with higher ideas, and fostered the seeds it
planted by a generous emulation.

The lively and learned little band happened to alight upon a simpleton
called Giuseppe Secchellari, who had been bamboozled by his own vanity
and the cozenage of merry knaves agog for fun into thinking himself a
man of profound erudition, and who accordingly blackened reams of paper
with ineptitudes and blunders so ridiculous that nobody could listen to
them without fits of laughter. It was decided to elect this queer fish
Prince of the Academy. The election took place unanimously amid shouts
of merriment. He was dubbed Arcigranellone, and received the title of
Prince of the Accademia Granellesca, by which names he and the club were
henceforth to be known.[17]

A solemn coronation of this precious simpleton with a wreath of plums
followed in due course. All the Academicians were grouped around him,
and nothing could be more burlesque than his proud satisfaction at the
honours he received, the air and grace with which he thanked us for some
thirty odes and rigmaroles, which were really witty squibs and gibes
upon our princely butt, and which he took for panegyrics.

A large arm-chair of antique build and very high, so high that the
dwarfish Prince had to take two or three jumps before he leaped into
it, was the throne from which he lorded over us. There he sat and
swaggered, having been gulled into thinking it the chair of Cardinal
Pietro Bembo, that renowned and illustrious author. An owl with two
balls in its right claw stood over him, and was the object of his
veneration as the crest of the Academy. Perched there aloft, he used to
draw from his bosom a roll of papers, and recited in a quavering
falsetto some preposterous gibberish or other which he styled a
dissertation. After a few lines had been declaimed, the clapping of
hands and mocking plaudits of his audience brought him to a pause. Fully
persuaded that he had entranced his hearers, he then handed his
manuscripts with majestic condescension to the secretary, and bade him
enroll them in the archives of the Academy.

When we met together in the heat of summer, iced drinks were handed
round to the members; but the prince, to mark his superiority, received
a bowl of boiling tea upon a silver salver. In the depth of winter, on
the other hand, hot coffee was served out to us and iced water to the
Prince. The venerable Arcigranellone, puffed up with this distinction,
swallowed the tea i