mine.

Lira, the heroine, answers her ardent lover Mirando in high-flown
Spanish phrase, which, when summed up in plain English prose, means
that she cannot listen to his wooing, because she is so hungry--which,
in view of the fact that she has not tasted food for weeks, seems to
us not surprising!

Sertorius, whose story is told by Plutarch, affords another
picturesque subject for Corneille in one of his most famous tragedies.
This Roman was an adherent of Marius in the long struggle with Sylla,
and while upholding his cause in Spain he won to his side the people
of Lusitania (Portugal), who made him their ruler, and helped him to
fight the great army of the opposing Roman faction, part of which was
led by Pompey.

Mithridates, in Asia Minor, was also in conflict with Sylla, and sent
an embassy to Sertorius which led to a league between the two for
mutual aid, and for the defense of the cause of Marius. But senators
of his own party became jealous of the great elevation of Sertorius,
and conspired to assassinate him at a feast to which he was invited.
So ended (72 B.C.) one of the most picturesque characters and
interesting episodes in the difficult march of barbarous Spain toward
enlightenment and civilization.

Sertorius seems to have been a great administrator as well as fighter,
and must also be counted one of the civilizers of Spain. He founded a
school at Osca,--now Huesca,--where he had Roman and Greek masters for
the Spanish youth. And it is interesting to learn that there is
to-day at that city a university which bears the title "University of
Sertorius."

But it is not the valor nor the sagacity of Sertorius which made him
the favorite of poets; but the story of the White Hind, which he made
to serve him so ingeniously in establishing his authority with the
Lusitanians.

A milk-white fawn, on account of its rarity, was given him by
a peasant. He tamed her, and she became his constant companion,
unaffrighted even in the tumult of battle. He saw that the people
began to invest the little animal with supernatural qualities; so,
finally, he confided to them that she was sent to him by the Goddess
Diana, who spoke to him through her, and revealed important secrets.

Such is the story which Corneille and writers in other lands have
found so fascinating, and which an English author has made the subject
of his poem "The White Hind of Sertorius."

Another Roman civil war, more pregnant of great results, was