rning the history of this curious Peepi.
Whereupon the chronicler gave us the following account; for all of
which he alone is responsible.

Peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his
sire dying some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his
divan, declared that he left a monarch behind.

Marvels were told of Peepi. Along with the royal dignity, and
superadded to the soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant
monarch was supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some
twenty heroes, sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in
his sire.

Most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of Valapee; the
legatee, moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by
their late loyal proprietors. By a slavish act of his convocation of
chiefs, he also possessed the reversion of all and singular the
immortal spirits, whose first grantees might die intestate in
Valapee. Servile, yet audacious senators! thus prospectively to
administrate away the inalienable rights of posterity. But while yet
unborn, the people of Valapee had been deprived of more than they now
sought to wrest from their descendants. And former Peepies, infant
and adult, had received homage more profound, than Peepi the Present.
Witness the demeanor of the chieftains of old, upon every new
investiture of the royal serpent. In a fever of loyalty, they
were wont to present themselves before the heir to the isle, to go
through with the court ceremony of the Pupera; a curious proceeding,
so called: inverted endeavors to assume an erect posture: the nasal
organ the base.

It was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most
intelligent observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly
chiefs of the island; who, nevertheless, much gloried therein.

It was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned
custom of retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads
between their thighs; so that while advancing in the contrary
direction, their faces might be still deferentially turned toward
their lord and master. A fine view of him did they obtain. All
objects look well through an arch.

But to return to Peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. It was
an article of faith with the people of Valapee, that Peepi not only
actually possessed the souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was
enriched by their peculiar qualities: The headlong valor of the late
Tongatona; the pusillan