can not see through, one
must needs look over, as you say.

YOOMY--But trust me, your Highness, some of those strange things fall
far too melodiously upon the ear, to be wholly deficient in meaning.

ABRAZZA--Your gentle minstrel, _this_ must be, my lord. But
Babbalanja, the Koztanza lacks cohesion; it is wild, unconnected, all
episode.

BABBALANJA--And so is Mardi itself:--nothing but episodes; valleys
and hills; rivers, digressing from plains; vines, roving all over;
boulders and diamonds; flowers and thistles; forests and thickets;
and, here and there, fens and moors. And so, the world in the
Koztanza.

ABRAZZA--Ay, plenty of dead-desert chapters there; horrible sands to
wade through.

MEDIA--Now, Babbalanja, away with your tropes; and tell us of
the work, directly it was done. What did Lombardo then? Did he show it
to any one for an opinion?

BABBALANJA--Yes, to Zenzori; who asked him where he picked up so much
trash; to Hanto, who bade him not be cast down, it was pretty good; to
Lucree, who desired to know how much he was going to get for it; to
Roddi, who offered a suggestion.

MEDIA--And what was that?

BABBALANJA--That he had best make a faggot of the whole; and try
again.

ABRAZZA--Very encouraging.

MEDIA--Any one else?

BABBALANJA--To Pollo; who, conscious his opinion was sought, was
thereby puffed up; and marking the faltering of Lombardo's voice, when
the manuscript was handed him, straightway concluded, that the man who
stood thus trembling at the bar, must needs be inferior to the judge.
But his verdict was mild. After sitting up all night over the work;
and diligently taking notes:--"Lombardo, my friend! here, take your
sheets. I have run through them loosely. You might have done better;
but then you might have done worse. Take them, my friend; I have put
in some good things for you:"

MEDIA--And who was Pollo?

BABBALANJA--Probably some one who lived in Lombardo's time, and went
by that name. He is incidentally mentioned, and cursorily immortalized
in one of the posthumous notes to the Koztanza.

MEDIA--What is said of him there?

BABBALANJA--Not much. In a very old transcript of the work--that of
Aldina--the note alludes to a brave line in the text, and runs thus:--
"Diverting to tell, it was this passage that an old prosodist, one
Pollo, claimed for his own. He maintained he made a free-will offering
of it to Lombardo. Several things are yet extant of this Pollo, who
died some