BABBALANJA—­And so is Mardi itself:—­nothing but episodes; valleys and hills; rivers, digressing from plains; vines, roving all over; boulders and diamonds; flowers and thistles; forests and thickets; and, here and there, fens and moors.  And so, the world in the Koztanza.

ABRAZZA—­Ay, plenty of dead-desert chapters there; horrible sands to wade through.

MEDIA—­Now, Babbalanja, away with your tropes; and tell us of the work, directly it was done.  What did Lombardo then?  Did he show it to any one for an opinion?

BABBALANJA—­Yes, to Zenzori; who asked him where he picked up so much trash; to Hanto, who bade him not be cast down, it was pretty good; to Lucree, who desired to know how much he was going to get for it; to Roddi, who offered a suggestion.

MEDIA—­And what was that?

BABBALANJA—­That he had best make a faggot of the whole; and try again.

ABRAZZA—­Very encouraging.

MEDIA—­Any one else?

BABBALANJA—­To Pollo; who, conscious his opinion was sought, was thereby puffed up; and marking the faltering of Lombardo’s voice, when the manuscript was handed him, straightway concluded, that the man who stood thus trembling at the bar, must needs be inferior to the judge.  But his verdict was mild.  After sitting up all night over the work; and diligently taking notes:—­“Lombardo, my friend! here, take your sheets.  I have run through them loosely.  You might have done better; but then you might have done worse.  Take them, my friend; I have put in some good things for you:” 

MEDIA—­And who was Pollo?

BABBALANJA—­Probably some one who lived in Lombardo’s time, and went by that name.  He is incidentally mentioned, and cursorily immortalized in one of the posthumous notes to the Koztanza.

MEDIA—­What is said of him there?

BABBALANJA—­Not much.  In a very old transcript of the work—­that of Aldina—­the note alludes to a brave line in the text, and runs thus:—­ “Diverting to tell, it was this passage that an old prosodist, one Pollo, claimed for his own.  He maintained he made a free-will offering of it to Lombardo.  Several things are yet extant of this Pollo, who died some weeks ago.  He seems to have been one of those, who would do great things if they could; but are content to compass the small.  He imagined, that the precedence of authors he had established in his library, was their Mardi order of merit.  He condemned the sublime poems of Vavona to his lowermost shelf.  ‘Ah,’ thought he, ’how we library princes, lord it over these beggarly authors!’ Well read in the history of their woes, Pollo pitied them all, particularly the famous; and wrote little essays of his own, which he read to himself.”

MEDIA—­Well:  and what said Lombardo to those good friends of his,—­
Zenzori, Hanto, and Roddi?

BABBALANJA—­Nothing.  Taking home his manuscript, he glanced it over; making three corrections.