which for a while leaves its earthy manfion in utter infenfibility; and, after taking a wide æthereal flight, returns to animate the breathlefs clod.

A curious ftory of this kind is related by Father Bouchet, treating concerning the Metempfychofis, in the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses; which, on such a subject, it would be unpardonable to omit, and which is as follows:

An ancient fovereign of India, by name Veramarken, having, by intense devotion, obtained this art of occafionally disengaging the foul from its terreftrial prison, was fo delighted with his new acquifition, that, instead of attending to the duties of his splendid and important station upon this globe of earth, he was perpetually exploring the æthereal regions, and foaring amidst the fuperior orbs. At thofe periods, in which he meditated this aereal excurfion, it was his practice to retire with only one confidential flave into the midst of a gloomy unfrequented grove, and to his care he configned, during the absence of his foul, that inferior and contemptible portion of himself, which, however, decorated with royal robes and a refplendent crown, was accustomed to fit upon the throne of Asia, and

was

was the object of little less than idolatry to the admiring crowd. A too frequent repetition of this practice, and an unguarded recital of the mystic prayer, called the MANDIRAM, by which his foul was released, in the hearing of the flave, excited a strong defice in the foul of the latter to undertake a fimilar flight into the æthereal regions. Attending diligently, therefore, to the actions of Veramarken, and precisely learning the words of the MANDIRAM, he refolved, the first opportunity, to attempt the temporary emancipation of his own foul; and, one day, when the monarch made a longer stay than usual in the æthereal fields, he fell to fervent prayer, and repeated the MANDIRAM, when, in án instant, his foul, taking its flight from his body, entered that of his master. He was now a king, and too well pleased with his new form and habiliments to think of returning to his former abject ftate. To prevent, therefore, his own body from being re-animated when the foul of Veramarken returned, he cut off its head, and stalked away to the palace in all the grandeur of arrogated royalty, where he received the honours due to his late mafter, and shared in his ftead the embraces of his young and beautiful bride.

The

The foul of the degraded monarch now winged its flight towards the well-known grove, and its horror, as well at finding its own receptacle vanished, as at beholding the headless trunk of the flave, may be conceived but cannot be expreffed. However irksome

he might formerly have efteemed human existence, he now began to think, that a magnificent throne and a lovely confort, added to the poffeffion of the great fecret of the MANDIRAM, might ftill have rendered tolerable the remaining years of its fojourning in the veil of mortality. The reflection filled the penfive spirit with intolerable anguish; it kept hovering, all forlorn and penfive, amidst the fhades of that baleful grove, and made them refound with its bitter wailings. At length the compaffionate "goddess of his former devotion" (Bhavani we must suppose, the Indian Venus) prepared for the royal fugitive the beautiful body of a parrot, in which he fped away to the court, alas! only to be the distracted witness of his flave seated on a throne which had defcended to himself from a long line of illuftrious ancestors, and to fee him fhare the affectionate careffes intended for Veramarken. As the hapless bird, under the impreffion of

thefe

these melancholy fentiments, flew from one apartment to the other, he was caught by a domestic of the palace, and, for the admirable beauty of his plumage, presented to the queen, who detained him prisoner in her own chamber; and thus was the unfortunate monarch, who had poffeffed a throne, and had ranged the skies, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, as well as to be a still nearer fpectator of the rights of a king and a husband ufurped. The secret would never have been known, had not a holy Saniaffi, who, by the power of abforption, could penetrate into the paft, the present, and the future, fome ages after revealed it for the benefit of the fovereigns of India, and as a warning to them not to put too much confidence in their favourites.

At all times the Saniaffi beholds with indifference whatever excites human delight, or inspires vulgar mortals with averfion and terror; but, when more particularly engaged at his devotions, there is no object in nature fo horrible as in the smallest degree to appal him, nor fo enchanting as for one moment to feduce his fixed affections from fervid contemplation of the supreme BRAHME. The most dreadful thunders rolling over his head, balls of fire bursting from the tempeftuous clouds

and

and ploughing up the ground in every direction around him, even the earth itself convulfed and rocking beneath him, have no power to dismay the foul of the undaunted, the abforbed, Saniaffi. That foul is a native of a more elevated region, foars in a purer air, and revolves in a nobler fphere. The foul of the Saniaffi is with the Deity who made the worlds, and commands the subject elements.

It is the boast of the Saniaffi to facrifice every human feeling and paffion at the shrine of devotion. The rains, which, during the annual inundations, defcend in tropical regions with fuch resistless violence, and sweep every thing before them, moleft not the inflexible devotee of the South; nor is the naked Northern Anchorite obferved to fhiver amidst the inceffant fnows that fall upon the fummits of Heemacote, the ancient Imaus, and encircle up to his neck the human statue in the holy mountains of the brahmins. Let a table be spread with the most delicious viands that ever charmed the eye or feasted the appetite of the daintieft epicure; place the table, thus abundantly and delicately spread, before the Saniaffi; although he be emaciated with long-continued famine, and although

at