than to wipe off the false varnish which has been laid on the true colour of the object. The most are the writings of those who were the most zea. lous promoters of those follies. The abuse they make of the signification of the words does not deceive our judgment; though they relate the | absurdest matters with the most earnest composure, are even firmly convinced of them, or seem to be convinced of them; yet this will not prevent us from finding ridiculous what common sense must ascribe to fools. A self-deceived enthusiast may pervert the nature of moral objects, and pronounce vicious, unjust, inhuman actions, laudable, heroic, divine; and, on the other hand, give the most odious names to such as are lawful, generous, honourable: after the lapse of a few centuries the world has no trouble to see through the magic cloud that deluded the fanatic. fucius might have called him an impostor, and Lao-kiun have deemed him a sage: their judgment would not alter the nature of the case, and the impression which it should make on the unbiassed mind; the character and the actions of these men would teach us what we were to think of them. this black art is inexhaustible; and it is scarcely || employed to impose on us, yet nothing is eas er possible, that the wisdom of the best of princes should be able at all times to secure him from her impostures. He thinks, perhaps, he is sign-genuine sources of the history of human follies ing the sentence of a malefactor, while he is sanctioning the ruin of a virtuous character, whose merit was his only crime. They imagine they are promoting a worthy man, while they are conferring promotion on a vile impostor. Yet these are truths of which they are but too well convinced. They lament the unhappiness of their station. Whom can one trust? Virtue and vice, truth and deceit, have the same countenance, speak the same language, wear the same colour; nay, the cunning impostor (the most noxious of all noxious creatures) knows better how to maintain the outward appearance of sound principles and blameless manners than the honest man. The former is expert in the art of confining his passions in the secret recesses of his black heart, knows best how to flatter, and how most fitly to employ every advantage which the weak side of his object presents, His coinplaisance, his self-denial, his virtue, his religion, cost him nothing, as they are only on his lips and in the outward movements which conceal his inward designs; and he is richly repaid for his disguises, in gratifying, under this mask, each inordinate passion, in accomplishing every base design, and with a brazen front can still demand a reward for his crimes. Is it to be wondered at, O, Son of Heaven! that there should be such numbers, who neglect all other talents, pass by all the lawful gen rous ways to respect and fortune, and bend all their faculties to arrive at perfection in the arts of deceit? Con For this reason, the venerable teachers of our nation recommend to us the history of antient times as the best school of morality and politics, as the purest source of that sublime philosophy which renders its disciples wise and independent, and by teaching them to discriminate between what things appear and what they are, between their imaginary and their real value, between their relations to the general good and of individuals, to the interest or passions, and affords an infallible preservative against self-deceit and infection from the folly of others; a philosophy to which no one can be an utter stranger without loss, but which, in the most exalted sense, is the philosophy of kings. But how? Must the Prince, who is fond of truth, though surrounded on all sides with masks and false colours, despair of ever being able to distinguish the undisguised countenance from the varnished impostor? Forbid it, Heaven! He who sincerely loves the truth (and what can be amiable without it?) who even loves her when she does not flatter, he has only need of practised eyes for distinguishing her more delicate features, which can but rarely be counterfeited so well, that the artifice is not betrayed. And for acquiring these practised eyes—without which the best heart only so much the surer and oftener gives us a prey to the arts of imposture-no better means can be had than by perusing the history of wisdom and folly, of opinions and passions, of truth and imposture in the annals of the human race. In this faithful mirror we per-perity and the misery of the human race. ceive men, manners, and times, divested of all that is wont to mislead our judgment, even though we are entangled in the intricate web of the present comedy? Or, even though simplicity or artifice, passion or prejudice, have been Persuaded of this truth, devote, O, best of kings! a portion of those hours which the immediate exercise of your venerable office leaves at your own disposal, to the profitable and delightful employment of making yourself acquainted with the memorable