itional compliment, that I did not fail to
acknowledge by suitable salutations to all the members present. After
the first feelings of pleasure and surprise were a little abated, I had
leisure to look about me and to survey the company.

The academicians occupied the whole of the body of the rotunda, the
space taken up by the erection of our temporary tribune alone excepted,
while there were sofas, chairs, tribunes, and benches arranged for the
spectators, in the outer circles, and along the side-walls of the
hall. As the edifice itself was very large, and mind had so essentially
reduced matter in the monikin species, there could not have been less
than fifty thousand tails present. Just before the ceremonies commenced,
Dr. Reasono approached our tribbune, passing from one to another of
the party, saying a pleasant and encouraging word to each, in a way to
create high expectations in us all as to what was to follow. We were
so very evidently honored and distinguished, that I struggled hard to
subdue any unworthy feeling of pride, as unbecoming human meekness, and
in order to maintain a philosophical equanimity under the manifestations
of respect and gratitude that I knew were about to be lavished upon even
the meanest of our party. The Doctor was yet in the midst of his pointed
attentions, when the king's eldest first cousin of the masculine gender
entered, and the business of the meeting immediately began. I profited
by a short pause, however, to say a few words to my companions. I told
them that there would soon be a serious demand on their modesty. We
had performed a great and generous exploit, and it did not become us
to lessen its merit by betraying a vainglorious self-esteem. I implored
them all to take pattern by me; promising, in the end, that their new
friends would trebly prize their hardihood, self-denial, and skill.

There was a new member of the academy of Latent Sympathies to be
received and installed. A long discourse was read by one of this
department of the monikin learning, which pointed out and enlarged on
the rare merits of the new academician. He was followed by the latter;
who in a very elaborate production, that consumed just fifty-five
minutes in the reading, tried all he could to persuade the audience that
the defunct was a loss to the world, that no accident or application
would ever repair, and that he himself was precisely the worst person
who could have been selected to be his successor. I w