The Princess of Babylon

The aged Belus, king of Babylon, thought himself the first man upon earth. His palace and his park, extended between the Euphrates and the Tigris. His vast house, three thousand feet in front, almost reached the clouds. The platform was surrounded with a balustrade of white marble, fifty feet high.

But what was more admirable in Babylon, and eclipsed everything else, was the only daughter of the king, named Formosanta. It was from her pictures and statues, that in succeeding times Praxiteles...