e already beginning to assemble. Thou wouldst
otherwise incur much risk of being torn to pieces by the multitude, who, as
the shouts now approaching may instruct thee, are beginning to extirpate my
religion at the instigation of the new king, thy hopeful pupil. The old
king is dead, poisoned by the Brahmins."

"O master! master!" exclaimed Ananda, weeping bitterly, "and is all the
work undone, and all by my fault and folly?"

"That which is built on fraud and imposture can by no means endure,"
returned Buddha, "be it the very truth of Heaven. Be comforted; thou shalt
proclaim my doctrine to better purpose in other lands. Thou hast this time
but a sorry account to render of thy stewardship; yet thou mayest truly
declare that thou hast obeyed my precept in the letter, if not in the
spirit, since none can assert that thou hast ever wrought any miracle."

THE CITY OF PHILOSOPHERS

I

Nature is manifold, not infinite, though the extent of the resources of
which she can dispose almost enables her to pass for such. Her cards are so
multitudinous that the pairs are easily shuffled into ages so far asunder
that their resemblance escapes remark. But sometimes her mischievous
daughter Fortune manages to thrust these duplicates into such conspicuous
places that their similarity cannot pass unobserved, and Nature is caught
plagiarising from herself. She is thus detected dealing a king--or
knave--a second time in the person of a king who has already fallen from
her pack as an emperor. Brilliant, careless, selfish, yet good-natured
_vauriens_, the Roman Emperor Gallienus and our Charles the Second excelled
in every art save the art of reigning, and might have excelled in that also
if they would have taken the trouble. The circumstances of their reigns
were in many respects as similar as their characters. Both were the sons of
grave and strict fathers, each of whom had met with terrible misfortunes:
one deprived of his liberty by his enemies, the other of his head by his
own subjects. Each of the sons had been grievously vexed by rebels, but
Charles's troubles from this quarter had mostly ended where those of
Gallienus began. Each saw his dominions ravaged by pestilence in a manner
beyond all former experience. The Goths destroyed the temple of the
Ephesian Diana, and the Dutch burned the English fleet at Chatham. Charles
shut up the Exchequer, and Gallienus debased the coinage. Charles accepted
a pension from Louis XI