Quoth Khipil, "To hear is to obey." He conducted Shahpesh among the unfinished saloons and imperfect courts and roofless rooms, and by half-erected obelisks, and columns pieced and chipped of the palace of his building. And he was bewildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh; but now the King exalted him and admired the perfection of his craft, the greatness of his labour, the speediness of his construction, his assiduity; feigning not to behold his negligence. Presently they went up winding balusters to a marble terrace, and the King said, "Such is thy devotion and constancy in toil, O Khipil, that thou shalt walk Shahpesh said, "All is perfect, and it is my will thou delay not to advance." Khipil cried, "The gap is wide, O mighty King, and manifest, and it is the one incomplete part of thy palace.' 66 Then said Shahpesh, "Ō Khipil, I see no distinction between one part and another; excellent are all parts in beauty and proportion, and there can be no part incomplete in this palace that occupieth the builder fourteen years in its building; so advance, and do my bidding." Khipil yet hesitated, for the gap was of many strides, and at the bottom of the gap was a deep water, and he, one that knew not the motion of swimming. But Shahpesh ordered his guard to point their arrows in the direction of Khipil, and Khipil stepped forward hurriedly and fell in the gap, and was swallowed by the water below. When he rose the second time, succour reached him, and he was drawn to land trembling, his teeth chattering. And Shahpesh praised him, and said, “This is an apt contrivance for a bath, Khipil, O my builder! well conceived; one that taketh by surprise; and it shall be thy reward daily when much talking hath fatigued thee.' Then he bade Khipil lead him to the hall of state. And when they were there Shahpesh said: "For a privilege and as a mark of my approbation, I give thee permission to sit in the marble chair of yonder throne, even in my presence, O Khipil." Khipil said, Surely, O King, the chair is not yet executed." 66 And Shahpesh exclaimed, "If this be so, thou art but the length of thy measure on the ground, O talkative one!" Khipil said, "Nay, 'tis not so, O King of splendours! blind that I am; yonder's indeed the chair." And Khipil feared the King, and went to the place where the chair should be, and bent his body in a sitting posture, eyeing the King and made pretence to sit in the chair of Shahpesh. Then said Shahpesh, "As a token that I approve thy execution of the chair, thou shalt be honoured by remaining seated in it one day and one night; but move thou to the right or to the left, showing thy soul insensible of the honour done thee, transfixed thou shalt be with twenty arrows and five." The King then left him with a guard of twenty-five of his body-guard; and they stood around him with bent bows, so that Khipil dared not move from his sitting posture. And the masons and the people crowded to see Khipil sitting on his master's chair, for it became rumoured about. When they beheld him sitting upon nothing, and he trembling to stir for fear of the loosening of the arrows, they laughed so that they rolled upon the floor of the hall, and the echoes of laughter were a thousandfold. Surely the arrows of the guards swayed with the laughter that shook them. Now when the time had expired for his sitting in the chair, Shahpesh returned to Y him, and he was cramped, pitiable to see; and Shahpesh said, "Thou hast been exalted above men, O Khipil! for that thou didst execute for thy master has been found fitting for thee." Then he bade Khipil lead the way to the noble gardens of dalliance and pleasure that he had planted and contrived. And Khipil went in that state described by the poet, when we go draggingly, or with remonstrating members, "Knowing a dreadful strength behind, And a dark fate before." They came to the gardens and behold they were full of weeds and nettles, the fountains dry, no tree to be seen-a desert. And Shahpesh cried, "This is indeed of admirable design, O Khipil! Feelest thou not the coolness of the fountains ? their refreshingness? Truly I am grateful to thee! And these flowers, pluck me now a handful, and tell me of their perfume.' Khipil plucked a handful of the nettles A little child and happy lover both! So I adore them, that no mistress sweet Khipil answered, "Tis eloquent, O great King! comprehensiveness would be its portion, but that it alludeth not to the delight of chafing." Then Shahpesh laughed, and cried, "Chafe not! it is an ill thing and a hideous! This nosegay, O Khipil, it is for thee to present to thy mistress. Truly she will receive thee well after its presentation! I will have it now sent in thy name, with word that thou followest quickly. And for thy nettled nose, surely if the whim seize thee that thou desirest its chafing, to thy neighbour is permitted what to thy hand is refused." So the King set a guard upon Khipil to see that his orders were executed, and appointed a time for him to return to the gardens. At the hour indicated Khipil stood before Shahpesh again. He was pale, saddened; his tongue drooped like the tongue of a heavy bell, that when it soundeth giveth forth mournful sounds only; he had also the look of one battered with many beatings. So the King said : "How of the presentation of the flowers of thy culture, O Khipil?" He answered: "Surely, O King, she received me with wrath, and I am shamed by her." And the King said: "How of my clemency in the matter of the chafing?" Khipil answered, O King of splendours! I made petition to my neighbours whom I met, accosting them civilly and with imploring, for I ached to chafe, and it was the very raging thirst of desire to chafe that was mine, devouring intensity of eagerness for solace of chafing. And they chafed me, O King; yet not in those parts which throbbed for the chafing, but in those which abhorred it." Then Shahpesh smiled and said, "Tis certain that the magnanimity of monarchs is as the rain that falleth, the sun that shineth; and in this spot it fertilizeth richness; in that it encourageth rankness. So art thou but a weed, O Khipil! and my grace is thy chastisement."