occurrences of former times, to explore the revolution of states in mankind, to study men in their actions, in their opinions and passions, and in the combination of all these causes to find the reasons of the pros If I mistake not, the history of the Kings of Sheshian, which I lay at your majesty's feet, is not totally unworthy of being admitted amongst the serious recreations, in which your never inactive mind is used to relieve itself from the fa tigue of higher concerns. Great truths, interest- || nion of what he might have said if he had not ing to the whole human race, remarkable periods, held his tongue; but his descendant left behind instructive examples, and a faithful delineation|| of the mistakes and excesses of the human understanding and heart, seem to distinguish this history from many others of its species, and to give it a claim to the title with which it has been honoured by the chief judicature of police of China; a mirror within the natural consequences of wisdom and of folly are represented in so strong a light, with such plain strokes and warm colours, that he must be wise and good, or foolish and corrupt, to an extraordinary degree, who may not become wiser and better by the use of it. Captivated with the desire of marking the moment of existence which nature has allotted us on this scene of things, at least with one token of the good will I bear to my fellow-creatures, I have taken the trouble to translate this remarkable piece of antient history from the Indian Janguage into our own; and, wrapped up in the consciousness of an honest intention, I resign this book and myself to fate, which, in its unavoidableness, has more comfort than terror to the sage; tranquil under the protection of a king who loves truth, and honours virtue; happy in the friendship of the worthiest of my cotemporaries, and as indifferent as a mortal can be, to INTRODUCTION. All the world knows the famous Sultan of India, Shah-Kiar, who, from a wonderful jealousy of the negroes of his court, took every night a consort, and every morning caused her to be strangled; and who was so fond of hearing tales, that in a thousand and one nights, it never once came into his head to interrupt the inexhaustible Sheherezade by any exclamation, question, or caresses, whatever pains she took to give him an opportunity for it. A disposition so unconquerably phlegmatic was not the virtue of his descendant Shah Baham, who (as every one knows), by the wise and acute remarks with which he was wont to season the stories of his Vizir, is become incomparably more famous in history than his illustrious grandfather by his silence and inactivity. Shah-Kiar gave his courtiers reason to entertain a great opi him the fame, that it is impossible, and will remain impossible for ever to make such remarks or reflections (as he was pleased to call them) as Shah Baham. We have taken all possible pains to discover the reason why the author, to whom we are indebted for the life and exploits of these two sultans, has omitted to mention a word concerning the son of the former and the father of the latter: but we have not been so happy as to find any other reason for it, than because in reality there was nothing to be said of him. The only chronicler who takes any notice of him, does it in this manner :-" Sultan Lolo," says he, vegetated one-and-sixty years. He eat four times every day, with an amazing appetite, and besides that, and the love which he bore to his cats, no particular inclination towards any thing was ever perceivable in him The dervises and the cats are the only creatures in the world that have reason to bless his memory. For he caused, without ever rightly knowing why, two thousand six hundred and thirty-six new derviseries, each for sixty men, to be erected in his dominions; and, in all the cities and large towns of the empire of Indostan he founded institutions where a certain number of cats were obliged to be kept; and it must be confessed, that he provided so well for both of them, that in all Asia no fatter. dervises and cats were to be seen than those of his foundations.† He, moreover, begat, between waking and sleeping, a son, who succeeded him in the government, under the name of Shah Baham, and died of an indigestion." Thus far this chronicler, the only one who makes mention of Sultan Lolo; and indeed we are afraid that ́ what he says of him is still worse than nothing at all. A certain Persian author, at the mention of these foundations, breaks out into the following singular exclamation: "Could it ever enter into a man's head, even but in a dream, to establish such foundations! It is an essential part of a public institution that it should be useful to the state. But Sultan Lolo's institutions must have had a directly contrary effect. Had he left his dervises and his cats to their fate, it is a hundred to one that the former must have worked, and the latter have caught rats for their livelihood. Thus both would have been serviceable to the state. What a conceit! to make them fat, that they might grow lazy! However, as to the cats, that might be suffered to pass; their fat may be turned to some use. But dervise fat! What can * Here I am obliged to leave a chasm, which though only accidentally left in my Chinese copy, I am utterly unable to supply for want of another. In all probability what Hiang-Fu-Tsen had farther to say, was a rhodomontade against the ZoiInses, of whom the Chinese authors any more than ours seldom fail to make mention; the reader therefore loses nothing by this defect.