way, scarce a handsome building, save one greatly resembling a
certain house by the Bath, to be seen during that whole journey;
and, lastly, that it was thought very scandalous and
mean-spirited to travel through this, and as highly honorable and
noble to pass by the other. We now heard a violent noise, when,
casting our eyes forwards, we perceived a vast number of spirits
advancing in pursuit of one whom they mocked and insulted with
all kinds of scorn. I cannot give my reader a more adequate idea
of this scene than by comparing it to an English mob conducting a
pickpocket to the water; or by supposing that an incensed
audience at a playhouse had unhappily possessed themselves of the
miserable damned poet. Some laughed, some hissed, some squalled,
some groaned, some bawled, some spit at him, some threw dirt at
him. It was impossible not to ask who or what the wretched
spirit was whom they treated in this barbarous manner; when, to
our great surprise, we were informed that it was a king: we were
likewise told that this manner of behavior was usual among the
spirits to those who drew the lots of emperors, kings, and other
great men, not from envy or anger, but mere derision and contempt
of earthly grandeur; that nothing was more common than for those
who had drawn these great prizes (as to us they seemed) to
exchange them with tailors and cobblers; and that Alexander the
Great and Diogenes had formerly done so; he that was afterwards
Diogenes having originally fallen on the lot of Alexander. And
now, on a sudden, the mockery ceased, and the king-spirit, having
obtained a hearing, began to speak as follows; for we were now
near enough to hear him distinctly:--

"GENTLEMEN,--I am justly surprised at your treating me in this
manner, since whatever lot I have drawn, I did not choose: if,