"
Let me introduce you to one more lady. This is Mrs. Wiseman, dear Don!
She was of "poor, but honest" parentage; and if she did wash the dishes
of Mr. Recorder Wright of Oxford, she did better than my Lady Hamilton
or my Lady Blessington of later times. Mrs. Wiseman read novels and
plays, and, of course, during the intervals of domestic drudgery, began
to write a drama, which she finished after she went to London. It was
of high-sounding title, for it was called, "Antiochus the Great; or,
the Fatal Relapse." Who relapsed so fatally--whether Antiochus with his
confidant, or his wife with her confidante, or Ptolemy Pater with his
confidant, or Epiphanes with his confidant--is more than I can tell.
Indeed, I am not sure that I know which Antiochus was honored by Mrs.
Wiseman's Muse. Whether it was Antiochus Soter, or Antiochus Theos, or
Antiochus the Great, or Antiochus the Epiphanous or Illustrious, or
Antiochus Eupator, or Antiochus Eutheus, or Antiochus Sidetes, or
Antiochus Grypus, or Antiochus Cyzenicus, or Antiochus Pius,--the
greatest rogue of the whole dynasty,--or Antiochus Asiaticus, who "used
up" the family entirely in Syria--is more than I can tell. Indeed,
Antiochus was such a favorite name with kings, that, without seeing the
play,--and I have not seen it,--I cannot inform you which Antiochus we
are talking about.
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