atic. As he is
in love with Mandane, he of course does not want his sister to murder
her. But inasmuch as he fears Cyrus's rivalry, he does not want him to
be near Mandane for two obvious reasons: first, the actual proximity,
and, secondly, the danger of Thomyris's temper getting the better (or
worse) of her when both the lovers are in her power. So he sends private
messengers to the Persian Prince, begging him _not_ to surrender. Cyrus,
however, still thinks of exchanging himself for Mandane. At this point
the neophyte's rage may be excited by being asked to plunge into the
regular four-hundred page _Histoire_ of a certain Arpasie, who has two
lovers--a Persian nobleman Hidaspe, and a supposed Assyrian champion
Meliante, who has come with reinforcements for Thomyris. And no doubt
the proportion _is_ outrageous. But "wait and see," a phrase, it may be
observed, which was not, as some seem to think, invented by Mr. Asquith.

At last the business does begin again, and a tremendous battle takes
place for the possession of certain forests which lie between the two
armies, and are at first held by the Scythians. Cyrus, however, avails
himself of the services of an engineer who has a secret of combustibles,
sets the forests ablaze, and forces his way through one or two open
defiles, with little loss to himself and very heavy loss to the enemy,
whose main body, however, is still unbroken. This affords a fine subject
for one of the curious frontispieces known to all readers of seventeenth
century books. A further wait for reinforcements takes place, and the
author basely avails herself of it for a no doubt to herself very
congenial (they actually called her in "precious" circles by the name of
the great poetess) and enormous _Histoire_ of no less a person than
Sappho, which fills the last 250 pages of the first (nineteenth) volume
and about as much of the second (twentieth) or last. It has very little
connection with the text, save that Sappho and Phaon (for the
self-precipitation at Leucas is treated as a fable) retire to the
country of the Sauromatae, to live there a happy, united, but unwed and
purely Platonic (in the silly sense) existence. The foolish side of the
_precieuse_ system comes out here, and the treatment confirms one's
suspicion that the author's classical knowledge was not very deep.

It does come to an end at last, however, and at last also we do get our
"run-in," such as it is. The chief excuse for its existe