vity on their countenance
whenever I spoke; and it was as much out of my power to raise a laugh as
formerly it had been for me to open my mouth without one.

"While my affairs were in this posture I went one day into the circle
without my fool's dress. The Simple, who would still speak to me, cried
out, 'So, fool, what's the matter now?' 'Sir,' answered I, 'fools are
like to be so common a commodity at court, that I am weary of my coat.'
'How dost thou mean?' answered the Simple; 'what can make them commoner
now than usual?'--'O, sir,' said I, 'there are ladies here make your
majesty a fool every day of their lives.' The Simple took no notice
of my jest, and several present said my bones ought to be broke for my
impudence; but it pleased the queen, who, knowing Adelaide, whom she
hated, to be the cause of my disgrace, obtained me of the king, and took
me into her service; so that I was henceforth called the queen's fool,
and in her court received the same honor, and had as much wit, as I had
formerly had in the king's. But as the queen had really no power
unless over her own domestics, I was not treated in general with that
complacence, nor did I receive those bribes and presents, which had once
fallen to my share.

"Nor did this confined respect continue long: for the queen, who had in
fact no taste for humor, soon grew sick of my foolery, and, forgetting
the cause for which she had taken me, neglected me so much, that her
court grew intolerable to my temper, and I broke my heart and died.

"Minos laughed heartily at several things in my story, and then, telling
me no one played the fool in Elysium, bid me go back again."

CHAPTER XIX

Julian appears in the character of a beggar.

"I now returned to Rome, and was born into a very poor and numerous
family, which, to be honest with you, procured its livelihood by
begging. This, if you was never yourself of the calling, you do not
know, I suppose, to be as regular a trade as any other; to have its
several rules and secrets, or mysteries, which to learn require perhaps
as tedious an apprenticeship as those of any craft whatever.

"The first thing we are taught is the countenance miserable. This indeed
nature makes much easier to some than others; but there are none who
cannot accomplish it, if they begin early enough in youth, and before
the muscles are grown too stubborn.

"The second thing is the voice lamentable. In this qualification too,
nature mus