ut the country, which
they cultivated, or lived in the city, where they kept shops, and where
they emulated each other in displaying the most ingenious articles
of luxury and convenience for the enjoyment and accommodation of the
Elysians. The townspeople, indeed, rather affected to look down upon
the more simple-minded agriculturists; but if these occasionally felt a
little mortification in consequence, they might have been consoled, had
they been aware that their brethren and sisters who were in the service
of the Elysians avenged their insults, for these latter were the finest
Gnomes and Sylphs imaginable, and scarcely deigned to notice any one who
was in trade. Whether there were any coin or other circulating medium
current in Elysium is a point respecting which I must confess I have not
sufficient information to decide; but if so, it certainly would appear
that all money transactions were confined to the Gnomes and the Sylphs,
for the Elysians certainly never paid for anything. Perhaps this
exemption might have been among their peculiar privileges, and was a
substitute for what we call credit, a convenience of which the ancients
appear to have had a limited conception. The invention, by Jupiter, of
an aristocratic immortality, as a reward for a well-spent life on earth,
appears to have been an ingenious idea. It really is a reward, very
stimulative of good conduct before we shuffle off the mortal coil, and
remarkably contrasts with the democracy of the damned. The Elysians,
with a splendid climate, a teeming soil, and a nation made on purpose
to wait upon them, of course enjoyed themselves very much. The arts
flourished, the theatres paid, and they had a much finer opera than at
Ephesus or at Halicarnassus. Their cookery was so refined, that one of
the least sentimental ceremonies in the world was not only deprived of
all its grossness, but was actually converted into an elegant amusement,
and so famous that their artists were even required at Olympus. If their
dinners were admirable, which is rare, their assemblies were amusing,
which is still more uncommon. All the arts of society were carried to
perfection in Elysium; a dull thing was never said, and an awkward thing
never done. The Elysians, indeed, being highly refined and gifted, for
they comprised in their order the very cream of terrestrial society,
were naturally a liberal-minded race of nobles, and capable of
appreciating every kind of excellence. If a Gnom