“I continued to pierce the crowd, and got to the foot of a rostrum, for which a cobweb served as a canopy. The boldness of this rostrum was of a piece with that of the building. To me it seemed placed on the point of a needle, and to support itself there in æquilibrio. I trembled a hundred times for the person, who was in it. He was an old man, with a long beard, as wither’d and naked as any of his disciples: he had a cup full of a subtle fluid before him, into which he dipp’d a straw-pipe; then put it to his mouth, and blew bubbles to a crowd of spectators around him, who were using their utmost endeavours to drive them up to the clouds.

“ ‘Where am I?’ said I to myself, all in confusion at these childish tricks. ‘What means this blower of bubbles, and all these decrepit infants employ’d in making them fly about? Who will let me into the secret of these things?’⁠—Besides, the little scraps of stuff had struck me; and I observed that the larger they were, the less those that wore them interested themselves in the bubbles. This singular remark embolden’d me to accost him, who was the least undress’d of the company.