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MAZAN had heard fo much among the Batavians, in praise of a certain ifland called Albion, that he was led by curiofity to embark with his unicorns on board a fhip, which, with a favourable easterly wind, carried him in four hours to that celebrated country, more famous than Tyre, or the Atlantic ifland.

In a little time Amazan was on the road to the capital of Albion, in his coach and fix unicorns, all his thoughts employed on his dear princess: at a small distance he perceived a carriage overturned in a ditch; the fervants had gone different ways in queft of affiftance, but the owner kept his feat, fmoaking his pipe with great tranquillity, without teftifying the fmalleft impatience his name was My Lord What-then, in the language from which I tranflate these memoirs.

Amazan made all the hafte poffible to help him, and with his fingle arm fet the carriage to rights; fo much was his ftrength, fuperior to that of other men. My Lord Whatthen took no other notice of him, than faying, A ftout fellow, by G-d! In the mean time, the country people being come up, flew into a great paffion at being called out to no purpofe, and fell upon the ftranger. They abufed him, VOL. XI.

lenged him to ftrip and box.

Amazan feized a brace of them in each hand, and threw them twenty paces from him; the reft feeing this, pulled off their hats, and bowing with great refpect, afked his honour for fomething to drink. His honour gave them more money than they had ever feen in their lives before. My Lord What-them now expreffed great efteem for him, and afked him to dinner at his countryhouse, about three miles off. His invitation being accepted, he went into Amazan's coach, his own being out of order by the accident.

After a quarter of an hour's filence, My Lord What-then looking upon Amazan for a moment, said, How d'ye do? which, by the way, is a phrafe without any meaning; adding, You have got fix fine unicorns there. After which he fell a fmoaking as ufual.

The traveller told him his unicorns were at his fervice, and that he had brought them from the coun try of the Gangarids: from thence he took occafion to inform him of his affair with the princefs of Babylon, and the unlucky kifs fhe had given the king of Egypt; to which the other made no reply, being very indifferent whether there were any fuch people in the world, as a king of Egypt, or a princess of Babylon. He remained dumb for another quarter of an hour; after which he

afked his companion a fecond time, how he did, and whether they had any good roast beef among the Gangarids. Amazan anfwered with his wontedpolitenefs, that they did not eat their brethren on the banks of the Ganges; he then explained to him that fyftem which many ages afterwards was furnamed the Py. thagorian philofophy. But My Lord fell asleep in the mean time, and made but one nap of it till he came to his own house.

He was married to a young and charming woman, on whom nature had bestowed a foul as lively and fenfible, as her husband's was dull and stupid. Several gentlemen of Albion had that day come to dine with her; among whom there were characters of all forts: for that country having been almost always under the government of foreigners, the families that had come over. with thefe princes had imported their different manners. There were in this company fome perfons of a very amiable difpofition, others of a fuperior genius, and a few of very profound learning.

The mistress of the houfe had none of that aukward affected stiffnefs, that false modefty, with which the young Albion ladies were then reproached; fhe did not conceal, by a fcornful look, and an affected taciturnity, her deficiency of ideas, and the embarraffing humility of having nothing to fay, Never was a woman more engaging. She received Amazan with a grace and, politeness that were quite natural to her. The extreme beauty of this young ftranger, and the fudden comparison the could not help making between him and her husband, immediately ftruck her in a moft fenfible manner.

Dinner being served, the placed Amazan at her fide, and helped him to all forts of puddings, having learned from himself, that the Gangarids never fed upon any thing which had received from the gods the celeftial gift of life. His beauty and ftrength, the manners of the Gangarids, the progrefs of arts, religion and government, were the fubjects of a converfation equally agreeable and inftructive all the time of the entertainment, which lafted till night during which, My Lord What then did nothing but push the bottle about, and call for the toast.

