In pronouncing these words, Eriphila darted such glances on her hero, as bespoke everything, and stretch’d out her hand to him, which the impertinent Orgogli kissed by way of acquittance. Prouder of his talent than of his conquest, he declaimed with emphasis, and the lady was so enraptur’d, that one minute she conjur’d him to continue, and the next to stop. Mangogul judging by her looks, that her Toy would willingly play its part in this rehearsal, chose rather to guess at the rest of the scene, than to be present at it. He disappear’d, and return’d to the favorite, who expected him.

On the recital which the Sultan made her of this adventure⁠—“Prince, what do you say?” cried she. “Then the women are fallen into the lowest degree of meanness! A comedian, the slave of the public! A buffoon! Well, if those folks had nothing against them but their state of life: but most of them have neither morals nor sentiments; and even among them, that Orgogli is but a machine. He has never thought, and if he had not learn’d some parts in plays, perhaps he would never have spoken.”