“I bring you, madam,” says Ricaric with a low bow, “a novel, which is ascribed to the marchioness Tamazi; but in which we unluckily discover the hand of Mulhazen, the answer of our president Lambadago to the discourse of the poet Tuxigraphus, which we received yesterday; and the Tamerlane of this last.”

“This is admirable!” says Mangogul. “The press goes on incessantly; and if the husbands of Congo performed their duty as well as the writers, in less than ten years I might be enabled to set sixteen hundred thousand men on foot, and promise myself the conquest of Monoémugi. We will read the novel at leisure. Now let us see the harangue, especially that part which relates to me.”