-The Shav ing of Shagpat: An Arabian Night's Entertainment. SECTION V. SATIRICAL. ing the law of God, should be among them. [ROBERT BARCLAY. 1648-1690.] AGAINST TITLES OF HONOUR. WE affirm positively, that it is not law-ness,' ful for Christians either to give or receive these titles of honour, as, Your Holiness, Your Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Eminency, &c. First, because these titles are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; neither doth the giving them add to or diminish from that subjection we owe to them, which consists in obeying their just and lawful commands, not in titles and designations. Secondly, we find not that in the Scriptures any such titles are used, either under the law or the gospel; but that, in speaking to kings, princes, or nobles, they used only a simple compellation, as, "O King!" and that without any further designation, save, perhaps, the name of the person, as, "O King Agrippa," &c. 39 66 Fourthly, as to those titles of "Holi'Eminency," and “ Excellency," used among the Papists to the pope and cardinals, &c.; and "Grace," "Lordship," and "Worship," used to the clergy among the Protestants, it is a most blasphemous usurpation. For if they use "Holiness" and "Grace" because these things ought to be in a pope or in a bishop, how come they to usurp that peculiarly to themselves? Ought not holiness and grace to be in every Christian? And so every Christian should say "Your Holiness" and "Your Grace" one to another. Next, how can they in reason claim any more titles than were practised and received by the apostles and primitive Christians, whose successors they pretend they are; and as whose successors (and no otherwise) themselves, I judge, will confess any honour they seek is due to them? Now, if they neither Thirdly, it lays a necessity upon Chris- sought, received, nor admitted, such tians most frequently to lie; because the honournor titles, how came these by them? persons obtaining these titles, either by If they say they did, let them prove it if election or hereditarily, may frequently be they can: we find no such thing in the found to have nothing really in them de- Scripture. The Christians speak to the serving them, or answering to them: as apostles without any such denomination, some, to whom it is said, "Your Excel- neither saying, "If it please your Grace,' lency," having nothing of excellency in "Your Holiness," nor "Your Worship;" them; and who is called, "Your Grace," they are neither called My Lord Peter, appear to be an enemy to grace; and he nor My Lord Paul; nor yet Master Peter, who is called "Your Honour," is known nor Master Paul; nor Doctor Peter, nor to be base and ignoble. I wonder what Doctor Paul; but singly Peter and Paul; law of man, or what patent, ought to ob- and that not only in the Scripture, but for lige me to make a lie, in calling good evil, some hundreds of years after: so that this and evil good. I wonder what law of man appears to be a manifest fruit of the apocan secure me, in so doing, from the just stacy. For if these titles arise either from judgment of God, that will make me count the office or worth of the persons, it will for every idle word. And to lie is some- not be denied but the apostles deserved thing more. Surely Christians should be them better than any now that call for ashamed that such laws, manifestly cross-them. But the case is plain; the apostles had the holiness, the excellency, the grace; and because they were holy, excellent, and gracious, they neither used nor admitted such titles; but these having neither holiness, excellency, nor grace, will needs be so called to satisfy their ambitious and ostentatious mind, which is a manifest token of their hypocrisy. Fifthly, as to that title of "Majesty' usually ascribed to princes, we do not find it given to any such in the Holy Scripture; but that it is specially and peculiarly ascribed unto God. We find in the Scripture the proud king Nebuchadnezzar assuming this title to himself, who at that time received a sufficient reproof, by a sudden judgment which came upon him. Therefore in all the compellations used to princes in the Old Testament, it is not to be found, nor yet in the New. Paul was very civil to Agrippa, yet he gives him no such title. Neither was this title used among Christians in the primitive times. -Apology for the Quakers. ments, that he may be put in mind to break them as oft as possibly he can; especially that of stealing and bearing false witness against his neighbour, when he draws him bad wine, and swears it is good, and that he can take more for the pipe than the wine will yield him by the bottle-a trick that a Jesuit taught him to cheat his own conscience with. When he is found to over-reckon notoriously, he has one common evasion for all, and that is, to say it was a mistake; by which he means, that he thought they had not been sober enough to discover it; for if it had passed, there had been no error at all in the case.-Characters. AN ANTIQUARY Is one that has his being in this age, but his life and conversation is in the days of old. He despises the present age as an innovation, and slights the future; but has a great value for that which is past and gone, like the madman that fell in love with Cleopatra. [SAMUEL BUTLER. 