? The reasoning was equally conclusive and consolatory.
Popanilla, therefore, was not discouraged; and although he deemed it
more prudent not to go out of his way to seek another audience of his
sovereign, or to be too anxious again to address a public meeting,
he nevertheless determined to proceed cautiously, but constantly,
propagating his doctrines and proselytizing in private.

Unfortunately for Popanilla, he did not enjoy one advantage which all
founders of sects have duly appreciated, and by which they have been
materially assisted. It is a great and an unanswerable argument in
favour of a Providence that we constantly perceive that the most
beneficial results are brought about by the least worthy and most
insignificant agents. The purest religions would never have been
established had they not been supported by sinners who felt the burthen
of the old faith; and the most free and enlightened governments
are often generated by the discontented, the disappointed, and the
dissolute. Now, in the Isle of Fantaisie, unfortunately for our
revolutionizer, there was not a single grumbler.

Unable, therefore, to make the bad passions of his fellow creatures the
unconscious instruments of his good purposes, Popanilla must have been
contented to have monopolised all the wisdom of the moderns, had he not,
with the unbaffled wit of an inventor, hit upon a new expedient. Like
Socrates, our philosopher began to cultivate with sedulousness the
society of youth.

In a short time the ladies of Fantaisie were forced to observe that the
fair sex most unfashionably predominated in their evening assemblages;
for the young gentlemen of the island had suddenly ceased to pay their
graceful homage at the altar of Terpsichore. In an Indian isle not to
dance was as bad as heresy. The ladies rallied the recreants, but their
playful sarcasms failed of their wonted effect. In the natural course
of things they had recourse to remonstrances, but their appeals were
equally fruitless. The delicate creatures tried reproaches, but the
boyish cynics received them with a scowl and answered them with a sneer.

The women fled in indignation to their friendly monarch; but the
voluptuary of nature only shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He kissed
away their tears, and their frowns vanished as he crowned their long
hair with roses.

'If the lads really show such bad taste,' said his Majesty, 'why I and
my lords must do double duty, and dance with a coup