Midnight was the hour chosen..... the pile was erected in a hollow, and was of considerable extent and height .....It was composed of pine.....fir.... and dry brush-wood.

At the rising of the moon......Peregrine appeared in his usual costume, attended by the Principal of his order, and his dear Theagenes, bearing a lighted torch........Proteus, also, held a torch.......They approached the pile at opposite sides......and each applied his torch.

Proteus put off the paraphernalia of a Cynic......He then took some frankincense from an attendant,.....threw it into the flames.....and exclaimed......... Oh, ye paternal and maternal Spirits!.........propitiously receive a "votary to thy arms!"

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He sprang into the flames, and was heard no more!

AZLIDIAIT

I shall not fatigue my reader with the salutation of these personages at so unexpected a meeting.........or relate their prefatory discourse.......Proteus desired to rescue his fame.........and Lucian to be the convert to truth....... they therefore agreed to meet at a certain place, whither I attended them ..and the following is.....The unimbellished Life of Peregrine Proteus, as related by himself to Lucian.

PEREGRINE

Confessions in Elysium.

And now, now, my dear Lucian, that we have reached this grove of plantains, whose embowering shade partakes the beauty of that sequestered spot where Socrates reposed upon the banks of the Illyssus.....sit down....while I unfold the wonders of that life, You, as an historian, have so cruelly distorted; and though I entertain no enmity for the injuries you did my memory some centuries some centuries ago, yet must you feel, at my recital, the severity of this truth,.....that.....

J

The grand aim of every author is applause.....to obtain which, fiction embellishes reality, where interest is

originally wanting;....a falsehood....or an injustice.....which will successfully introduce a witticism, or grace a period, is a mere trifle with these conscientious gentlemen...........Those, whose il fate it proves to be the object of a philippic, must endure the scourge of a witty writer; and from the same assumed prerogative, the panegyrist,.....with as little truth..... bedaubs, with tenfold flattery, the portrait of his patron.

It is possible, with you, prejudice might have had much ascendancy..... our characters were opposite, and positive.....I was a warm enthusiast,

.....

...You, a cold disciple of the Epicurean school.....Your principles might have filled you with scorn for what you termed a fanatic.....you therefore felt no curiosity to approach the rostrum at Olympia, from which I delivered my dying words,......expla

natory of the mysterious passages of my eventful life,.....although you came purposely to record my death, and most faithfully noted down all that a vile, anonymous declaimer, said to my disadvantage.

Listen!.....I shall relate to you,.... with all that sincerity which arises from the state we are now in,.....the adventures of my earliest youth,....my subsequent travels,....my gallantries....my association with the Christians,.....my joining the Cynics.....my abode, variously....at Alexandria,...at Rome,.... at Athens,.....my motives for closing the whole, by voluntarily perishing on the funereal pile;.....in fact, all that is worthy notice.

It is with mankind,........as with plants.....every thing depends on the soil in which they spring, and the disposition of that guardian, who watches their growth,...prunes their exuberant