low Brooks, the Ocean leaving one Coast dry, and overwhelming another The Discovery of many Countries yet unknown. Barbarity over-running the politest Nations, and the most barbarous become civilized. I should then see the Discovery of the Longitude, the perpetual Motion, the Universal Medicine, and many other great Inventions brought to the utmost Perfection.

What wonderful Discoveries should we make in Astronomy, by outliving and confirming our own Predictions, by observing the Progress and Returns of Comets, with the changes of Motion in the Sun, Moon, and Stars.

I enlarged upon many other Topicks, which the natural desire of endless Life and sublunary Happiness could easily furnish me with. When I had ended, and the Sum of my Discourse had been interpreted as before, to the rest of the Company, there was a good deal of Talk among them in the Language of the Country, not without some Laughter at my Expence. At last the same Gentleman who had been my Interpreter said he was desired by the rest to set me right in a few Mistakes, which I had fallen into through the common Imbecillity of human Nature, and upon that allowance was less answerable for them. That, this Breed of Struldbruggs was peculiar to their County, for there were no such People either in Balnibarbi or Japan, where he had the Honour to be Embassador from his Majesty, and found the Natives in both these Kingdoms very hard to believe that the Fact was possible, and it appeared from my Astonishment when he first mentioned the matter to me, that I received it as a thing wholly new, and scarcely to be credited. That in the two Kingdoms above mentioned, where during his Residence he had converse very much, he observed long Life to be the universal Desire and Wish of Mankind. That whoever had one Foot in the Grave, was sure to hold back the other as strongly as he could. That the eldest had still hopes of living one Day longer, and looked on Death as the greatest Evil, from which Nature always prompted him to retreat; only in this Island of Luggnagg, the Appetite for living was not so eager, from the continual Example of the Struldbruggs before their Eyes.

That the System of Living contrived by me was unreasonable and unjust, because it supposed a Perpetuity of Youth, Health, and Vigour, which no Man could be so foolish to hope, however extravagant he may be in his Wishes. That the Ques

tion therefore was not whether a Man would chuse to be always in the Prime of Youth, attended with Prosperity and Health, but how he would pass a perpetual Life under all the usual Disadv dvantages which old Age brings along with it. For although few Men will avow their Desires of being immortal upon such hard Conditions, yet in the two Kingdoms before-mentioned of Balnibarbi and Japan, he observed that every Man desired to put off Death for sometime longer, let it approach ever so late, and he rarely heard of any Man who died willingly, except he were incited by the Extremity of Grief or Torture. And he appealed to me whether in those Countries I had travelled as well as my own, I had not observed the same general Disposition.

After this Preface he gave me a particular Account of the Struldbruggs among them. He said they commonly acted like Mortals, till about thirty Years old, after which by degrees they grew melancholy and dejected, encreasing in both till they came to four-score. This he learned from their own Confession; for otherwise there not being above two or three of that Species. born in an Age, were too few to form a general Observation by. When they came to four-score Years, which is reckoned the Extremity of living in this Country, they had not only all the Follies and Infirmities of other old Men, but many more which arose from the dreadful Prospects of never dying. They were not only Opinionative, Peevish, Covetous, Morose, Vain, Talkative, but uncapable of Friendship, and dead to all natural Affection, which never descended below their Grand-children. Envy and impotent Desires are their prevailing Passions. But those Objects against which their Envy seems principally directed, are the Vices of the younger sort, and the Deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of Pleasure; and whenever they see a Funeral, they lament and repine that others are gone to an Harbour of Rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no Remembrance of any thing but what they learned and observed in their Youth and middle Age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the Truth or Particulars of any Fact, it is safer to depend on common Traditions than upon their best Recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to Dotage, and entirely lose their Memories; these meet with more Pity and Assistance, because they want many bad Qualities which abound in others.

If a Struldbrugg happen to marry one of his own kind, the Marriage is dissolved of course by the Courtesy of the Kingdom, as soon as the younger of the two come to be four-score. For the Law thinks it a reasonable Indulgence, that those who are condemned without any Fault of their own to a perpetual Continuance in the World, should not have their Misery doubled by the Load of a Wife.

As soon as they have compleated the term of eighty Years, they are look'd on as dead in Law; their Heirs immediately succeed to their Estates, only a small Pittance is reserved for their Support, and the poor ones are maintained at the publick Charge. After that Period they are held incapable of any Employment of Trust or Profit, they cannot purchase Lands or take Leases, neither are they allowed to be Witnesses in any Cause, either Civil or Criminal, not even for the Decision of Meers and Bounds.

