employing a notary, remember that excellent maxim, Ne facias per
alium, quod fieri potest per te. I own the badness of the season

and your very late recovery are unlucky circumstances; but a wise
man must get over difficulties when necessity obliges him to

encounter them.'
"I was immediately determined by this opinion. The duty of a

wise man made an irresistibleimpression, and I took the
necessity for granted without examination. I accordingly" target="_blank" title="ad.因此；从而；依照">accordingly set

forward the next morning; very tempestuous weather soon overtook
me; I had not traveled three days before I relapsed into my

fever, and died.
"I was now as cruelly disappointed by Minos as I had formerly

been happily so. I advanced with the utmost confidence to the
gate, and really imagined I should have been admitted by the

wisdom of my countenance, even without any questions asked: but
this was not my case; and, to my great surprise, Minos, with a

menacing voice, called out to me, 'You Mr. there, with the grave
countenance, whither so fast, pray? Will you please, before you

move any farther forwards, to give me a short account of your
transactions below?' I then began, and recounted to him my whole

history, still expecting at the end of every period that the gate
would be ordered to fly open; but I was obliged to go quite

through with it, and then Minos after some little consideration
spoke to me as follows:--

" 'You, Mr. Wiseman, stand forth if you please. Believe me, sir,
a trip back again to earth will be one of the wisest steps you

ever took, and really more to the honor of your wisdom than any
you have hitherto taken. On the other side, nothing could be

simpler than to endeavor at Elysium; for who but a fool would
carry a commodity, which is of such infinite value in one place,

into another where it is of none? But, without attempting to
offend your gravity with a jest, you must return to the place

from whence you came, for Elysium was never designed for those
who are too wise to be happy.'

"This sentence confounded me greatly, especially as it seemed to
threaten me with carrying my wisdom back again to earth. I told

the judge, though he would not admit me at the gate, I hoped I
had committed no crime while alive which merited my being wise

any longer. He answered me, I must take my chance as to that
matter, and immediately we turned our backs to each other."

CHAPTER XVII
Julian enters into the person of a king.

"I was now born at Oviedo in Spain. My father's name was
Veremond, and I was adopted by my uncle king Alphonso the chaste.

I don't recollect in all the pilgrimages I have made on earth
that I ever passed a more miserableinfancy than now; being under

the utmostconfinement and restraint, and surrounded with
physicians who were ever dosing me, and tutors who were

continually plaguing me with their instructions; even those hours
of leisure which my inclination would have spent in play were

allotted to tedious pomp and ceremony, which, at an age wherein I
had no ambition to enjoy the servility of courtiers, enslaved me

more than it could the meanest of them. However, as I advanced
towards manhood, my condition made me some amends; for the most

beautiful women of their own accord threw out lures for me, and I
had the happiness, which no man in an inferior degree can arrive

at, of enjoying the most delicious creatures, without the
previous and tiresome ceremonies of courtship, unless with the

most simple, young and unexperienced. As for the court ladies,
they regarded me rather as men do the most lovely of the other

sex; and, though they outwardly retained some appearance of
modesty, they in reality rather considered themselves as

receiving than conferring favors.
"Another happiness I enjoyed was in conferring favors of another

sort; for, as I was extremelygood-natured and generous, so I had
daily opportunities of satisfying those passions. Besides my own

princely allowance, which was very bountiful, and with which I
did many liberal and good actions, I recommended numberless

persons of merit in distress to the king's notice, most of whom
were provided for. Indeed, had I sufficiently known my blessed

situation at this time, I should have grieved at nothing more
than the death of Alphonso, by which the burden of government

devolved upon me; but, so blindly fond is ambition, and such
charms doth it fancy in the power and pomp and splendor of a

crown, that, though I vehemently loved that king, and had the
greatest obligations to him, the thoughts of succeeding him

obliterated my regret at his loss, and the wish for my
approaching coronation dried my eyes at his funeral.

"But my fondness for the name of king did not make me forgetful
of those over whom I was to reign. I considered them in the

light in which a tender father regards his children, as persons
whose wellbeing God had intrusted to my care; and again, in that

in which a prudent lord respects his tenants, as those on whose
wealth and grandeur he is to build his own. Both these

considerations inspired me with the greatest care for their
welfare, and their good was my first and ultimate concern.

"The usurper Mauregas had impiously obliged himself and his
successors to pay to the Moors every year an infamoustribute of

an hundred young virgins: from this cruel and scandalous
imposition I resolved to relieve my country. Accordingly, when

their emperor Abderames the second had the audaciousness to make
this demand of me, instead of complying with it I ordered his

ambassadors to be driven away with all imaginable ignominy, and
would have condemned them to death, could I have done it without

a manifestviolation of the law of nations.
"I now raised an immense army; at the levying of which I made a

speech from my throne, acquainting my subjects with the necessity
and the reasons of the war in which I was going to engage: which

I convinced them I had undertaken for their ease and safety, and
not for satisfying any wantonambition, or revenging any private

pique of my own. They all declared unanimously that they would
venture their lives and everything dear to them in my defense,

and in the support of the honor of my crown. Accordingly, my
levies were instantly complete, sufficient numbers being only

left to till the land; churchmen, even bishops themselves,
enlisting themselves under my banners.

"The armies met at Alvelda, where we were discomfited with
immense loss, and nothing but the lucky intervention of the night

could have saved our whole army.
"I retreated to the summit of a hill, where I abandoned myself to

the highest agonies of grief, not so much for the danger in which
I then saw my crown, as for the loss of those miserable wretches

who had exposed their lives at my command. I could not then
avoid this reflection--that, if the deaths of these people in a

war undertaken absolutely for their protection could give me such
concern, what horror must I have felt if, like princes greedy of

dominion, I had sacrificed such numbers to my own pride, vanity,
and ridiculous lust of power.

"After having vented my sorrows for some time in this manner, I
began to consider by what means I might possibly endeavor to

retrieve this misfortune; when, reflecting on the great number of
priests I had in my army, and on the prodigious force of

superstition, a thought luckily suggested itself to me, to
counterfeit that St. James had appeared to me in a vision, and

had promised me the victory. While I was ruminating on this the
bishop of Najara came opportunely to me. As I did not intend to

communicate the secret to him, I took another method, and,
instead of answering anything the bishop said to me, I pretended

to talk to St. James, as if he had been really present; till at
length, after having spoke those things which I thought

sufficient, and thanked the saint aloud for his promise of the
victory, I turned about to the bishop, and, embracing him with a

pleased countenance, protested I did not know he was present; and
then, informing him of this supposedvision, I asked him if he

had not himself seen the saint? He answered me he had; and