of linen. The first of these personages carried in his right
hand a sword; the second, two golden keys; the third, a pair
of scales; the fourth, a spade: and, in order to aid sluggish
minds which would not have seen clearly through the transparency
of these attributes, there was to be read, in large,
black letters, on the hem of the robe of brocade, MY NAME
IS NOBILITY; on the hem of the silken robe, MY NAME IS
CLERGY; on the hem of the woolen robe, MY NAME IS MERCHANDISE;
on the hem of the linen robe, MY NAME IS LABOR.
The sex of the two male characters was briefly indicated to
every judicious spectator, by their shorter robes, and by the
cap which they wore on their heads; while the two female
characters, less briefly clad, were covered with hoods.

Much ill-will would also have been required, not to
comprehend, through the medium of the poetry of the prologue, that
Labor was wedded to Merchandise, and Clergy to Nobility,
and that the two happy couples possessed in common a magnificent
golden dolphin, which they desired to adjudge to the
fairest only. So they were roaming about the world seeking
and searching for this beauty, and, after having successively
rejected the Queen of Golconda, the Princess of Trebizonde,
the daughter of the Grand Khan of Tartary, etc., Labor and
Clergy, Nobility and Merchandise, had come to rest upon the
marble table of the Palais de Justice, and to utter, in the
presence of the honest audience, as many sentences and
maxims as could then be dispensed at the Faculty of Arts,
at examinations, sophisms, determinances, figures, and acts,
where the masters took their degrees.