At Ninety they lose their Teeth and Hair, they have at that age no Distinction of Taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without Relish or Appetite. The Diseases they were subject to still continuing without encreasing or diminishing. In talking they forgot the common Appellation of things, and the Names of Persons, even of those who are their nearest Friends and Relations. For the same reason they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their Memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a Sentence to the end; and by this Defect they are deprived of the only Entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.

The Language of this Country being always upon the Flux, the Struldbruggs of one Age do not understand those of another, neither are they able after two hundred Years to hold any Conversation (farther than by a few general Words) with their Neighbours the Mortals, and thus they lye under the Disadvantage of living like Foreigners in their own Country.

This was the Account given me of the Struldbruggs, as near as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different Ages, the youngest not above two hundred Years old, who were brought me at several times by some of my Friends; but although they were told that I was a great Traveller, and had seen all the World, they had not the least Curiosity to ask me a Question; only desired I would give them Slumskudask, or a Token of Remembrance, which is a modest way of begging, to avoid the Law that strictly forbids it, because they are pro

vided for by the Publick, although indeed with a very scanty Allowance.

They are deprived and hated by all sort of People; when one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their Birth is recorded very particularly; so that you may know their Age by consulting the Registry, which however hath not been kept above a thousand Years past, or at least hath been destroyed by time or publick Disturbances. But the usual way of computing how old they are is by asking them what Kings or great Persons they can remember, and then consulting History, for infallibly the last Prince, in their Mind, did not begin his Reign after they were four-score Years old.

They were the most mortifying Sight I ever beheld, and the Women more horrible than the Men. Besides the usual Deformities in extreme old Age, they acquired an additional Ghastliness in Proportion to their Number of Years, which is not to be described, and among half a Dozen I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above a Century or two between them.

The Reader will easily believe, that from what I had heard and seen, my keen Appetite for Perpetuity of Life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing Visions I had formed, and thought no Tyrant could invent a Death into which I would not run with Pleasure from such a Life. The King heard of all that had passed between me and my Friends upon this Occasion, and rallied me very pleasantly, wishing I would send a couple of Struldbruggs to my own Country, to arm our People against the Fear of Death; but this it seems is forbidden by the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, or else I should have been well content with the Trouble and Expence of transporting them.

I could not but agree that the Laws of this Kingdom, relating to the Struldbruggs, were founded upon the strongest Reasons, and such as any other Country would be under the Necessity of enacting in the like Circumstances. Otherwise, as Avarice is the necessary Consequent of old Age, those Immortals would in time become Proprietors of the whole Nation, and engross the Civil Power, which, for want of Abilities to manage, must end in the Ruin of the Publick.

ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS.

BY LE SAGE.

[ALAIN RENÉ LE SAGE: French dramatist and author; born at Sarzeau in Brittany, May 8, 1668; died November 17, 1747. His fame as a dramatist may be said to rest upon "Turcaret" (1709), and as a novelist upon "Gil Blas" (4 vols., 1715, 1724, and 1735), the latter placing him in the front rank of novelists of all time. He borrowed freely from the Spanish, but his keen and striking originality cannot be questioned. His other works include: "Crispin Rival de Son Maitre," a comedy (1707), “Le Diable Boiteux,” a novel (1707), “L'Histoire de Guzman d'Alfarache" (1732), Estévanille Gonzalès" (1734), "Aventures du Flibustier Beauchêne" (1732), "Le Bachelier de Salamanque " (1736), and many translations from the Spanish. Scott said of him, "His muse moved with an unpolluted step, even where the path was somewhat miry."]

GIL BLAS ENTERS INTO DOCTOR SANGRADO'S SERVICE, AND BECOMES A FAMOUS PRACTITIONER.

I DETERMINED to throw myself in the way of Signor Arias de Londona, and to look out for a new birth in his register; but as I was on my way to No Thoroughfare, who should come across me but Doctor Sangrado, whom I had not seen since the day of my master's death. I took the liberty of touching my hat. He kenned me in a twinkling, though I had changed my dress; and with as much warmth as his temperament would allow him: "Heyday!" said he, "the very lad I wanted to see; you have never been out of my thought. I have occasion for a clever fellow about me, and pitched upon you as the very thing, if you can read and write." "Sir," replied I, "if that is all you require, I am your man. "In that case," rejoined he, 66 we need look no further. Come home with me; it will be all comfort: I shall behave to you like a brother. You will have no wages, but everything will be found you. You shall eat and drink according to the true faith, and be taught to cure all diseases. In a word, you shall rather be my young Sangrado than my footman."

I closed in with the doctor's proposal, in the hope of becoming an Esculapius under so inspired a master. He carried me home on the spur of the occasion, to install me in my honorable employment, which honorable employment consisted in writing down the name and residence of the patients who sent for him in his absence. There had indeed been a register for this purpose, kept by an old domestic; but she had not the gift of