"That third pyramid of hers."

THROUGHOUT the dialogues, it must be observed that "Sibyl" is addressed (when in play) as having once been the Cumaean Sibyl; and "Egypt" as having been Queen Nitocris,—the Cinderella and "the greatest heroine and beauty" of Egyptian story. The Egyptians called her "Neith the Victorious" (Nitocris), and the Greeks "Face of the Rose" (Rhodope). Chaucer's beautiful conception of Cleopatra in the "Legend of Good Women," is much more founded on the traditions of her than on those of Cleopatra; and, especially in its close, modified by Herodotus's terrible story of the death of Nitocris, which, however, is mythologically nothing more than a part of the deep monotonous ancient dirge for the fulfillment of the earthly destiny of Beauty: "She cast herself into a chamber full of ashes."

I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have either built, or increased to double its former size, the third pyramid of Gizeh: and the passage following in the text refers to an imaginary endeavor, by the Old Lecturer and the children together, to make out the description of that pyramid in the 167th page of the second volume of Bunsen's "Egypt's Place in Universal History"—ideal endeavor,—which ideally terminates as the Old Lecturer's real endeavors to the same end always have terminated. There are, however, valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210 of the same volume: but the "Early Egyptian History for the Young," by the author of "Sidney Gray," contains, in a pleasant form, as much information as young readers will usually need.