r.
His daily meals consisted of every delicacy in season: a marble bath was
ever at his service; a billiard-room and dumb-bells always ready; and
his old friends, the most eminent physician and the most celebrated
practitioner in Hubbabub, called upon him daily to feel his pulse and
look at his tongue. These attentions authorised a hope that he might yet
again be an Ambassador, that his native land might still be discovered,
and its resources still be developed: but when his gaoler told him that
the rest of the prisoners were treated in a manner equally indulgent,
because the Vraibleusians are the most humane people in the world,
Popanilla's spirits became somewhat depressed.

He was greatly consoled, however, by a daily visit from a body of the
most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most virtuous females
in Hubbabub, who tasted his food to see that his cook did his duty,
recommended him a plentiful use of pine-apple well peppered, and made
him a present of a very handsome shirt, with worked frills and ruffles,
to be hanged in. This enchanting committee generally confined their
attentions to murderers and other victims of the passions, who were
deserted in their hour of need by the rest of the society they
had outraged; but Popanilla, being a foreigner, a Prince, and a
Plenipotentiary, and not ill-looking, naturally attracted a great deal
of notice from those who desire the amelioration of their species.

Popanilla was so pleased with his mode of life, and had acquired such
a taste for poetry, pin-apples, and pepper since he had ceased to be an
active member of society, that he applied to have his trial postponed,
on the ground of the prejudice which had been excited against him by
the public press. As his trial was at present inconvenient to the
Government, the postponement was allowed on these grounds.

In the meantime, the public agitation was subsiding. The nation
reconciled itself to the revolution in its fortunes. The ci-devant
millionaires were busied with retrenchment; the Government engaged in
sweeping in as many pink shells as were lying about the country;
the mechanics contrived to live upon chalk and sea-weed; and as the
Aboriginal would not give his corn away gratis, the Vraibleusians
determined to give up bread. The intellectual part of the nation were
intently interested in discovering the cause of the National Distress.
One of the philosophers said that it might all be traced to the effects
of