-be done with dervise fat?"-Sheik Seif al Horam, Remark of the Latin translator. Hist. of Folly, vol. ccclxiv. p. 538. His son, Shah Baham, had the good fortune to be brought up till his fourteenth year by a nurse, whose mother had the same honourable employment about the inimitable Sheherezade, There must have been a general concurrence of circumstances for making this prince the most intemperate lover of stories that ever was known. It was not enough that he drew in this taste with his first nourishment, and the ground-work of his education laid in the tales of his grandmother, celebrated throughout the world: his destiny also provided him with a preceptor, who had taken it into his head that all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, were wrapped up in tales. ་ It will now be comprehended, that Shah Baham, under such circumstances, must be just such a man as he was. It has hitherto been thought, the ingenious considerations, the abrupt and pleasant sayings, accompanied with significant looks: "I thought so too." "I say nothing, but I know what I know;" or, "What do I care about that?" and other like wise sentences, of which he had as great a profusion as Sancho Pansa had of proverbs, with his repugnance to all that he termed spinning of morality and sentiment, were merely the effects of his genius. But suum cuique! We may safely assure ourselves, that the fakir, his preceptor, had no small share in it. The son and heir of this worthy sultan, Shah Dolka, resembled his father in capacity and disposition in all respects, only one excepted. He was the declared foe to every thing that looked like a story; and he set the less bounds to this aversion, as he had been obliged, during the lifetime of the sultan, his father, to conceal it with the utmost care. After the example of several celebrated authors, we should be very much asto It was at that time the laudable custom in India to imagine that the son of a sultan, a rajah, an omrah, or any other noble personage, could be educated by none but a fakir. Wherever a young man of birth was seen, a man might reckon upon it that a fakir was dangling after him, whose business it was to watch all his steps, words, looks, and gestures, and to take especial care that the young gentleman did not become too wise. For it was an universal received opi-nished at this degeneracy, if we did not think nion, that to a strong bodily frame, a good digestion, and the capacity of making his fortune, nothing was so prejudicial as much thought and much knowledge; and it must be said, to the honour of the dervises, fakirs, santons, bramins, bonzes, and talapoins of those times, that they neglected nothing to preserve the nations of the Indus and the Ganges from so pernicious a superfluity. It was one of their maxims, against which it was dangerous to raise a doubt, that, << Nobody should pretend to be wiser than his grandmother." that it happened quite naturally. Sultan Dolka, CONVERSAZIONE.-CHARACTERS. TO THE EDITOR OF LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE. SIR, LETTER I. AMONG all the complaints which we are daily doomed to hear from the old and the fretful, among all the comparisons between times present and time past, which are universally made to the discredit of our own cotemporaries, it must be owned that there are one or two instances in which our ancestors had not so decided an advantage over us, as in general we are apt to believe they possessed. Setting aside the more ponderous matters of philosophy, religion, and morality, I will say a few words about manners, about the enjoyment of social pleasures, and the cultivation of agreeable talents; things which may be much more easily estimated than virtues and vices, and which are always more interesting, for this reason, that a man's morals are a matter between him and his conscience, but his manners are a matter between him and his acquaintance. Now, Sir, I must say, notwithstanding the partialities for old times, which one picks up from one's nurse or one's grandmamma, that, in social parties for the purposes of elegant relaxation and rational chat, we have very much improved upon the customs of our fathers. Formerly, if society was to be brought together, it must be collected by dinners of great trouble and expence. To some of the parties concerned, it must be acknowledged that a considerable share of