we do the leg of a lark. Their geese and turkies I usually eat at a mouthful, and I must confefs, they far exceed ours. Of their smaller fowl I could take up twenty or thirty at the end of my knife.

One day his imperial majesty, being informed of my way of living, defired that himself and his royal confort, with the young princes of the blood of both fexes, might have the happiness (as he was pleased to call it) of dining with me. They came accordingly, and I placed them in chairs of ftate upon my table, just overagainst me, with their guards about them. Flimnap, the lord high treasurer, attended there likewife with his white ftaff; and I obferved he often looked on me with a four countenance, which I would not feem to regard, but eat more than ufual, in honour to my dear country, as well as to fill the court with admiration. I have fome private reasons to believe, that this vifit from his majefty gave Flimnap an oppor tunity of doing me ill offices to his maiter. That minifter had always been my fecret enemy, though he outwardly careffed me more than was ufual to the morofenefs of his nature. Herepresented to the emperor the low condition of his treasury; that he was forced to take up money at great difcount; that exchequer bills would not circulate under nine per cent. below par; that I had coft his majesty above a million and a half of fprugs (their greatest gold coin, about the bignefs of a fpangle) and upon the whole, that it would be advifeable in the F 4 emperor

emperor to take the firft fair occafion of dif miffing me.

I am here obliged to vindicate the reputation of an excellent lady, who was an innocent fufferer upon my account. The treasurer took a fancy to be jealous of his wife, from the malice of fome evil tongues, who informed him that her grace had taken a violent affection for my perfon; and the court scandal ran for fome time, that the once came privately to my lodging. This I folemnly declare to be a most infamous falfhood, without any grounds, farther than that her grace was pleased to treat me with all innocent marks of freedom and friendship. I own the came often to my houfe, but always publickly, nor ever without three more in the coach, who were ufually her fifter and young daughter, and some particular acquaintance; but this was common to many other ladies of the court. And I ftill appeal to my fervants round, whether they at any time faw a coach at my door, without knowing what perfons were in it. On thofe occafions, when a fervant had given me notice, my custom was to go immediately to the door; and, after paying my respects, to take up the coach and two horfes very carefully in my hands (for, if there were fix horfes, the poftillion always unharneffed four) and placed them on a table, where I had fixed a moveable rim quite round, of five inches high, to prevent accidents. And I have often had four coaches and horfes at once on my table

full

10

full of company, while I fat in while I fat in my chair, leaning my face towards them; and, when I was engaged with one fet, the coachmen would gently drive the others round my table. Į have paffed many an afternoon very agreeably in these converfations. But I defy the treafurer, or his two informers (I will name them, and let them make their best of it) Cluftril and Drunlo, to prove that any perfon ever came to me incognito, except the fecretary Reldrefal, 10 who was fent by exprefs command of his imperial majesty, as I have before related. I hould not have dwelt fo long upon this particular, if it had not been a point wherein the reputation of a great lady is fo nearly concerned, to fay nothing of my own, though I then had the honour to be a nardac, which the treasurer himself is not; for all the world knows, that he is only a glumglum, a title inferior by one degree, as that of a marquefs is to a duke in England; yet I allow he preceded me in right of his poft. These falle informations, which I afterwards came to the knowledge of by an accident not proper to mention, made the treasurer shew his lady for fome time an ill countenance, and me a worfe; and although he was at last undeceived and reconciled to her, yet I loft all credit with him, and found my intereft decline very faft with the emperor himfelf, who was indeed too much governed by that favourite.

CHAP.

The author, being informed of a defign to accuse him of high-treafon, maketh his efcape to Blefufcu. His reception there.

EFORE I proceed to give an account of B my leaving this kingdom, it may be proper to inform the reader of a private intrigue, which had been for two months forming against

me.

I had been hitherto all my life a stranger to courts, for which I was unqualified by the meanness of my condition. I had indeed heard and read enough of the difpofitions of great princes and minifters; but never expected to have found fuch terrible effects of them in fo remote a country, governed, as I thought, by very different maxims from those in Europe.

When I was juft preparing to pay my attendance on the emperor of Blefufcu, a confiderable perfon at court (to whom I had been very serviceable at a time, when he lay under the highest displeasure of his imperial majesty) came to my house very privately at night in a close chair, and, without fending his name, defired admittance: the chairmen were difmiffed; I put the chair, with his lordship in it, into my coat-pocket; and, giving orders to a trufty fervant to say I was indifpofed and gone to fleep, I fastened the door of my house, placed the chair on the table according to my ufual

custom,

custom, and fat down by it. After the common falutations were over, obferving his lordhip's countenance full of concern, and enquiring into the reason, he defired I would hear him with patience in a matter, that highly concerned my honour and my life. His fpeech was to the following effect, for I took notes of it as foon as he left me.

You are to know, faid he, that feveral committees of council have been lately called in the moft private manner on your account; and it is but two days fince his majefty came to a full refolution.

You are very fenfible that Skyris Balgolam (galbet, or high-admiral) hath been your mortal enemy almost ever fince your arrival: his original reafons I know not; 'but his hatred is encreased fince your great fuccefs against Blefufcu, by which his glory, as admiral, is much obfcured. This lord, in conjunction with Flimnap the high-treasurer, whofe enmity against you is notorious on account of his lady, Limtoc the general, Lalcon the chamberlain, and Balmuff the grand jufticiary, have prepared articles of impeachment against you for treafon and other capital crimes.

This preface made me fo impatient, being confcious of my own merits and innocence, that I was going to interrupt: when he entreated me to be filent, and thus proceeded.

Out of gratitude for the favours you have done me, I procured information of the whole

3

proceedings,