, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetite they feed. But she made hungry
Where most she satisfied."

Her artifice on this occasion succeeded; Antony became enamoured of her,
and publicly married her, although his wife the sister of Octavius was
living. He gave Cleopatra the greater part of the eastern provinces of
the Roman empire. This behaviour was the cause of a rupture between
Octavius and Antony; and these two celebrated generals met in battle at
Actium, where Cleopatra, by flying with sixty sail of vessels, ruined
the interest of Antony, and he was defeated. Cleopatra had retired to
Egypt, where soon after Antony followed her. Antony stabbed himself upon
the false information that Cleopatra was dead; and as his wound was not
mortal, he was carried to the queen, who drew him up by a cord from one
of the windows of the monument, where she had retired and concealed
herself.

Antony soon after died of his wounds, and Cleopatra, after she had
received pressing invitations from Octavius, and even pretended
declarations of love, destroyed herself by the bite of an asp, not to
fall into the conqueror's hands. She had previously attempted to stab
herself, and had once made a resolution to starve herself. But the means
by which she destroyed herself, is said to produce the easiest of
deaths: the Asp is a small serpent found near the river Nile, so
delicate that it may be concealed in a fig; and when presented to the
vitals of the body, its bite is so deadly as to render medical skill
useless, while at the same time it is so painless, that the victim
fancies herself dropping into a sweet slumber, instead of the arms of
death. So Cleopatra, while she is applying the venomous reptile to her
bosom, (as represented in the Frontispiece,) is supposed to use language
like the following,--

"Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?"

Thus, after having chained in her embrace the two greatest generals that
the Roman empire had produced, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, at the
periods when they were respectively arbiters of the world's fate,
perished Cleopatra by her own hand.

Cleopatra was a voluptuous and extravagant woman, and in one of the
feasts she gave to Antony at Alexandria, she melted pearls into her
drink to render the entertainment more sumptuous and expensive. She was
fond of appearing dressed as a goddess; and she advised Antony to make
war against