t age will eat some unknown to this. New discoveries will be made,
and new delicacies brought from other parts of the world. But see; who
comes hither? I think it is Mercury.

_Mercury_.--Gentlemen, I must tell you that I have stood near you
invisible, and heard your discourse--a privilege which, you know, we
deities use as often as we please. Attend, therefore, to what I shall
communicate to you, relating to the subject upon which you have been
talking. I know two men, one of whom lived in ancient, and the other in
modern times, who had much more pleasure in eating than either of you
through the whole course of your lives.

_Apicius_.--One of these happy epicures, I presume, was a Sybarite, and
the other a French gentleman settled in the West Indies.

_Mercury_.--No; one was a Spartan soldier, and the other an English
farmer. I see you both look astonished. But what I tell you is truth.
Labour and hunger gave a relish to the black broth of the former, and the
salt beef of the latter, beyond what you ever found in the tripotanums or
ham pies, that vainly stimulated your forced and languid appetites, which
perpetual indolence weakened, and constant luxury overcharged.

_Darteneuf_.--This, Apicius, is more mortifying than not to have shared a
turtle feast.

_Apicius_.--I wish, Mercury, you had taught me your art of cookery in my
lifetime; but it is a sad thing not to know what good living is till
after one is dead.

DIALOGUE XX.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT--CHARLES XII., KING OF SWEDEN.

_Alexander_.--Your Majesty seems in great wrath! Who has offended you?

_Charles_.--The offence is to you as much as me. Here is a fellow
admitted into Elysium who has affronted us both--an English poet, one
Pope. He has called us two madmen!

_Alexander_.--I have been unlucky in poets. No prince ever was fonder of
the Muses than I, or has received from them a more ungrateful return.
When I was alive, I declared that I envied Achilles because he had a
Homer to celebrate his exploits; and I most bountifully rewarded
Choerilus, a pretender to poetry, for writing verses on mine. But my
liberality, instead of doing me honour, has since drawn upon me the
ridicule of Horace, a witty Roman poet; and Lucan, another versifier of
the same nation, has loaded my memory with the harshest invectives.

_Charles_.--I know nothing of these; but I know that in my time a pert
French satirist, one Boileau, made so free with your charac