1612-1680.] All his curiosities take place of one AN OLD-TIME PUBLICAN. another according to their seniority, and A VINTNER hangs out his bush to show he he values them not by their abilities, but has not good wine; for that, the proverb their standing. He has a great veneration says, needs it not. He had rather sell bad for words that are stricken in years, and wine than good, that stands him in no more; are grown so aged that they have outlived for it makes men sooner drunk, and then their employments. These he uses with they are the easier over-reckoned. By the a respect agreeable to their antiquity, and knaveries he acts above-board, which the good services they have done. He is every man sees, one may easily take a a great time-server, but it is of time out of measure of those he does under-ground in mind to which he conforms exactly, but his cellar; for he that will pick a man's is wholly retired from the present. His pocket to his face, will not stick to use days were spent and gone long before he him worse in private, when he knows came into the world; and since, his only nothing of it. He does not only spoil and business is to collect what he can out of destroy his wines, but an ancient reverend the ruins of them. He has so strong a proverb, with brewing and racking, that natural affection to anything that is old, says, "In vino veritas;" for there is no that he may truly say to dust and worms, truth in his, but all false and sophisticated; "You are my father," and to rottenness, for he can counterfeit wine as cunningly "Thou art my mother." He has no proas Apelles did grapes, and cheat men with vidence nor foresight, for all his contemit, as he did birds. He is an Antichris- plations look backward upon the days of tian cheat, for Christ turned water into old, and his brains are turned with them, wine, and he turns wine into water. He as if he walked backwards. He values scores all his reckonings upon two tables, things wrongfully upon their antiquity, made like those of the Ten Command- forgetting that the most modern are really the most ancient of all things in the world like those that reckon their pounds before their shillings and pence, of which they are made up. He esteems no customs but such as have outlived themselves, and are long since out of use; as the Catholics allow of no saints but such as are dead, and the fanatics, in opposition, of none but the living.-Ibid. [JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D. 1667-1745.] OF THE PROPOSED ABOLITION OF INCONVENIENCES CHRISTIANITY. all art or nature could have produced Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with readers? It is the wise choice of the subject that alone adorneth and distinguisheth the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been employed on the side of religion, they would immediately have sunk into silence and oblivion. Nor do I think it wholly groundless, or my fears altogether imaginary, that the abolishing of Christianity may, perhaps, bring the church in danger, or at least put the senate to the trouble of another securing vote. I desire I may not be misunderstood; I am far from presuming to affirm or think that the church is in danger at present, or as things now stand, but we know not how soon it may be so, when the Christian religion is repealed. As plausible as this project seems, there may be a dangerous design lurk under it. Nothing can be more notorious than that the atheists, deists, socinians, anti-trinitarians, and other subdivisions of free-thinkers, are persons of little zeal for the present ecclesiastical establishment. Theirdeclared opinion is for repealing the sacramental test; they are very indifferent with regard to ceremonies; nor do they hold the jus divinum of episcopacy. Therefore this may be intended as one politic step towards altering the constitution of the church established, and setting up presbytery in its stead; which I leave to be further considered by those at the helm. I AM very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and pleasure are apt to murmur and be shocked at the sight of so many daggle-tail parsons, who happen to fall in their way, and offend their eyes; but, at the same time, those wise reformers do not consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to exercise and improve their talents, and divert their spleen from falling on each other or on themselves; especially when all this may be done without the least imaginable danger to their persons. And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: if Christianity were once abolished, how could the free-thinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of profound learning be able to find another subject so calculated in all points And therefore if, notwithstanding all I whereon to display their abilities? What have said, it shall still be thought neceswonderful productions of wit should we sary to have a bill brought in for repealing be deprived of from those whose genius, Christianity, I would humbly offer an by continual practice, hath been wholly amendment, that, instead of the word turned upon raillery and invectives against Christianity, may be put religion in general; religion, and would, therefore, be never which I conceive will much better answer able to shine or distinguish themselves on all the good ends proposed by the proany other subject? We are daily com- jectors of it. For as long as we leave in plaining of the great decline of wit among being a God and his Providence, with all us, and would we take away the greatest, the necessary consequences which curious perhaps the only topic we have left? and inquisitive men will be apt to draw Who would ever have suspected Asgill from such premises, we do not strike at for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the root of the evil, although we should the inexhaustible stock of Christianity had ever so effectually annihilate the present not been at hand to provide them with scheme of the Gospel. For of what use materials? What other subject through | is freedom of thought, if it will not produce |