Ricaric turn’d it over, and light on this passage. “The ancestors of our august emperor have rendered themselves illustrious without doubt. But Mangogul, greater than they, has prepared quite different subjects of admiration for future ages. What do I say of admiration? Let us speak more accurately; of incredulity. If our ancestors had cause to assert, that posterity would esteem as fables the wonders of Kanaglou’s reign; how much more reason have we to think, that our descendants will refuse credit to the prodigies of wisdom and valor, of which we are witnesses?”

“My poor Mr. Lambadago,” says the Sultan, “you are but a retailer of phrases. What I have reason to believe, is that your successors will one day eclipse my glory by that of my son, as you make my father’s vanish before mine; and so on, as long as there will be one academician left. What think you, Mr. Ricaric?”