sed into a mere vapour; where decency, divested of all substance,
hovers about like a fantastic shadow; where the salt of genius, escaping,
leaves nothing but pure and simple phlegm; and the inoffensive pen for
ever drops the mild manna of soul-sweetening praise.

CHAPTER TWO

A SUPERFICIAL VIEW OF OUR HERO'S INFANCY.

Having thus bespoken the indulgence of our guests, let us now produce the
particulars of our entertainment, and speedily conduct our adventurer
through the stage of infancy, which seldom teems with interesting
incidents.

As the occupations of his mother would not conveniently permit her to
suckle this her firstborn at her own breast, and those happy ages were
now no more, in which the charge of nursing a child might be left to the
next goat or she-wolf, she resolved to improve upon the ordinances of
nature, and foster him with a juice much more energetic than the milk of
goat, wolf, or woman; this was no other than that delicious nectar,
which, as we have already hinted, she so cordially distributed from a
small cask that hung before her, depending from her shoulders by a
leathern zone. Thus determined, ere he was yet twelve days old, she
enclosed him in a canvas knapsack, which being adjusted to her neck, fell
down upon her back, and balanced the cargo that rested on her bosom.

There are not wanting those who affirm, that, while her double charge was
carried about in this situation, her keg was furnished with a long and
slender flexible tube, which, when the child began to be clamorous, she
conveyed into his mouth, and straight he stilled himself with sucking;
but this we consider as an extravagant assertion of those who mix the
marvellous in all their narrations, because we cannot conceive how the
tender organs of an infant could digest such a fiery beverage, which
never fails to discompose the constitutions of the most hardy and robust.
We therefore conclude that the use of this potation was more restrained,
and that it was with simple element diluted into a composition adapted to
his taste and years. Be this as it will, he certainly was indulged in
the use of it to such a degree as would have effectually obstructed his
future fortune, had not he been happily cloyed with the repetition of the
same fare, for which he conceived the utmost detestation and abhorrence,
rejecting it with loathing and disgust, like those choice spirits, who,
having been crammed with religion in their childhood