“While my affairs were in this posture I went one day into the circle without my fool’s dress. The Simple, who would still speak to me, cried out, ‘So, fool, what’s the matter now?’ ‘Sir,’ answered I, ‘fools are like to be so common a commodity at court, that I am weary of my coat.’ ‘How dost thou mean?’ answered the Simple; ‘what can make them commoner now than usual?’--‘O, sir,’ said I, ‘there are ladies here make your majesty a fool every day of their lives.’ The Simple took no notice of my jest, and several present said my bones ought to be broke for my impudence; but it pleased the queen, who, knowing Adelaide, whom she hated, to be the cause of my disgrace, obtained me of the king, and took me into her service; so that I was henceforth called the queen’s fool, and in her court received the same honor, and had as much wit, as I had formerly had in the king’s. But as the queen had really no power unless over her own domestics, I was not treated in general with that complacence, nor did I receive those bribes and presents, which had once fallen to my share. “Nor did this confined respect continue long: for the queen, who had in fact no taste for humor, soon grew sick of my foolery, and, forgetting the cause for which she had taken me, neglected me so much, that her court grew intolerable to my temper, and I broke my heart and died. “Minos laughed heartily at several things in my story, and then, telling me no one played the fool in Elysium, bid me go back again.” CHAPTER XIX Julian appears in the character of a beggar. “I now returned to Rome, and was born into a very poor and numerous family, which, to be honest with you, procured its livelihood by begging. This, if you was never yourself of the calling, you do not know, I suppose, to be as regular a trade as any other; to have its several rules and secrets, or mysteries, which to learn require perhaps as tedious an apprenticeship as those of any craft whatever. “The first thing we are taught is the countenance miserable. This indeed nature makes much easier to some than others; but there are none who cannot accomplish it, if they begin early enough in youth, and before the muscles are grown too stubborn. “The second thing is the voice lamentable. In this qualification too, nature must have her share in producing the most consummate excellence: however, art will here, as in every other instance, go a great way with industry and application, even without the assistance of genius, especially if the student begins young. “There are many other instructions, but these are the most considerable. The women are taught one practice more than the men, for they are instructed in the art of crying, that is, to have their tears ready on all occasions: but this is attained very easily by most. Some indeed arrive at the utmost perfection in this art with incredible facility.