The vizier seemed greatly amused with my great discovery, and then entered into certain long explanations concerning the various topics which I had heard discussed between the smooth and rough infidels whom I had met in the coach, and which only tended to obscure the great conclusion to which I had come by the light of my own wit. I allowed him to talk, and he seemed pleased to do so, as if he were defending himself from imputations, and of which, in truth, I understood not one word. However, he seemed amazingly struck, when, in rising to go, I said, "It is plain, then, that some great mistake has been committed somewhere; otherwise, why should this great country be so terribly torn from one end of it to the other by animosities, which seem to have led it to the brink of anarchy?" "No great change," said he, "can take place without producing a great shock of interests and opinions, and consequently animosities." "And that is just what a good and wise government ought to avoid," said I. "Our Shah is called _Zil Allah_, the Shadow of the Almighty; and, according to the saying of one of our ancient sages, the acts of a king ought to follow the same course perceivable in the dispensations of Providence, and in the laws by which God, the great and good, directs the fates of his creatures. All changes in government ought to be as gradual as changes in the seasons. If a great change takes place without a previous preparation of the people's minds, and an almost imperceptible one in their habits, of course the sudden transition will produce a shock so violent, that the mischief may perhaps be without remedy. If, during the heats of summer, the Almighty were to give this globe a sudden accelerated turn, and throw us at once into the snows of winter, the effects might almost produce sudden death upon one half of his creatures; but he allows the intervening autumn gradually to blend the two extremes, and thus produces a healthy action in the operations of nature." He did not seem so much struck by the wisdom of this speech as I was, and I was about leaving him, when I recollected the letter with which I was charged from the _Shah-en-Shah_, the king of kings, and asked when I should deliver it. He paused a little in thought, and then said, "Perhaps it may be as well that we hear something from our minister in Persia before you deliver your letter." Upon which, seeing that my countenance was turned upside down, he said, with great kindness of manner, "There will be no harm done if you deliver it immediately. The King of England is ready to receive the application of every one, from the peasant in the field to the greatest potentate." MY UNCLE. A FRAGMENT.