Here Cabell, even in his most natural rôle, declines to show his face and amuses himself with a new set of masks labelled Alessandro de Medici, Antoine Riczi, Nicolas de Caen, Theodore Passerat and other fabulous minnesingers whose verses were created only in the mind of Cabell. It has pleased him to confuse others besides the erudite reviewer of the _Boston Transcript_ by quoting the first lines of the non-existent originals in Latin, Italian, Provençal--thus making his skilful ballades, sestinas and the less mediæval narratives part of a remarkably elaborate and altogether successful hoax.