time Sextus Pompey visited her in Egypt, where he was entertained with magnificence; and that she attached him to her interests by the same means which she had found so successful with others. Young Pompey was at this period master of the whole Mediterranean; his victorious and innumerable galleys swept the seas, and at a crisis when the death of Cæsar left her without a protector at Rome, Cleopatra felt all the advantage of securing such a partisan, and, as usual, was not scrupulous about the means she employed for that purpose. It was her connexion with Pompey, which exposed her to the accusation of having aided the conspirators with money and arms after the death of Cæsar. This accusation, whether true or false-and one would wish for the honour of female nature to believe it falseled to the celebrated attachment between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, which ended in the destruction of both, and has rendered their names for ever inseparable in the memory of man. The occasion of their first meeting was this:After the battle of Philippi, in which Brutus and Cassius were defeated, Antony had taken the command of the army against the Parthians, and on leaving Greece to pass into Asia, he sent orders to Cleopatra to meet him in Cilicia, and justify herself against the accusation of having assisted Brutus and Cassius in their war against the Triumvirate. The queen prepared to obey this haughty summons, but she trusted more to her address and her personal charms than to the justice of her cause: and being perfectly acquainted with the character of the man to whom she was about to introduce herself, did not despair of subduing Antony by the same arts which had already vanquished Cæsar. Attended by a numerous and splendid retinue, and loaded with a world of treasures and gifts, and store of gold and silver, she proceeded through Syria to meet Antony in Asia Minor; and though she was frequently informed that he waited her arrival with impatience, she did not condescend to hasten her progress; but mocking at his letters and messengers with a smiling grace, travelled with pomp and leisure, as one who was about to confer an honour on an inferior, rather than to obey the summons of a superior. On her arrival in Cilicia, she embarked on the river Cydnus to sail down to Tarsus; and this triumphant and magnificent voyage has become, from the descriptions of Shakspeare and Dryden, famous in poetry as well as in history, although poetry itself could scarcely enhance the gorgeousness of the picture. The poop of the galley was of gold, the sails of purple silk, and the silver oars kept time to the sound of various musical instruments, which breathed the most delicious harmony. The Queen of Egypt lay reclined on a couch, under a canopy of cloth of gold, crowned and attired like the goddess Venus, while beautiful boys winged to represent Cupids, stood fanning her on either side the fairest among her maids, some habited like the Nereids, and others like the Graces, were employed in the steerage and management of the vessel; altars were raised and incense was burned along the shores, which were covered with multitudes of people, who crowded to gaze on the splendid pageant, and filled the air with accla : mations. Presently a rumour was spread abroad that Venus was come to feast with Bacchus, and the whole populace of the city of Tarsus poured forth to meet and receive her. Antony invited her to supper, but she sent him word that he should rather wait upon her; that she was too fatigued * I remember to have read somewhere, though I cannot refer to the authority, that the silver oars of Cleopatra's barge were pierced at the extremities with holes of different sizes, and so mechanically contrived, that the water, as it flowed through them at every stroke, produced a harmony in concord with that of the flutes and lyres on board. to land, and would have the pleasure of receiving and entertaining him on board her galley; in short, she assumed from the first the airs not only of a queen, but of a divinity. How well she understood the temper of the man she sought to captivate by all this gorgeous display of oriental pomp and grandeur, is shown by her success. Antony, like Cæsar, had begun by being her judge and the arbitrator of her fate, and he ended by becoming the veriest slave that ever was chained to a woman's footstool. At the time of his first meeting with Cleopatra, the Triumvir was past the meridian of life. He was in his forty-eighth year, "of a noble presence, a graceful length of beard, an ample forehead, and an aquiline nose;" he was thought to resemble in his person the pictures and statues of Hercules, and was in fact vain of his supposed descent from that hero. In his character he was fearlessly brave, open-hearted, and magnificent, but arrogant, vindictive, and abandoned to every species of dissolute excess. He appeared by turns, as the humour seized him, generous and compassionate, or base, selfish, and relentless; could devote his life and fortune to the service of a friend, or insult over the remains of a murdered enemy: and that enemy-Cicero! On the whole, he appears to have been without one touch of true magnanimity, though sometimes irregularly great from accident or impulse; a magnificent, reckless libertine: a valiant but a coarse soldier. Cleopatra, laying aside her literary pursuits, her refined elegance, and the many-coloured robe and majestic deportment of the goddess Isis, lent herself to all his rough tastes; drank, and revelled, and jested with him; hunted half the day, banqueted half the night, and surpassed him in prodigality and magnificence. Antony put off for her sake his Parthian expedition, and she led him in triumph to Alexandria. Many anecdotes are told of the riotous and extravagant life which they led for several months in the capital of Egypt, vying with each other in dissipation and revelry; while treasures, wrung from the blood and tears of thousands of human beings were lavished at a single feast. The famous story of Cleopatra's pearl is so often alluded to in history and poetry, besides being a favourite subject of painters and sculptors, that it ought to be mentioned here. It is said that Antony having once boasted of the splendour of an entertainment he had given to the queen, she laid him a wager that she would serve up to him a banquet of such exceeding magnificence, that one single course should be of more cost than all his feasts put together. Lucius Plancus was chosen as |