“Where is _Troy_ and _Mycenæ_, and _Thebes_ and _Delos_, and _Persepolis_ and _Agrigentum?_”—continued my father, taking up his book of post-roads, which he had laid down.—“What is become, brother _Toby_, of _Nineveh_ and _Babylon_, of _Cizicum_ and _Mitylenæ?_ The fairest towns that ever the sun rose upon, are now no more; the names only are left, and those (for many of them are wrong spelt) are falling themselves by piece-meals to decay, and in length of time will be forgotten, and involved with every thing in a perpetual night: the world itself, brother _Toby_, must—must come to an end. “Returning out of _Asia_, when I sailed from _Ægina_ towards _Megara_,” (_when can this have been? thought my uncle Toby_,) “I began to view the country round about. _Ægina_ was behind me, _Megara_ was before, _Pyræus_ on the right hand, _Corinth_ on the left.—What flourishing towns now prostrate upon the earth! Alas! alas! said I to myself, that man should disturb his soul for the loss of a child, when so much as this lies awfully buried in his presence——Remember, said I to myself again—remember thou art a man.”— Now my uncle _Toby_ knew not that this last paragraph was an extract of _Servius Sulpicius_’s consolatory letter to Tully.—He had as little skill, honest man, in the fragments, as he had in the whole pieces of antiquity.—And as my father, whilst he was concerned in the _Turkey_ trade, had been three or four different times in the _Levant_, in one of which he had stayed a whole year and an half at _Zant_, my uncle _Toby_ naturally concluded, that, in some one of these periods, he had taken a trip across the _Archipelago_ into _Asia;_ and that all this sailing affair with _Ægina_ behind, and _Megara_ before, and _Pyræus_ on the right hand, &c. &c. was nothing more than the true course of my father’s voyage and reflections.—’Twas certainly in his _manner_, and many an undertaking critic would have built two stories higher upon worse foundations.—And pray, brother, quoth my uncle _Toby_, laying the end of his pipe upon my father’s hand in a kindly way of interruption—but waiting till he finished the account—what year of our Lord was this?—’Twas no year of our Lord, replied my father.—That’s impossible, cried my uncle _Toby._—Simpleton! said my father,—’twas forty years before Christ was born. My uncle _Toby_ had but two things for it; either to suppose his brother to be the wandering _Jew_, or that his misfortunes had disordered his brain.—“May the Lord God of heaven and earth protect him and restore him!” said my uncle _Toby_, praying silently for my father, and with tears in his eyes. —My father placed the tears to a proper account, and went on with his harangue with great spirit.