hat no mortal could reap more perfect happiness from
the tender passion than my fortune had decreed me. I married a charming
young woman for love; she was the daughter of a neighboring beggar, who,
with an improvidence too often seen, spent a very large income which he
procured by his profession, so that he was able to give her no
fortune down; however, at his death he left her a very well accustomed
begging-hut, situated on the side of a steep hill, where travelers
could not immediately escape from us, and a garden adjoining, being the
twenty-eighth part of an acre, well planted.

"She made the best of wives, bore me nineteen children, and never failed,
unless on her lying-in, which generally lasted three days, to get
my supper ready against my return home in an evening; this being my
favorite meal, and at which I, as well as my whole family, greatly
enjoyed ourselves; the principal subject of our discourse being
generally the boons we had that day obtained, on which occasions,
laughing at the folly of the donors made no inconsiderable part of
the entertainment; for, whatever might be their motive for giving, we
constantly imputed our success to our having flattered their vanity, or
overreached their understanding.

"But perhaps I have dwelt too long on this character; I shall conclude,
therefore, with telling you that after a life of 102 years' continuance,
during all which I had never known any sickness or infirmity but that
which old age necessarily induced, I at last, without the least pain,
went out like the snuff of a candle.

"Minos, having heard my history, bid me compute, if I could, how
many lies I had told in my life. As we are here, by a certain fated
necessity, obliged to confine ourselves to truth, I answered, I believed
about 50,000,000. He then replied, with a frown, 'Can such a wretch
conceive any hopes of entering Elysium?' I immediately turned about,
and, upon the whole, was rejoiced at his not calling me back."

CHAPTER XX

Julian performs the part of a statesman.

"It was now my fortune to be born of a German princess; but a
man-midwife, pulling my head off in delivering my mother, put a speedy
end to my princely life.

"Spirits who end their lives before they are at the age of five years
are immediately ordered into other bodies; and it was now my fortune
to perform several infancies before I could again entitle myself to an
examination of Minos.

"At length I was destined onc