agreeably the praises of a great number of perfons of merit. Amazan could not comprehend the meaning of this. Thefe gentlemen defired him to fing; he fung a Gangaridian air with his ufual grace. His voice was a fine countertenor. Ah! Signior, faid they, what a delightful foprano you would have, if—If what, faid he: what do you mean? Ah! Signior, if you were-If I were what?-ifyou were without a beard! They then explained to him very pleafantly, and with the moft comic gefticulations, according to the cuftom of their country, the point in queftion. Amazan was quite confounded. I have travelled a great way, faid he, but I never before heard of fuch a whim.

After they had fung a good while, the Old Man of the Seven Mountains went with great ceremony to the gate of the temple; he cut the air in four parts with his thumb raifed, two fingers extended, and two bent, in uttering these words in a language no longer fpoken; To the city and to the univerfe*. The Gangarid could not comprehend how two firgers could extend fo far.

He presently faw the whole court of the master of the world file off. This court confifted of grave perfonages, fome in fcarlet and others in violet robes: they almost all eyed the handfome Amazan with a tender look; they bowed to him, and faid to one another, San Martino, che bel ragazzo! San Pancratin, che bel' fanciullo!

The zealots, whofe vocation was to fhew the curiofities of the city to ftrangers, very eagely offered to conduct him to feveral ruins, in which a muleteer would not chufe,

to pass a night, but which were formerly worthy monuments of the grandeur of a royal people. He moreover faw pictures of two hundred years ftanding, and ftatues that had remained twenty ages, which appeared to him masterpieces in their kind. Can you ftill produce fuch works? No, your Excellency, replied one of the zealots; but we despise the reft of the earth, because we preserve their rarities. We are a kind of old-clothes-men, who derive our glory from the caftoff garbs in our warehouses.

Amazan was willing to fee the prince's palace, and he was accordingly conducted thither. He faw men dreffed in violet-coloured robes, who were reckoning the money of the revenues of the domains of lands, fituated fome upon the Danube, fome upon the Loire, others upon the Guadalquivir, or the Viftula. Oh! oh! faid Amazan, after having confulted his geographical map, your mafter, then, poffeffes all Europe, like thofe ancient heroes of the Seven Mountains? He fhould poffefs the whole universe by divine right, replied a violet liveryman; and there was even a time when his predeceffors nearly compaffed univerfal monarchy: but their fucceffors are fo good as to content themselves at prefent with fome monies, which the kings their fubjects, pay to them in the form of a tribute.

Your mafter is, then, in fact, the king of kings; is that his title ? faid Amazan. No, your Excellency, his title is the fervant of fervants he was originally a fisherman and porter, whereof the emblems of his dignity confift in keys and nets; but he at prefent iffues orders to

every

every king in Chriftendom. It is not a long while fince he fent one hundred and one mandates to a king of the Celtes, and the king obeyed.

Your fisherman muft, then, have fent five or fix hundred thousand men to put these orders in execution?

Not at all, your Excellency; our holy mafter is not rich enough to keep ten thousand foldiers on foot; but he has five or fix hundred thoufand divine prophets difperfed in other countries. Thofe prophets of various colours, are, as they ought to be, fupported at the expence of the people: they proclaim from heaven, that my mafter may with his keys open and fhut all locks, and particularly thofe of ftrong boxes. A Norman priest, who held the poft of confidant of this king's thoughts, convinced him he ought to obey, without replying, the hun dred and one thoughts of my maf ter: for you must know that one of the prerogatives of the Old Man of the Seven Mountains is, never to err, whether he deigns to speak, or deigns to write.

In faith, faid Amazan, this is a very fingular man; I should be curious to dine with him. Were your Excellency even a king, you could not eat at his table; all that he could do for you, would be to allow you to have one ferved by the fide of his, but fmaller and lower. But if you are inclined to the honour of speaking to him, I will ask an audience for you, on condition of the buona mancia, which you will be kind enough to give me. Very readily, faid the Gangarid. The violet livery-man bowed. I will introduce you to-morrow, faid he, you must make three very low bows,

and you must kifs the Old Man of the Seven Mountains' feet. At this information Amazan burst into fo violent a fit of laughing, that he was almost choaked; which, however, he furmounted, holding his fides, hilft the violent emotions of the rifible mufcles forced the tears down his cheeks, till he reached the inn, where the fit ftill continued upon him.

