iced witness, for he started out to satirize female vice, and
naturally aimed at high places. Dio also tells of Messalina's misdeeds,
but his work is under the same limitations as that of Suetonius.
Furthermore, none but Pliny mentions the excess under consideration.

However, "where there is much smoke there must be a little fire," and
based upon the superimposed testimony of the writers of the period,
there appears little doubt but that Messalina was a nymphomaniac, that
she prostituted herself in the public stews, naked, and with gilded
nipples, and that she did actually marry her chief adulterer, Silius,
while Claudius was absent at Ostia, and that the wedding was consummated
in the presence of a concourse of witnesses. This was "the straw that
broke the camel's back." Claudius hastened back to Rome, Silius was
dispatched, and Messalina, lacking the will-power to destroy herself,
was killed when an officer ran a sword through her abdomen, just as it
appeared that Claudius was about to relent.

"THEN SPAKE YE DAMNED WINDMILL, SIR WALTER"

Raleigh is thoroughly in character here; this observation is quite
in keeping with the general veracity of his account of his travels in
Guiana, one of the most mendacious accounts of adventure ever told.
Naturally, the scholarly researches of Westermarck have failed to
discover this people; perhaps Lady Helen might best be protected among
the Jibaros of Ecuador, where the men marry when approaching forty.

Ben Jonson in his Conversations observed "That Sr. W. Raughlye esteemed
more of fame than of conscience."

YE VIRGIN QUEENE

Grave historians have debated for centuries the pretensions of Elizabeth
to the title, "The Virgin Queen," and it is utterly impossible to
dispose of the issue in a note. However, the weight of opinion appears
to be in the negative. Many and great were the difficulties attending
the marriage of a Protestant princess in those troublous times, and
Elizabeth finally announced that she would become wedded to the English
nation, and she wore a ring in token thereof until her death. However,
more or less open liaisons with Essex and Leicester, as well as a host
of lesser courtiers, her ardent temperament, and her imperious temper,
are indications that cannot be denied in determining any estimate upon
the point in question.

Ben Jonson in his Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden
says,

"Queen Elizabeth never saw herself after she became