or no one would now read a syllable of my writings.

"The poets of my age were, as I believe you know, not very famous.
However, there was one of some credit at that time, though I have the
consolation to know his works are all perished long ago. The malice,
envy, and hatred I bore this man are inconceivable to any but an author,
and an unsuccessful one; I never could bear to hear him well spoken
of, and writ anonymous satires against him, though I had received
obligations from him; indeed I believe it would have been an absolute
impossibility for him at any rate to have made me sincerely his friend.

"I have heard an observation which was made by some one of later days,
that there are no worse men than bad authors. A remark of the same kind
hath been made on ugly women, and the truth of both stands on one and
the same reason, viz., that they are both tainted with that cursed and
detestable vice of envy; which, as it is the greatest torment to the
mind it inhabits, so is it capable of introducing into it a total
corruption, and of inspiring it to the commission of the most horrid
crimes imaginable.

"My life was but short; for I soon pined myself to death with the vice I
just now mentioned. Minos told me I was infinitely too bad for Elysium;
and as for the other place, the devil had sworn he would never entertain
a poet for Orpheus's sake: so I was forced to return again to the place
from whence I came."

CHAPTER XXV

Julian performs the parts of a knight and a dancing-master.

"I now mounted the stage in Sicily, and became a knight-templar; but,
as my adventures differ so little from those I have recounted you in the
character of a common soldier, I shall not tire you with repetition. The
soldier and the captain differ in reality so little from one another,
that it requires an accurate judgment to distinguish them; the latter
wears finer clothes, and in times of success lives somewhat more
delicately; but as to everything else, they very nearly resemble one
another.

"My next step was into France, where fortune assigned me the part of a
dancing-master. I was so expert in my profession that I was brought to
court in my youth, and had the heels of Philip de Valois, who afterwards
succeeded Charles the Fair, committed to my direction.

"I do not remember that in any of the characters in which I appeared on
earth I ever assumed to myself a greater dignity, or thought myself
of more real importance, than