upon the new-comer, but they only saw in him a handsome and well-proportioned man. Several of the courtiers, comparing themselves with him as to his exterior, could not understand why the gods had disdained the anti-chamber, and not rather chosen one of them for a consort to the young princess instead of the sun-burnt ploughman. It was also easy to be seen, that Prince Wladomir and the knight Mizislas were very loath to renounce their pretensions. The young lady, therefore, was anxious to vindicate the choice of the gods, and to make it publicly known that squire Primislas, if wanting in the advantage of high birth, had at least been provided with an equivalent by mother Nature in the shape of common sense and wit. She prepared a splendid banquet, which was not at all inferior to that given by the hospitable Queen Dido to the pious Æneas. When the glass had for some time assiduously circulated from mouth to mouth, exciting serenity and joy, and part of the night had been already passed in sport and merriment, Libussa proposed to play at riddles; and as the guessing of hidden things was her peculiar province, she readily solved the riddles propounded, to the great satisfaction of all present.
When her turn to propose a riddle came, she
