and that no citizen may be uneasy at the seasons appointed for relaxation. Every man sends in a monthly contribution for the maintenance of the entertainments; and it is expected he should come thither, without having privately feasted at his own house. One instance of such luxury, if brought to light, would be attended with infamy. They sit down without any distinction of age, and are waited on by the boys, to whom they prescribe silence. It is not an uncommon thing at these times to put subtle questions to the youth; and if they fail of returning a short, clear, pertinent, and ready answer, they are punished by the head of the class. After dinner they make some of their slaves drunk, with a view to instil an abhorrence of that crime into their children. The inhumanity of this practice is more odious, than the design of it is commendable. The ordinary table-talk of the Spartans is remarkably improving. Their discourse turns chiefly on virtue, liberty, a contempt of other nations, their own form of government, the character of their lawgiver, and the history of their great men. These subjects are always uppermost in a Spartan's thoughts. After so many particulars recited at large of this people, I flatter myself, that thy friendship will induce thee to be a little inquisitive after me. Within a few days I shall enter into the class of men, as thou mayest easily guess, very highly to my comfort; and to complete me as a citizen, I am lately become a sharer in the lands of the state; for a Spartan, with whom I had contracted an intimate acquaintance, died since my return from Thebes, without any relations, and left me the heir to his lot. Believe me, CLEANDER, it was with no reluctance that I exchanged the sumptuous cookery, and the feasts of Asia, for the black broth and the sordid diet of this city. Let me confess to thee, however, that I called up all the powers of dissimulation to my help, in counterfeiting an unwilling approbation of those rough sports, in the Palestræ of their youth, where I have acted by turns the part of the victor and the vanquished. But the king's service bears down every consideration of private convenience in the breast of the faithful CRATIPPUS. And when I reflect on the labours of Lacedæmon in profound peace, I do not wonder at their fondness for the comparative repose of war; nor is it a virtue in those men to despise death, who lead a life of which they have reason to be weary. C. LETTER CXX. CLEANDER to SMERDIS. DURING the whole course of the whole course of my busy and dangerous employment, never have I more more ardently wished for the company of my old friends, the partners of my studious and speculative years, than I did this morning in the sacred grove of laurel, which leads from the temple to the brow of the hill. Thither I retired, full of the reflections which this remarkable place must suggest; and how did I regret those charming conversations of our Bactrian solitude! Where the venerable SMERDIS would lead the inquisitive CLEANDER into the highest subjects, would hear his objections, redress his errors, direct his reasonings, and warm his heart. What new lights are thrown upon a question by those friendly debates! And, for want of such communication, how am I stopped every moment in my course of thinking, while I am tracing to their original the imposture and superstition, which bring to these altars the adoration and the wealth of all Greece! Under these disadvantages, forgive me, gentle Mage, should I fall into mistakes, or even controvert some opinions which prevail among our eastern sages: for never can I be persuaded that the oracles, which we see scattered through this land of idolatry, are under the immediate guidance of the great enemy of truth and order; that the knowledge of future events delivered there is an emanation from the impious ARIMANIUS; and that such are the methods by which he establishes the kingdom of error, and diverts the worship worship of mankind from its only true object. How hard is the supposition, that the just, the benign OROMASDES should suffer the human mind, confined and fallible as he created it, to be thus unequally attacked, thus invincibly deluded? And what a preposterous dispensation is it, that where he is adored with that purity which reason dictates, and his own prophet has prescribed, no such divine communications are vouchsafed; while he permits the book of fate to be opened near every venerable grove and romantick fountain in Greece, for the purposes of impiety and superstition! But we need not fear any such conclusion. OROMASDES speaks to all men by the great voice of reason and nature, and to the purer East by his sacred volume. By these ways the supreme Wisdom teaches us what we are concerned to know; and we cannot expect to be indulged in the vain curiosity of foreseeing what cannot be prevented. Nor is ARIMANIUS to be charged with revealing those secrets. From all I could observe in this seat of divination, we are not to recur to any preternatural power. Blind devotion and artful management will explain the whole mystery; and men are deceived but by men. As soon as one begins to ascend the sacred mountain, every thing appears adapted to inspire a religious horror. The ancient trees hanging over the rock on each side the temple, and the rock itself opening into a rude kind of semicircle, whose echoes increase the confused voices, and the sound of the trumpets, which always make part of the ceremony; the magnificence of the buildings, and the richness and elegance of the consecrated gifts, sufficient of themselves to strike the imagination, are particularly pointed out and exaggerated by a set of men whose business it is to wait upon strangers; and who, I observed, endeavoured to lead them into some account of them themselves, and the circumstances which brought them to consult the god. After duly performing the various sacrifices and purifications, without which the temple is not to be approached, they are conducted thither; their head muffled up in their garments, and trumpets blowing all round them, that no sight or sound of evil omen may interrupt the procession. This indeed makes a most ridiculous appearance; and what with the solemnity, the noise, and the uneasy posture they walk in, they are quite fatigued and confounded by the time they get to the cell, where they wait with their questions in their hands. While they are in this devout expectation, they are sometimes refreshed with the most fragrant odours issuing from the inmost recesses of the temple. As this is a token of the Deity's peculiar favour, it scarcely ever happens but when some person of consequence is among the suppliants. In the mean time water is brought to the Pythia from the Castalian fountain, and she chews the leaves of the sacred laurel, to prepare her for the prophetick office. Immediately she rushes into the sanctuary, her hair dishevelled, her colour changed, her eyes rolling, foaming at the mouth, and with all the marks of fury and distraction. She throws down the censers and the laurel branches that stand in her way; and at last is seated upon the tripod by the attending priests, and delivers the answer of the god in a loud and hollow voice. Thou wilt imagine I must be attentive to so extraordinary a spectacle; and every circumstance brought to my mind the tradition they have here, about the first discovery of the prophetick cave, over |