At dinner, twenty beardless men and twenty violins produced a concert. He received the compliments of the greateft lords of the city during the remainder of the day; thefe made him proposals still more extravagant than that of kiffing the Old Man of the Seven Moun tains' feet. As he was extremely polite, he at first imagined that thefe gentlemen took him for a lady, and informed them of their mistake with great decency and circumfpection. But being fomewhat clofe ly preffed by two or three of the violet-coloured gentry, who were the most forward, he threw them out of the window, without fancying he had made any great facrifice to the beautiful Formofanta. He left, with the greatest precipitation, this city of the mafters of the world, where he found himself neceffitated to kifs an old man's toe, as if his cheek were at the end of his foot; and where young men were accofted in a ftill more whim fical manner,

though inceffantly enraged at the king of Egypt; this model of conftancy at length arrived at the new capital of the Gauls. This city, like many others, had alternately fubmitted to barbarity, ignorance, folly, and misery. The first name it bore was Dirt and Mire; it then took that of Ifis. from the worship of Ifis, which had reached even here. Its firft senate confifted of a company of watermen. It had long been in bondage, and fubmitted to the ravages of the Heroes of the Seven Mountains; and fome ages after, fome other heroic thieves, who came from the farther banks of the Rhine, had feized upon its little lands.

Time, which changes all things, had formed it into a city, half of which was very noble and very agreeable, the other half fomewhat barbarous and ridiculous: this was the emblem of its inhabitants. There were within its walls at leaft a hundred thousand people, who had no other employment than play and diverfion. These idlers were the judges of those arts which the others cultivated. They were ignorant of all that paffed at court; though they were only four fhort miles diftant from it;-but it feemed to be at least fix hundred thoufand miles off. Agreeableness in company, gaiety and frivolity, formed the important and fole confiderations of their lives: they were governed like children, who are extravagantly fupplied with gewgaws to prevent their crying. If the horrors, which had two centuries before laid waste their country, or thofe dreadful periods, when one half of the nation maffacred the other for fophifms, came upon the carpet, they, indeed, faid, This

was not well done; then they fell a laughing, or finging of catches.

In proportion as the Idlers were polished, agreeable, and amiable, it was observed there was a greater and more fhocking contraft between them and those who were engaged in business.

Among the latter, or fuch as pretended fo to be, there was a gang of melancholy fanatics, whose abfurdity and knavery divided their character, whofe appearance alone diffused mifery, and who would have overturned the world, had they been able to gain a little credit. But the nation of Idlers, by dancing and finging, forced them into obfcurity in their caverns, as the warbling birds drive the creaking bats back to their holes and

ruins.

A fmaller number of those who were occupied, were the preservers of ancient barbarous customs, againft which nature, terrified, loudly exclaimed; they confulted nothing but their worm-eaten regifters. If they there discovered a foolish hor rid cuftom, they confidered it as a facred law. It was from this vile practice of not daring to think for themselves, but extracting their ideas from the ruins of those times when no one thought at all, that in the metropolis of pleasure there ftill remained fome fhocking manners. Hence it was, that there was no proportion between crimes and punishments. A thoufand deaths were fometimes inflicted upon an innocent victim, to make him acknowledge a crime he had not committed.

The extravagancies of youth were punished with the fame feverity as murder or parricide. The Idlers fcreamed loudly at thefe exhibitions,

and

and the next day thought no more about them, but were buried in the contemplation of fome new fashion. This people faw a whole age elapfe, in which the fine arts attained a degree of perfection that far furpaffed the moft fanguine hopes: foreigners then repaired thither, as they did to Babylon, to admire the great monuments of architecture, the wonders of gardening, the fublime efforts of fculpture and painting. They were charmed with a fpecies of mufic that reached the heart without astonishing the ears.

True poetry, that is to fay, fuch as is natural and harmonious, that which addreffes the heart as well as the mind, was unknown to this nation before this happy period. New kinds of eloquence difplayed fublime beauties. The theatres in particular re-echoed with mafter-pieces that no other nation ever approached. In a word, a good taste prevailed in every profeffion to that degree, that there were even good writers among the Druids.

So many laurels, that had branched even to the fkies, foon withered in an exhausted foil. There remained but a very small number, whofe leaves were of a pale dying verdure. This decay was occafioned by the facility of producing laziness, preventing good productions, and by a fatiety of the brilliant, and a taste for the whimfical. Vanity protected arts that brought back times of barbarity, and this fame vanity, in perfecuting real talents, forced them to quit their country; the hornets banifhed the bees.

