f with the poet; so
that his future state puts me in mind of Michael Angelo's "Last
Judgment," where Charon and his boat are represented as bearing a part
in the dreadful solemnities of that great day.

Telemachus, after having passed through the dark avenues of death in the
retinue of Mercury, who every day delivers up a certain tale of ghosts
to the ferryman of Styx, is admitted into the infernal bark. Among the
companions of his voyage, is the shade of Nabopharzon, a king of
Babylon, and tyrant of all the East. Among the ceremonies and pomps of
his funeral, there were four slaves sacrificed, according to the custom
of the country, in order to attend him among the shades. The author
having described this tyrant in the most odious colours of pride,
insolence, and cruelty, tells us, that his four slaves, instead of
serving him after death, were perpetually insulting him with reproaches
and affronts for his past usage; that they spurned him as he lay upon
the ground, and forced him to show his face, which he would fain have
covered, as lying under all the confusions of guilt and infamy; and in
short, that they kept him bound in a chain, in order to drag him before
the tribunal of the dead.

Telemachus, upon looking out of the bark, sees all the strand covered
with an innumerable multitude of shades, who, upon his jumping ashore,
immediately vanished. He then pursues his course to the palace of Pluto,
who is described as seated on his throne in terrible majesty, with
Proserpine by his side. At the foot of his throne was the pale hideous
spectre, who, by the ghastliness of his visage, and the nature of the
apparitions that surrounded him, discovers himself to be Death. His
attendants are, Melancholy, Distrust, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Despair,
Ambition, Envy, Impiety, with frightful Dreams, and waking Cares, which
are all drawn very naturally in proper actions and postures. The author,
with great beauty, places near his Frightful Dreams an assembly of
phantoms, which are often employed to terrify the living, by appearing
in the shape and likeness of the dead.

The young hero in the next place takes a survey of the different kinds
of criminals that lay in torture among clouds of sulphur and torrents of
fire. The first of these were such as had been guilty of impieties,
which every one has a horror for: to which is added, a catalogue of such
offenders that scarce appear to be faulty in the eyes of the vulgar.
Among these