pleasure was communicated by the vast ex panse of napkin, and the ample colonnade of dishes: but, alas! dinner could not be prolonged to a period of more than an hour, or at most an hour and a half; and them a listless despondency succeeded, which was by no means alleviated by the abrupt departure of that portion of the company, the sanction of whose smiles ought to have dissipated the vapours of soups, of sweetbreads, and of syllabubs. But the time must be got rid of, and what was to be done? As to any serious conversation, much more as to mental exertion, the effort of the knife and fork had quite cut up all connexion of thought, or readiness of wit: our stomachs had received that load which, as the prince of bonvivans, Horace, truly declares, the day when business and study may be fairly supposed at an end, and when relaxation becomes in some degree necessary as well as luxurious, the literary, the gay, the brilliant, and the beautiful, assemble to exercise the information which they have acquired, to let loose the spirits of the heart, to glitter with the coruscations of wit, and to enchant with the magic of the eyes. Why have the learned been accused of barbarisms in manners? Because men, whose habits will not allow them to participate in the giddy and thoughtless amusements of mere idleness, had not, till these parties were contrived, the means of polishing away the roughness of which we complain. Why were men of fashion and fortune disregarded by the scholar and the philosopher? Because they, whose modes of life did not lead them to converse with books, and who had no opportunities of conversing with men of letters, could by no possibility be possessed of the information which some might expect from them. Why have the witty been overbearing and conceited? Because the mixture of a graver talent had never tempered the edge of their blades. Why were the fair the playthings, or the idols of men? Because education and so Animum quoque prægravat una Atque affligit humum divinæ particulum auræ. The hampered intellect was now therefore to be set a going by the assistance of copious libations, as naturalists tell us, certain sea-monsters that have been basking on the shore, are unable to extricate themselves from the mire in which they have been wallowing, till the tide comes up and floats them again. Those who drank paid next day for their intemperance. Those who did not drink were stigmatised as milk-sops. On the|ciety had not adapted them to hold that rank in one side pleaded only reason; on the other fought appetite and false shame. This for the tine was an affair of mere manners; but its consequences affected morals. Well, Sir, ten o'clock arrived, and of course, you know, tea was announced. Some who were sufficiently sober finished their cup, and went home to bed; others, who were not so cool, spilt the tea which they could not drink, and fell asleep upon the sofa. The ladies rang for their carriages, and the mistress bade them all a glad farewell. This is a full, true, and particular account of the visiting system, as it was conducted a few years ago, But now, Sir, fortunately, nous avons change tout cela." We will not dwell on concerts, which, however, are scientific and reasonable assemblies; nor even on balls, which are of all amusements the most delightful to us at our entrance into life, nay, which are, as a witty friend of mine was saying to me a few days ago, a compendium of practical philosophy, containing all the charins of the table, of music, of conversation, and of love, besides operating with as powerful an effect in matrimonial consolidation among the higher classes, as nutting and bullbaiting do among the vulgar. No, Sir; we will pass by all these seducing pleasures, which have of late years so much increased; and we will speak of petit-soupers, those parties which, though the seeds of them were early sown, have been almost entirely the growth of the present day. By these happy inventions, at a period of No. V. Vol. I, the creation, which alone is desirable to a woman Mr. Editor, I am a member of the Inner Temple, and engaged in the study of the law; a study to which information is always conducive, and to which a knowledge of society is particularly instrumental. It has therefore been a prin cipal object with me, to associate with men whose natural talents, or situation in life, might bestow instruction, or reflect honour upon me. Such society was to be met with chiefly in the parties of which I have been speaking, where the conversation is the material of pleasure, and the supper no more than the cement. Nor have I been often disappointed in my researches for improvement, I have listened to and joined in conversations highly interesting and entertaining; and from time to time, when any general topic K K shall have been started, I will communicate to you such remarks of the company as may appear to be worth repetition. On a Sunday evening covers are always laid for a select