There was fcarce any real arts, fcarce any more genius; merit now confifted in reafoning right or wrong upon the merit of the laft age. The dauber of a fign-post criticised with

an air of fagacity the works of the greatest painters; and the blotters of paper disfigured the works of the greateft writers. Ignorance and a bad tafte had other daubers in their pay; the fame things were repeated in a hundred volumes, under different titles. Every work was either a dictionary or a pamphlet. A Druid gazetteer wrote twice a week the obfcure annals of fome unknown people poffeffed with the devil, and of celeftial prodigies operated in garrets by little beggars of both fexes; other Ex-Druids, dreffed in. black, ready to die with rage and hunger, fet forth their complaints in a hundred different writings, that they were no longer allowed to cheat mankind, this privilege being conferred on fome goats clad in grey; and fome Arch-Druids were employed in printing defamatory libels.

Amazan was quite ignorant of all this; and even if he had been acquainted with it, he would have given himself very little concern about it, having his head filled with nothing but the princefs of Babylon, the king of Egypt, and the inviolable vow he had made to despise all female coquetry, in whatever country his defpair fhould drive him.

The gaping ignorant mob, whofe curiofity exceeds all the bounds of nature and reafon, for a long time thronged about his unicorns; the more fenfible women forced open the doors of his hotel to contemplate his perfon.

He at firft teftified fome defire of vifiting the court; but fome of the Idlers who conftituted good company, and cafually went thither, informed him that it was quite out of fashion, that times were greatly changed, and that all amusements

were

were confined to the city. He was invited that very night to fup with a lady, whofe fenfe and talents had reached foreign climes, and who had travelled in fome countries through which Amazan had passed. This lady gave him great pleasure, as well as the fociety he met at her house. Here reigned a decent liberty, gaiety without tumult, filence without pedantry, and wit without afperity. He found that good company, was not quite ideal, though the title was frequently ufurped by pretenders. The next day he dined in a fociety far lefs amiable, but much more voluptuous. The more he was satisfied with the guests, the more they were pleased with him. He found his foul foften and diffolve, like the aromatics of his country, which gradually melt in a moderate heat, and exhale in deli cious perfumes.

After dinner he was conducted to a place of public entertainment which was enchanting, condemned, however, by the Druids, because it deprived them of their auditors, which the moft excited their jealou fy. The reprefentation here confifted of agreeable verses, delightful fongs, dances which expreffed the movements of the foul, and perspectives that charmed the eye in deceiving it. This kind of paftime, which included fo many kinds, was known only under a foreign name; it was called an Opera, which for merly fignified, in the language of the Seven Mountains, work, care, Occupation,induftry, enterprize, bufinefs. This bufiness enchanted him. A female finger, in particular, charmed him by her melodiousvoice, and the graces that accompanied her; this girl of bufinefs, after the performance, was introduced to him

by his new friends. He prefented her with a handful of diamonds; for which fhe was fo grateful, that she could not leave him all the rest of the day. He fupped with her, and during the repast he forgot his fobriety; and after the repaft he also forgot his vow of being ever infenfible to beauty, and all the blandifhments of coquetry. What an inftance of human frailty!,,

The beautiful princefs of Babylon, who had been fo long in purfuit of her wandering lover, happened to arrive at this very critical juncture, and found him and the opera-girl faft afleep in each others

arms.

The princefs, who felt all the emotions natural to her fituation, quitted Paris immediately without awakening him. Our hero, being informed of his misfortune, followed her; but fome delays intervening, gave his French companions an opportunity to endeavour to mitigate his grief; the following clofes the scene.

The report of this adventure drew together his feftive companions, who all remonftiated to him, that he had much better stay with them; that nothing could equal the pleafant life they led in the centre of arts and peaceable delicate volup tuoufnefs; that many ftrangers, and even kings, had preferred fuch an agreeable enchanting repofe, to their country and their thrones; moreover, his vehicle was broke, and that another was making for him according to the newest fashion; that the beft taylor of the whole city had already cut out for him a dozen fuits in the last taste; that the moft vivacious and most amiable ladies in the whole city, at whose houfes dramatic performances were reprefented, had each appointed a

day