While I was speaking, I heard a tremendous uproar, proceeding from another apartment, and inquiring the cause, was informed the Turks were fighting; and as I happened to understand their language, discovered the quarrel was, in fact, between Mahomet and the two prophets, who had each established a sect in the Mahometan law. Mahomet complained very bitterly against Ali, because he had given to the Persians a false Alcoran, and because Albubekir had so illy explained his own, in Africa. He, on the contrary, maintained that the Alcoran could have no other meaning, than what he had attached to it. Ali asserted, there was no reason in this law; and furthermore, he contended, that Mahomet himself knew nothing about the book he had composed. They chafed furiously upon this, and cried out, as if enraged to madness; I heard their dialogue, but do not wish to be the herald of their quarrels. This was gentleness itself, compared with what passed among the heretic and schismatic Christians; there I saw Luther in the habit of the Augustine order, with his monks about him, and a pot of wine on the table. “Do the dead drink,” said I, “to the devil?” “Not at all; but this wine is set before their eyes, for the purpose of tormenting them with the sight of what they loved so well; it is for the same reason, that Luther has his wife with him.” Melancthon was also there; he wept continually, and was so unquiet, that he could not remain an instant at rest: he traversed from right to left upon all sides, and then returned to the place from whence he set out, only to recommence the same journey. “What is this man doing?” said I to Curiosity. “He imitates the conduct he pursued in the world; for there he was alternately with Luther and the church; sometimes a Zuinglian, and sometimes a Calvinist; thus are the inconstant tormented. This good old man whom you see here, is Erasmus; this other is Grotius; unhappily, they neither of them had any religion. This man, who appears so sour, and is surrounded with ministers, is Calvin, who brought about the reformation. These others, are heretics of the first ages, who are here for being reluctant to submit to legitimate authority. See the great Photius patriarch of Constantinople, how the Greeks surround him: he is justly punished for having quitted the ministry for the patriarchate; if he had remained in a civil station he would have been saved; but being mixed up in ecclesiastical affairs, he committed so much wickedness, that he now suffers no more than he deserves.” “A man so learned!” said I to the devil. “Yes, too much so; and too much knowledge is often more injurious than profitable.”