. The poetry is indeed very fine, but had it been much finer, it would not have so much pleased, without a plan which gave the Reader an Opportunity of exerting his own Talents.

This oblique manner of giving Advice is so inoffensive, that if we look into ancient Histories, we find the wise Men of old very often chose to give Counsel to their Kings in Fables. To omit many which will occur to every one's Memory,

[there]

is a pretty Instance of this Nature in a

Turkish

Tale, which I do not like the worse for that little Oriental Extravagance which is mixed with it.

We are told that the Sultan

Mahmoud

, by his perpetual Wars abroad, and his Tyranny at home, had filled his Dominions with Ruin and Desolation, and half unpeopled the

Persian