I have since heard the success of this stratagem. The young man's sister, who commanded the tea table, was easily engaged in the plot; and having supplied her tea with a portion of this medicine from the moon, she was very urgent in recommending it as composed with uncommon art, and exactly agreeing with her father's judgment. It had an instant effect; and the old man, with a sudden look of beneficence, having descanted for a short time on his own declining years, and his inability to enjoy wealth, declared he would make over to his son a considerable portion of his estate, and desired him to send for an attorney on the following morning that the gift, might be legal and secure. But when morning arrived, and the young man was punctually proceeding to execute the order, his father suddenly revoked it, having been cleared from these fumes of generosity in his sleep. Some expedient, therefore, was to be devised for making the father's gift irrevocable before his benevolence should have time to escape. The teapot was again corrupted, and an excuse contrived for a visit of an attorney while the medicine was in full vigour. Thus the desired deed was accomplished; and the father, at the return of his avarice, found himself strangely dispossessed of his property by his own consent. Amongst the virtues lost by advance in life, I saw a great quantity of pity and sensibility. Grief for the misfortunes of others is one of those follies that seldom fail to be cured by age, being the benefit of experience, which, amongst other lessons, demonstrates the absurdity of claiming a share in the afflictions of another man. I here became melancholy by seeing how ready our best qualities are to slip out of our minds; and I soon, therefore, left the building and entered another, where I found a vast room containing what at first appeared to me a collection of statues: but I was informed that what I saw was the female beauty that has been lost by time, sickness, or other calamities to which it is liable. These statues, therefore, are merely bloom and outline without any substance. In the walls of the room there are as many niches as can be inserted from the bottom to the top, in each of which stands one of these beautiful outlines, and a multitude of others placed on pedestals are distributed over the whole room. They are beautiful from posture as well as shape, being adjusted in every graceful variety of attitude and purpose; and it may easily be supposed that this room far surpasses any gallery of statues in our world. As soon as I was in the midst of these beauties, I began to think myself guilty of an unfair examination, and of inquiring into secrets which were not designed for me; but seeing no displeasure or retirement in the lovely forms as I looked at them, I was emboldened to continue my studies.