matter of congratulation to me; but let me ask where Count Ranceval is; I shall be proud to pay my compliments to him, and by the glimpse I had of his person, think I have had the honour of seeing him before.'-' Very likely,' answered Melissa, the count has been some time in London.'—' I think so,' said Lord L—; ' but I am impatient to make my bow to him.'-'I hope he will soon come down,' replied Melissa, but he is suddenly seized with a dreadful toothache, and gone up stairs in great pain.' Alas, poor count,' said Lord L 'tis a

horrid agony, and what I am very subject to myself, but I have a nostrum in my pocket which is very safe, and never fails to give ease; permit me, dear sister, to walk up stairs with you, and relieve the count from his distress.'

So saying, he followed Melissa up stairs, and was accompanied by the whole party. Upon their entering the chamber, Count Ranceval made a slight bow to the company, and again put up his handkerchief to his face; as soon as Lord L approached him, he said- I believe I can soon cure this gentleman.'-Whereupon, snatching the handkerchief from his cheek, with one kick, pretty forcibly bestowed upon the seat of dishonour, he laid the puisny count sprawling on the floor. The ladies with one consent gave a shriek, that brought the whole family to the door; Melissa ran with agony to the fallen hero, who hid his face between his hands, whilst Lord L- cried out, Take no pity on him, Madam, for the rascal was my footman.' This produced a second scream from Melissa, who, turning to Lord L- with a look of horror, exclaimed What do I hear? Count Ranceval a footman! What then am I?-By this time the count had recollected himself sufficiently to make reply My lawful wife and as such I demand

6

you let me see who will venture to oppose it.'This menace would have been followed with a second chastisement from my lord, had not Maria interposed, and taking her sister tenderly by the hand, with a look of pity and benevolence, asked her if she was actually married.-' Irrecoverably,' said Melissa, and burst into tears. Yes, yes,' resumed the impostor, I believe all things are pretty safe in that quarter; I have not taken any measures by halves.' Rascal! villain!' exclaimed my lord, and was again with difficulty held back by his lady from laying hands on him. Have patience, I conjure you,' said Maria, 'if it be so, it is past redemption; leave me with my sister, take my poor mother out of the room, and if this gentleman will give me leave to converse a few minutes with my sister-'-' Gentleman;' said Lord L, and immediately taking him by the collar, dragged him out of the chamber, followed by the mother and the aunt. A scene now ensued between the sisters, in which, as I feel my pen unable to render justice to the divine benevolence of Maria, I will charitably drop the curtain over the fall of pride. There was no need for any negociation with the count, for he and his accomplice Parthenissa, with the lawyer her uncle, set off for London with their credentials to take possession of Melissa's fortune in the funds, which the lawyer had but too effectually secured, having, in a pretended counterpart of the deed he read to Melissa and her mother, inserted the real name of the impostor. Melissa has as yet had no farther trouble from her husband, and lives in retirement in a small house belonging to Lord L, under his protection: she experiences daily instances of the bounty of Maria, and here if envy (which yet rankles at her heart) would permit her, reflection might teach her 'how superior virtue shines in its natural simplicity,

and how contemptible pride appears, though disguised under the mask of false delicacy and affected refinement.'

NUMBER XXV.

Undè nil majus generatur ipso,

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum.-HORAT.

THERE is a great sovereign now upon earth, who, though an infant, is the oldest of all souls alive by many centuries.

This extraordinary personage is a living evidence of the soul's immortality, or at least has advanced so far in proof, as to convince the world by his own example, that it is not necessarily involved in the extinction of the body. Though he is the greatest genealogist living, and can with certainty make out the longest and clearest pedigree of any potentate now reigning, yet he is properly speaking without ancestors. As I cannot doubt but that so striking an event as the general deluge must be fresh in his memory, though a pretty many years have since elapsed, he must of necessity have been none other than Noah himself; for as he has always been his own son, and that son can never have been living at the same moment with his father, it is plain he must have been that very identical patriarch when he survived the flood.

As he was but eighteen months old, according to his corporeal computation, when he was last visited, he was not very communicative in conversation, but I have hope upon the next meeting he will have the goodness to set us right about Pythagoras, who I am persuaded sunk some part of his travels upon us,

and

was actually in his court, where he acted the part of a plagiary, and in the school-boy's phrase cribb'd a foul copy of his holiness's transmigration, but with such strong marks of a counterfeit, that after a short trip to the Trojan war, and a few others not worth relating, it is to be presumed he has given up the frolic; for I do not hear that he is at present amongst us, at least not amongst us of this kingdom, where to say the truth I do not see any thing that resembles him. In the mean time the religious sovereign of Tibet (for the reader perceives I have been speaking of Teéshoo Lama) in the spirit of an original, keeps his seat upon the Musnud of Terpâling, which throne he has continued to press ever since his descent from Mount Ararat.

be

After all we must acknowledge this was a bold creed for priestcraft to impose, but credulity has a wide swallow, and if the doctrine passed upon a nation so philosophical and inquisitive as the Greeks, it may well obtain unquestioned by Calmuc Tartars; and superstition, now retiring from Rome, may yet find refuge in the mountains of Tibet. This may said for the system of Teéshoo Lama, that imposition cannot be put to a fairer test, than when committed to the simplicity of a child: and the Gylongs, or priests, attendant upon this extraordinary infant, paid no small compliment to the faith of their followers, when they set him upon the Musnud.

I forbear entering into a farther account of this infant pontiff, because I hope the very ingenious traveller, who has already circulated some curious particulars of his audiences and interviews at the monastery of Terpâling, will indulge the public with a more full and circumstantial narrative of his very interesting expedition into a country so little visited by Europeans, and where the manners and habits of the people, no less than the sacred character of the

sovereign, furnish a subject of so new and entertaining a nature.

When a genius like that, which actuates the illustrious character, who lately administered the government of Bengal, is carried into the remotest regions of the earth, it diffuses an illumination around it, which reaches even to those nations where arts and sciences are in their highest cultivation; and we accordingly find that besides this embassy, so curious of its kind, the same pervading spirit has penetrated into the sacred and till now inaccessible mysteries of the Brahmins, and by the attainment of a language which religion has interdicted from all others but the sacerdotal cast, has already began to lay open a volume, superior in antiquity, and perhaps in merit not inferior, to Homer himself.

Happy inhabitants of Tibet! If happiness can arise from error, your innocent illusion must be the source of it; for priestcraft, which has plunged our portion of the globe in wars and persecutions, has kept you in perpetual peace and tranquillity; so much more wise and salutary is your religious system of pontifical identity, than ours of pontifical infallibility. The same unchangeable, indivisible object of faith secures universal acquiescence under the commodious imposition: no Anti-Lama can distract your attention or divide your duty, for individuality is his essence; no councils can reverse his decrees or overrule his supremacy, for he is coeval with religion, nay he is religion itself. Such as he was in his præterient body, such he must be in his present; the same monastic, peaceful, unoffending, pious being; a living idol, drawn forth upon occasional solemnities to give his blessing to adoring prostrate hordes of Tartars, and to receive their offerings; and whether this blessing be given by the hands of unreasoning infancy, or superannuated age, it matters little at which degree the

XXXVIII.