_Scarron._ Who are you, and please ye? What’s your name? For the dead having neither beard nor bonnet, nor any thing else to distinguish them by, I know not exactly what, or who you are; but by your language and mien, suppose you some mungril of the _French_ academy. _Furet._ Well guess’d; I am call’d Monsieur _l’Abbé Furetiere_,[49] alias _Porc de bon Dieu_, who has long, but in vain, been gaping and scraping at _Versailles_ for a mitre, that I might wallow in peace and plenty like a hog. But alas! what a left-handed planet was I born under? A debauch with stummed wine, setting an old pox, which lay dormant in my bones, into a ferment, soon carry’d me off, almost in the heighth of my desires, and when I bad fairest for the bishoprick. _Scar._ I am sorry for your misfortune; but am at the same time heartily glad to see you, Monsieur _l’Abbé_. You will not, perhaps, meet with all these conveniencies here, you enjoy’d at _Paris_; but, in recompense, you will meet with much honester dealing. For my part, I must own myself infinitely happy; for now I am neither troubled with lawyers, physicians, apothecaries, collectors of taxes, priests, nor wife, the plague and torment of men’s days when on earth. But how have you had your health since you have been in the country. _Furet._ Thanks to our master _Pluto_, I have not yet felt any cold. I was so very tender and chill for six months in the year at _Paris_, that tho’ I was loaded with ermins, and always had a dram of the best _Nantz_ in my pocket, I could scarce keep my blood from freezing in my veins. _Scar._ That’s an affliction you will not meet with here, take my word for’t; for ’tis something hotter than under the _torrid zone_, and the nicest wits of your academy, need not fear spoiling their brains, by catching cold here. It is not long since I met with the illustrious _Balzac_, who does not complain now of the cold in his head, as he did when he liv’d on the pleasant banks of the _Charante_. But, what news have you? _Furet._ I don’t doubt, by your inquisitiveness, but you are very desirous to hear some news of your wife. _Scar._ May pox and itch devour the nasty jade! I know but too much of her by mareschal _d’Albert_ formerly, and lately, by my likeness Monsieur _Luxemburg_; yes, I know she’s a duchess; that she’s one of the privy-council; and she serves _Lewis_ the XIV. in the same capacity as _Livia_ did _Augustus_. But why did not the prostitute make her poor deform’d husband a duke? I should not have been the first duke and peer of _France_, that had been a cuckold. _Furet._ By your discourse, Mr. _Scarron_, one would think you had lost your senses and memory: But you cannot surely have forgot how, instead of laurel, she adorn’d your learned brow with horns, before she was taken notice of at court; Indeed how could a pretty, witty, buxom, young woman, forbear making such an infirm, deform’d _Æsop_ as you a cuckold?