To say that Popanilla resembles Swift's "Tale of a Tub," or Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," would be an advantageous comparison for our modern _voyager_, but it would not sufficiently illustrate the character of his work, since the latter books are so much less read than talked of. Swift wrote "for the universal improvement of mankind," but Popanilla publishes for the benefit of the people of England, whom he represents as living in a too artificial state. He tells his story as the native of an Indian isle, whose men combine "the vivacity of a faun with the strength of a Hercules, and the beauty of an Adonis," and whose women "magically sprung from the brilliant foam of that ocean, which is gradually subsiding before them." This favoured spot he calls the _Isle of Fantaisie_, about the shores of which appears a remarkable fish, or rather a ship, to the no small terror of the islanders. The ship is wrecked, and Popanilla "having in his fright, during the storm, lost a lock of hair which, in a moment of glorious favour, he had ravished from his fair mistress' brow," is next introduced in search of this precious _bijou_. "The favourite of all the women, the envy of all the men, &c. &c, and--you know the rest,--Popanilla passed an extremely pleasant life. No one was a better judge of wine--no one had a better taste for fruit--no one danced with more elegant vivacity--and no one whispered compliments in a more meaning tone. What a pity that such an amiable fellow should have got into such a scrape!"