After dinner, while my lady was pouring out the tea, ftill feeding her eyes on the young ftranger, he entered into a long converfation with a member of parliament; for every one knows that there was, even then, a parliament called Wittenagemot, or the affembly of wife men. Amazan enquired into the conftitutions, laws, manners, cuf-, toms, forces, and arts, which made this country fo refpectable; and the member anfwered him in the following manner:

For a long time we went stark naked, though our climate is none of the hotteft. We were likewife for a long time enflaved by a people come from the ancient country of Saturn, watered by the Tiber. But the mifchiefs we have done one another, have greatly exceeded all that we ever fuffered from our first conquerors. One of our princes carried his daftardlinefs to fuch a pitch, as to declare himself the subject of a prieft, who dwells alfo on, the banks of the Tiber, and is called. the Old Man of the Seven Mountainss it has been the fate of thefe feven mountains to domineer over

the

the greateft part of Europe, then inhabited by brutes, in human shape.

To thofe times of infamy and debafement, fucceeded the ages of barbarity and confufion. Our country, more tempeftuous than the furrounding ocean, has been ravaged and drenched in blood by our civil diforders; many of our crowned heads have perished by a violent death: above a hundred princes of the royal blood have ended their days on the fcaffold, whilft the hearts of their adherents have been torn from their breafts, and thrown in their faces. In fhort, it is the province of the hangman to write the hiftory of our inland, feeing this perfonage has finally determined all our affairs of moment.

But to crown thefe horrors, it is not very long fince fome fellows, wearing black mantles, and others who caft white shirts over their jackets, having been bitten by mad dogs, communicated their madness to the whole nation. Our country was then divided into two parties, the murderers and the murdered, the executioners and the fufferers, plunderers and flaves; and all in the name of God, and whilft they were feeking the Lord.

Who would have imagined that from this horrible abyfs, this chaos of diffenfion, cruelty, ignorance, and fanaticifm, a government fhould at laft fpring up, the most perfect, it may be faid, now in the world; yet fuch has been the event. A prince, honoured and wealthy, allpowerful to do good, without any power to do evil, is at the head of a free, warlike, commercial, and enlightened nation. The nobles on one hand, and the reprefentatives of the people on the other, fhare the legiflature with the monarch.

We have feen, by a fingular fatality of events, diforders, civil wars, anarchy and wretchednefs, lay wafte the country, when our kings aimed at arbitrary power: whereas tranquillity, riches, and univerfal happinefs, have only reigned among us, when the prince has remained fatisfied with a limited authority. All order has been fubverted whilst we were difputing about myfteries; but was re-established the moment we grew wife enough to defpife them. Our victorious fleets carry our glory all over the ocean; our laws place our lives and fortunes in fecurity; no judge can explain them in an arbitrary manner, and no decifion is ever given without the reafons affigned for it. We fhould punish a judge as an affaffin, who fhould condemn a citizen to death without declaring the evidence which accufed him, and the law upon which he was convicted.

It is true, there are always 'two parties among us, who are continually writing and intriguing against each other; but they conftantly reunite, whenever it is needful to arm in defence of liberty and our country. These two parties watch over one another, and mutually prevent the violation of the facred depofit of the laws; they hate one another, but they love the ftate: they are like thofe jealous lovers, who pay court to the fame mistress with a fpirit of emulation.

From the fame fund of genius by which we discovered and fupported the natural rights of mankind, we have carried the fciences to the highest pitch to which they can attain among men. Your Egyptians, who pafs for fuch' great mechanics; your Indians, who are believed to be fuch great Philofophers; your Ba

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bylonians,

bylonians, who boast of having obferved the stars for the courfe of four hundred and thirty thousand years; the Greeks, who have written so much, and said so little; know in reality nothing, in comparifon of our fhallowest scholars, who have ftudied the discoveries of our great mafters. We have ravifhed more fecrets from Nature, in the space of an hundred years, than the human fpecies have been able to discover in as many ages.

This is a true account of our prefent state. I have concealed from you neither the good nor the bad; neither our shame nor our glory; and I have exaggerated nothing.

At this difcourfe Amazan felt a ftrong defire to be inftructed in thofe fublime fciences his friend fpoke of: and if his paffion for the princess of Babylon; his filial duty to his mother, whom he had quitted; and his love for his native country, had not made strong remonstrances to his distempered heart, he would willingly have spent the remainder of his life in Albion. But that unfortunate kifs his princess had given the king of Egypt, did not leave his mind at fufficient eafe to ftudy the abftrufe sciences.

