then, it seems.

"'But how to gain admission? for access
Is giv'n to none but Juba and her brothers.'

But, raillery apart, why access to Juba? For he was owned and received
as a lover neither by the father nor by the daughter. Well, but let
that pass. Syphax puts Sempronius out of pain immediately; and, being
a Numidian, abounding in wiles, supplies him with a stratagem for
admission that, I believe, is a nonpareil.

"'SYPH. Thou shalt have Juba's dress, and Juba's guards;
The doors will open when Numidia's prince
Seems to appear before them.'

"Sempronius is, it seems, to pass for Juba in full day at Cato's hou