preserving it unless the
collective baseness of his subjects should be found to exceed his own,
which was not probable.

_Jupiter_. What reply did he vouchsafe to these admonitions?

_Truth_. He threatened to cut out my tongue. Perceiving that this would
interfere with my utility to mankind, I retired somewhat precipitately from
the Imperial presence, marvelling that I should ever have been admitted,
and resolved never to be found there for the future. I then proceeded to
the Nobles.

_Jupiter_. What said you to them?

_Truth_. I represented to them that they were, as a class, both arrogant
and luxurious, and would, indeed, have long ago become insupportable, only
that the fabric which their rapacity was for ever striving to erect, their
extravagance as perpetually undermined. I further commented upon the
insecurity of any institution dependent solely upon prescription. Finding
these suggestions unpalatable, I next addressed myself to the priesthood.

_Jupiter_. Those holy men, my daughter, must have rejoiced at the
opportunity of learning from you which portion of their traditions was
impure or fabricated, and which authentic and sublime.

_Truth_. The value they placed upon my instructions was such that they
wished to reserve them exclusively for themselves, and proposed that they
should be delivered within the precincts of a certain subterranean
apartment termed a dungeon, the key of which should be kept by one of their
order. Whereupon I betook myself to the philosophers.

_Jupiter_. Your reception from these professed lovers of wisdom, my
daughter, was, no doubt, all that could be expected.

_Truth_. It was all that could be expected, my father, from learned and
virtuous men, who had already framed their own systems of the universe
without consulting me.

_Jupiter_. You probably next addressed yourself to the middling orders of
society?

_Truth_. I can scarcely say that I did, father; for although I had much to
remark concerning their want of culture, and their servility, and their
greed, and the absurdity of many of their customs, and the rottenness of
most of their beliefs, and the thousand ways in which they spoiled lives
that might have been beautiful and harmonious, I soon discovered that they
were so absolutely swayed by the example of the higher orders that it was
useless to expostulate with them until I should have persuaded the latter.

_Jupiter_. You returned, then, to the latter with this d