form without mixing up his portrait with pasIt is not easy

sionate details about fine robes.

to discover whether he more admired the beautiful legs of which Catharine de' Medici was so vain, or the charming stockings in which she invested them. In his accounts of some other princesses, the description of their clothes occupies more space than the picture of their natural beauty.

Of the person of Lollia Paulina we have only one particular. According to Dion, there was something peculiar about her teeth; perhaps she had the gift of a complete and even set. When Agrippina caused her to be murdered, she made the assassin bring the head of Lollia to her, and she opened the mouth in order to ascertain from the teeth if it was really the head of her victim.

CÆSONIA.

THE third and favourite wife of Caligula was that remarkable woman Cæsonia. Pliny notices that Cæsonia was an eight months' child. The circumstance is not remarkable, were it not for the venerable superstition, which has stood its ground firmly from the days of Hippocrates to the present hour, in the face of abundant contradiction from facts, that though a seven months' child often lives, an eight months' child always dies within eight days from the time of its birth.

Though, as Suetonius tells us, neither young nor beautiful, and having had three children to

her former husband, and with no recommendation that the world could see but her licentious character, Cæsonia was constantly and ardently loved by this monster, who scarcely loved anything else. For her sake he divorced Lollia Paulina. Caligula used to dress Cæsonia in a military cloak and helmet, and show her to the army as she rode by his side. It is said that he also-though he alone was sensible of her beauty-was led by vanity to make the same display of the charms of his wife to his private friends as in former days cost the indiscreet King of Lydia the loss of his crown and his life.

After

The daughter whom Cæsonia bore to Caligula, and whom he named Julia Drusilla, appears also to have been loved by her father. carrying her through all the temples of the divinities, he placed her in the bosom of Minerva, recommending her to the care and instruction of the goddess of wisdom.

As

soon as little Julia began to scratch and tear the faces of the children with whom she sported, the delighted emperor expressed his satisfaction

with this unequivocal evidence of her being papa's own daughter.

The immense affection which Caligula bore to Cæsonia, as well as the insanity which appears in his conduct, were in his time attributed to a philtre given to him by the queen to make him love her,* as the madness and suicide of the poet Lucretius have been charged on a potion administered to him by his wife for the same laudable purpose.

According to Juvenal, the charm administered to Caligula was the hippomanes, as it was called, taken from the forehead of a foal at its birth, and which Virgil represents Dido as having recourse to in order to secure the affections of Æneas. Concerning the notions of the ancients about this drug, or the various articles to which the name of hippomanes was applied, the inquisitive reader will get every satisfaction

* Suetonius, "Caligula," c. 50.

† Juvenal, "Sat." lib. vi, 614. Bayle seems to give credit to this story. Dict. "Hist. et Critique," Art. "Caligula."

in the special dissertation by Bayle on the subject.* The most remarkable thing in that curious essay is the quotation made from a romance of Bayle's own day, the "Avantures de Henriette Sylvie de Molière," in which certain ladies of Paris are represented as having recourse to the use of hippomanes, in order to secure a return of affection from some gentlemen with whom they are in love.

Caligula was playful in his atrocities; and when he kissed the necks of his favourites, he would say: "What a beautiful neck! but as soon as I give the order, it will be cut asunder;" and he said he would inquire by the torture of the rack why he loved Cæsonia so passionately.†

* Bayle, lib. IV, 593. Basle, 1738.

"Dissertation sur l'Hippomanes," Dict.

+ Suetonius, "Caligula," c. 33.