proposed by an elderly person in a great chair, whose chin was built up three or four stories high, and whose sides and corporation were swelled out, like the equatorial parts of the globe, by the continual exercise of laughter. My guide pointed out to me a promising young student, who had punned upon every word in the Old and New Testament, and had already advanced a great way in the Statutes at Large; and while I was in the room, a youth with a vacant face advanced to receive a very showy gingerbread medal for the best joke upon pumpkin.

We passed through a great number of conundrum parties, and whole rows of rebus-makers, till we came to a detached part of the building, which, I was informed, was wholly destined to the students in philosophy. Here the area of the quadrangle was so full and so noisy, that I could have imagined myself at the Stock Exchange in London, if it had not been for the prodigious number of instruments and apparatuses with which the court was filled. I walked up leisurely to a cluster of people who seemed to be very busy in a corner of the square, with a variety of kettles and pans about them; but was very glad to get out of their reach, as soon as I heard that they were employed in making thunder and lightning. I was much more at my ease when I found myself in the midst of a set of projectors, who had just satisfied their minds as to the philosopher's stone, and the quadrature of the circle.

Many were the different objects which seemed to stimulate the labours of this learned body. I could observe a few Platonic spirits, who appeared to be lost in thought, and, according to my conductor, were contemplating the αυτόματον ἄγαλμα; others were calculating the decay of moral evidence by

arithmetical proportions. Some were stripping themselves to dig to the centre of the earth; not a few were crying about their summum bonums, mithridates, and panaceas; while some very Boeotian faces were looking through telescopes at the sun, and declaring they saw churches, sign-posts, and hackney-coaches.

A great number of animal magnetists were among this crowd of philosophers; and some of them engaged to round my little hatchet-face to a reasonable plumpness, by treating me only for a few days. I could not help asking my conductor, what could be the intention of a crowd of persons who were standing in the great square in travelling dresses, and with all the eagerness of expectation in their countenances? "These," replied he, "are a set of enterprising philosophers, who are bent on errands of great importance. They have all their different destinations, and are on the point of setting out in search of those seas, islands, and cities, of whose existence the documents and testimonies we have hitherto had, seem to stand a little in need of confirmation. noblemen, with long trains of clerks and secretaries behind them, are going on embassies from his Inane Majesty to Plato's republic, Utopia, Lilliput, and Laputa. The two gentlemen who are so thinly clothed, are prepared to penetrate into the sultry regions of Africa, in quest of the Troglodyte and Prester John's kingdom; and the person whom you see equipped with a cork jacket, sets sail in an hour's time in search of Lucian's ocean of cream, with the islands of cheese in the middle of it."

Those

Here my guide finished speaking; and taking me by the arm, led me through this crowd of philosophical adventurers, to another range of building, in which was the museum, or cabinet of curiosities.

Though there seemed to be a great number of rare articles in this repository, yet I had too confused a recollection, when I awoke, of what I had seen, to be able to trace out the particulars on paper. Some impressions, however, were left in my memory, of the wooden dove of Archytus, the brazen bull of Albertus Magnus, the Maid of Orleans' shift, Scriblerus's shield, some skin of the true Pergamenian parchment, a sprig of the laurel into which Daphne was metamorphosed, and a shoe made of the hide of the archer who was flayed alive for shooting King Richard the First.

Having now no further curiosity to satisfy in Abra-Cadabra-square, we pursued our walk towards Addle-gate, where we expected our balloon to wait for us. I should not, however, forget to mention, that at the end of Blowbadder-street was the hospital for hypochondriacs, or malades imaginaires. In walking hastily through the wards, I could observe many stout-looking gentlemen wrapped up as if they laboured under a complication of disorders. Upon asking one of them, whose legs I observed to be encircled with hay-bands, what was the nature of his complaint, he assured me, with a countenance of the floridest melancholy I ever beheld, that a general vitrification had begun to take place in his person; that his legs were already converted into glass bottles; and that, if it were not for these hay-bands, he should be continually in danger of breaking his own shins, and wounding those of his neighbours.

After leaving this humane institution, we soon found ourselves at the city gate, near to which is the Royal Exchange, where, as we passed, we heard a vast deal about tontines, securities, assignats, &c.; but having no great curiosity about these matters, we mounted into our balloon-carriage, and set out on

our expedition. A brisk gale carried us with great rapidity over an immense track of country, the po pulation of which filled me with astonishment. As we passed over a very flourishing province, called the Region of Expectation, my guide, seeing my curiosity awakened, threw down a sort of anchor which caught in a hollow tree, and arrested our progress.

I never shall forget the ecstasy of surprise I was thrown into, on perceiving a prodigious number of castles built in the air, all constructed of the finest marble, and displaying a magnificence far exceeding the description my childhood had been amused with in Eastern story-books. As most of these edifices were extremely high, we were afraid of striking against some of their turrets, and therefore judged it prudent to depart before the wind increased. We came next to the Land of Promise; where, stopping a few minutes at a little town, I heard a candidate for the representation of the county promising a grocer in return for his vote, that his son should be made Lord High Almoner; while another was pledging himself to make the son of a credulous baker, Master of the Rolls.

In sailing over the Land of Dreams, we had the curiosity to pay it a short visit, and found it so exactly answerable to the description of it which Lucian gives us in his true history, that I may spare myself the trouble of offering any particular account of it in this place. The next object that excited my attention, was the Island of Gapers and Yawners, where I observed almost every body stretching out his arms, as if just awakened from a heavy sleep, and every mouth extended like so many oysters waiting for the tide. As I already began to be infected with a drowsiness, I begged my guide to

hasten out of this atmosphere, lest I should close my eyes upon the wonders of this great empire, which yet remained for me to contemplate.

Our route lay next by the land of Jokes, to the Paradise of Fools. In passing over the first mentioned province, the undulation of the air caused by the unceasing laughter of the people of this country, rocked our balloon like a ship in a troubled ocean. The Paradise of Fools was peaceable enough; and their supreme pleasure seemed to consist in lolling out their tongues, and singing lullabies as they leaned against each other. Some of them found entertainment in spitting into a running stream; others whistled away their lives; and not a few were blowing bubbles into the air, and running after them open-mouthed. It was here that I thought I recollected some faces of old standing at college.

I was soon disgusted with this scene, and begged to proceed in our journey; but was not much better pleased, when in a few minutes we found ourselves in the Land of Fops. Till we descended to within about fifty yards of the ground, I guessed them to be a race of Albinoes, by the mighty protuberance about their necks; but I perceived that this phenomenon was nothing more than a kind of bolster which it was the fashion to carry about with them. The whole atmosphere was sophisticated with a thousand perfumes; and yet now and then a cross current of air conveyed to my sense such a putrid steam of human maladies, that I could not help fancying myself in the neighbourhood of a hospital or lazar-house. Most of these fops seemed to be of the travelled monkey kind, and resembled such as, in the language of Mr. Pope, had

..saunter'd Europe round,

And gather'd every vice on Christian ground;