“‘Supreme Jupiter, full of love and goodness, thou art so justly irritated against man, that whatever cruel revenge you may be disposed to take on him, no inhabitant of Olympus will pretend to oppose thy will; it being not less the interest of all the Gods in general, than thine in particular, that mortals should not prove ungrateful for the favours and benefits they daily receive at our hands. Suffer me, however, to make it appear to you that if thou destroyest man, thou destroyest thine own work. This world, which thou hast created and embellished with a thousand wonderful things which thou hast bestowed upon it, will be no longer of any use, for we shall not any of us leave Heaven to reside there. If thou destroyest man to make a new race, that will do thee no honour, for it will rather be said that thou couldst not make thy work perfect in less than two trials: suffer, therefore, the human race to remain as it is; for it greatly concerns thy glory to maintain what thou hast created. Perhaps I may go so far as to say, that I do not think it would be to the honour of the Gods if men were without imperfection; if they were not weak and full of wants, what occasion would they have for our assistance? “‘Nevertheless,’ continued he, ‘these ingrates ought to be punished; thou hast given them the God Pleasure, to whom they are too much attached; thou hast only, therefore, to oblige them to give up the idol, and send them down his brother in his room: thus thou wilt chastise them by the same means as they have offended thee; they will, I am convinced, soon acknowledge their fault, and have recourse to thy mercy to pardon their blindness; thou wilt then be fully avenged, and thou canst either forgive them or abandon them to the tyranny of their new divinity. This, great Jupiter! is what seems to me most becoming thy glory on this occasion; but the Lord of Heaven and Earth knows best what is fit to be done.’ “Apollo ceased to speak, and Momus, who was prepared with a discourse which his hatred for man had suggested, began to aggravate their offence; but he was but the dupe of his ill-will; all the other Immortals, who well knew his prejudice, rejected his advice, and agreed in opinion with Apollo. Agreeably to the decision of the celestial assembly, Mercury cut through the air in a moment, and descended upon earth, where he found man completely busied and charmed with the God Pleasure. No sooner did he begin to put in execution his orders to deprive them of him, than a general insurrection took place among the women as well as the men. Such fury was never known before; they ranged themselves round about their cherished deity, protesting they would rather die than be deprived of him.