I confefs, faid he, having made a folemn vow to roam about the world, and to escape from myself, I have a curiofity to fee that ancient land of Saturn, that people of the Tiber, and of the Seven Mountains, who have been heretofore their mafters; they muft undoubtedly be the first people on earth. I advife you by all means, anfwered the member, to take that journey, if you have the smallest taste for mufic or painting. Even we ourselves frequently carry our fpleen and melancholy to the Seven Mountains.

But you will be greatly furprized when you see the descendants of our conquerors.

Of the Modern Italians; from the fame.

AMAZAN was already failing upon the fea, poffeffed of a geographical chart, with which he had been presented by the learned Albion he had converfed with at Lord What-then's. He was extremely astonished to find the greateft part of the earth upon a fingle fheet of paper.

His eyes and imagination wandered over this little fpace: he obferved the Rhine, the Danube, the Alps of Tyrol, there specified under different names, and all the countries through which he was to pafs before he arrived at the city of the Seven Mountains; but he more particularly fixed his eyes upon the country of the Gangarids, upon Babylon, where he had seen his dear princefs, and upon the fatal country of Baffora, where she had given a fatal kifs to the king of Egypt. He fighed, and tears streamed from his eyes; but he agreed with the Albion who had presented him with the univerfe in epitome, when he averred, that the inhabitants of the banks of the Thames were a thoufand times better inftructed than thofe upon the banks of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Ganges.

As he returned into Batavia, Formofanta flew towards Albion with her two fhips that went at full fail. Amazan's fhip and the princefs's croffed one another, and almoft touched; the two lovers were close to each other, which they could not doubt of. Ah! had they

but

but known it! but tyrannic destiny would not allow it.

No fooner had Amazan landed on the flat muddy fhore of Batavia, than he flew like lightning towards the city of the Seven Mountains. He was obliged to traverfe the fouthern part of Germany. At every four miles he met with a prince and princefs, maids of honour and beggars. He was aftonished every where at the coquetries of thefe ladies and maids of honour, which they difplayed with German good faith; and he only answered with modeft refufals. After having cleared the Alps, he embarked upon the fea of Dalmatia, and landed in a city that had no refemblance to any thing he had heretofore seen. The fea formed the streets, and the houses were erected in the water. The few public places with which this city was ornamented,

were

filled with men and women with double faces ; that which nature had bestowed upon them, and a pafteboard one, ill painted, with which they covered their natural vifage; fo that this people feemed compofed of fpe&tres. Upon the arrival of ftrangers in this country, they immediately purchase thefe vifages, in the fame manner as people elfewhere furnish themselves with hats and fhoes. Amazan defpifed a fashion so contrary to nature; he appeared juft as he was. There

were in the city twelve thousand girls, registered in the great book of the Republic; thefe girls were ufeful to the state, being appointed to carry on the most advantageous and agreeable trade that ever enriched a nation. Common traders ufually fend, at great risk and expence, merchandizes of various kinds to the Eaft; but thefe beau

tiful merchants carried on a conftant traffick without rifk, which con ftantly fprung from their charms. They all came to prefent themselves to the handfome Amazan, and offer him his choice. He fled with the utmost precipitancy, in uttering the name of the incomparable princess of Babylon, and fwearing by the immortal gods, that he was far handfomer than all the twelve thoufand Venetian girls. Sublime traitrefs, he cried in his tranfports, I will teach you to be faithful!

Now the yellow furges of the Tiber, peftiferous fens, a few pale emaciated inhabitants, clothed in tatters, which difplayed their dry tanned hides, appeared to his fight, and bespoke his arrival at the gate of the city of the Seven Mountains, that city of heroes and legislators, who conquered and polished a great part of the globe.

He expected to have seen at the triumphal gate, five hundred battalions commanded by heroes, and in the fenate, an affembly of demigods, giving laws to the earth; but the only army he found confifted of about thirtytatterdemalions,mounting guard with umbrellas for fear of the fun. Being arrived at a temple, which appeared to him very fine, but not fo magnificent as that of Babylon, he was greatly aftonished to hear a concert performed by men with female voices.

This, faid he, is a mighty pleafant country, which was formerly the land of Saturn. I have been in a city where no one fhewed his own face; here is another where men have neither their own voices nor beards. He was told that these fingers were no longer men; that they had been divefted of their virility, that they might fing the more

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agree