LETTER CXXXIII. Rica to * **.

I WENT the other day to see a great library at a convent of dervises, who are in some measure the proprietors of it, but who are obliged to give admittance to all comers at stated hours. Upon entering, I beheld a serious personage, who walked amidst a prodigious

number of surrounding volumes. I went up to him, and begged he would be so kind as to inform me what those books were which I saw so much better bound than the rest. “Sir, says he, I am here as the inhabitant of a foreign country, I know nobody. Many besides you have proposed such questions to me; but you cannot think it reasonable that I should read all these books, in order to give them information; my librarian here can satisfy your curiosity, for he is busied night and day in decyphering what you see here; he is a very worthless member, and a great burthen to us, because he does nothing for the convent. But the bell rings to call me to the refectory. Those who, like me, are at the head of a society, should be the first to assist at all the exercises peculiar to it. The monk having spoken thus, pushed me out, shut the door, and disappeared, just as if he had possessed the art of flying.

Paris, the 21st of the moon Rhamazan,
1719.