EARLY LIFE. 63 



who, indeed, is the nephew of my kept mistress's 

 waiting- woman ! Leave off this business, friend, I 

 advise you, if you value the health of your remaining 

 eye/ Memnon having thus in the morning abjured 

 women, the excesses of the table, play, quarrels, and, 

 above all, the court, had been, before night, duped 

 and pigeoned by a fine lady, filled drunk, rooked at 

 play, drawn into a quarrel, robbed of an eye ; and 

 had been at court, where he found himself laughed 

 at. Petrified with astonishment, and overpowered 

 with grief, he moves homeward, death- sick at heart. 

 He finds his house surrounded by bailiffs, in the act 

 of gutting it on the part of his creditors. He stops 

 half dead under a plane-tree ; he here meets the fair 

 lady of the morning, walking with her dear uncle. 

 She bursts out a laughing at seeing Memnon with 

 his plaister. The night came on ; Memnon laid him- 

 self down on some straw near the walls of his house. 

 A fever seized him ; he fell asleep in the crisis of the 

 disorder, and a celestial spirit appeared to him in a 

 dream. It was clothed in resplendent light ; it had 

 six fine wings but neither feet, nor head, nor tail, 

 nor resemblance to anything earthly. ' What art 

 thou ? ' said Memnon. ' Thy good genius/ replied 

 the being. ' Eestore me, then/ said Memnon, ' my 

 eye, my health, my money, my wisdom/ He then 

 related how he had, in one day's time, lost all these. 

 'These are adventures for you/ said the spirit, 'which 

 we never meet with in our world/ ' And where may 

 your world be 1 ' said the man of woe. ' My country/ 