party, at the house of the Hon. Mrs. Meade. She is the widow of an Irish officer of rank, and an intimate friend and warm partisan of most of the leading men who were the ornaments of Irish eloquence, while the Irish constitution existed. To a great knowledge of the world, and an acute and irresistible wit, she unites the most fashionable manners, and the greatest benevolence of heart. Though past that buoyant time of life when cheerfulness is but a physical effect, she has the gaiety of a mind, not soured by misfortunes, but accustomed to the company of persons of rank and talents; and completely enjoys that state not only of poetical bliss but of real comfort, the Otium cum dignitate. The company who generally assemble at her house are, Lord and Lady Belmont, Mr. Conolly, Captain Colclough, Mr. and Mrs. Ovey, Mr. Frederick, Sir Henry Rushwood, Dr. and Miss Abington, Colonel Fairfax, Miss Mordaunt, and Lady Caroline Howard. Lord Belmont is Mrs. Meade's nephew, an Irish nobleman of fortune; his manners are quiet and unassuming, though his capacity is naturally strong, and his information extremely extensive. Lady Belmont was the daughter of a gentleman in the county of Wexford, and he married her a few months ago for love rather than interest. Mr. Conolly is a man advanced in life. He was formerly a member of the Irish Parliament, where he distinguished himself not more by the vigour and imagination of his style, than by the purity and incorruptibility of his political principles. His manner in conversation is grave and impressive, always conveying an idea of undisturbed power and placid extent of mind, like the sea in a calm but, said an old friend of his to me a few days ago, had you known him in his youth, you would have said he resembled the sea in a storm. Captain Colclough is one of the most fashionable inen about town. He is seen at every ball and masquerade; not only seen, he is generally liked and often admired. His form is of the most perfect strength and symmetry; and these natural advantages he has improved by the cultivation of almost every manly exercise. He excels in boxing, jumping, and dancing; he possesses considerable powers of mimicry; and having also inexhaustible vivacity and good humour, is one of the most entertaining men one knows. Among the amateurs of the fine arts, one of the most conspicuous is Mr. Ovey. He is an artist for his amusement, and a humourist be cause he cannot help it. On subjects of taste he is thoroughly informed, and possesses a fund of anecdote by which he has a very agreeable mode of illustrating the general principles that he lays down. Mrs. Ovey, who first introduced me to Mrs. Meade, has signalized herself among her acquaintance by a few simple stories which she has written, and in which she has displayed so powerful an invention, and so exquisite a sensibility, that all who have had opportunities of || judging of her, acknowledge her to be one of those few women who are well acquainted with the heart. Mr. Frederick was the only son of a Northum brian 'squire, who indulged and flattered him when a boy to such a pitch, that, in a phrentic fit, he decided on a pursuit of the theatrical profession, and accordingly deserted his father to enlist in a company of strollers. His whole soul was devoted to the science of the stage; and he shortly made himself acquainted with all the antiquities, curiosities, and collateral incidents of his new science. He had fagged himself into considerable provincial celebrity, when his father died, leaving him all his estates on condition of his abandoning the stage. This stipulation, though not without considerable regret, he acceded to; and that learning, which he had acquired for professional purposes, became a source of amusement and honour to him in his leisure. His manner is cold and forbidding; but his reserve is, on some occasions, with some particular friends, completely laid aside. His countenance is interesting, and perhaps handsome; while he glittered in the theatre, his dark expressive eyes and elegant person procured for him the smiles of many an enthusiastic fair one. But now he has abandoned his youthful eccentricities, and bears on his brow the solemnity of one who knows men to be knaves or fools, although he is himself too wise to say so. The next of our party is Sir Henry Rushwood, a younger son, who was bred to the bar, but left that profession in consequence of his elder brother's death, when a large estate and the title of a baronet devolved to him. His style in conversation is rapid and brilliant; he has many quaintnesses and conceits, but his arguments are generally weak, and his reasoning sophistical. The unhesitating fluency of his manner deceives a stranger into an opinion of his logical subtlety; but his discourses are always sophistical; and he takes great pride in applying to himself that line of Paradise Lost, in which one of the fallen angels is described as able by the manna of his |