Il faut mettre les fables en presse pour en tirer quelque suc de verité.
GARASSE.
It is related of the great mythological personage Baly, that Veeshnoo, when he dispossessed him of his impious power, allowed him in mitigation of his lot, to make his choice, whether he would go to the Swerga, and take five ignorant persons with him who were to be his everlasting companions there, or to Padalon and have five Pundits in his company. Baly preferred the good company with the bad quarters.
That that which is called good company has led many a man to a place which it is not considered decorous to mention before “ears polite,” is a common and, therefore, the more an awful truth. The Swerga and Padalon are the Hindoo Heaven and Hell; and if the Hindoo fable were not obviously intended to extol the merits of their Pundits, or learned men, as the missionary Ward explains the title, it might with much seeming likelihood bear this moral interpretation; that Baly retained the pride of knowledge even when convinced by the deprivation of his power that the pride of power was vanity, and in consequence drew upon himself a further punishment by his choice.
For although Baly, because of the righteousness with which he had used his power, was so far favoured by the Divinity whom he had offended, that he was not condemned to undergo any of those torments of which there was as rich an assortment and as choice a variety in Padalon, as ever monkish imagination revelled in devising, it was at the best a dreadful place of abode: and so it would appear if Turner were to paint a picture of its Diamond City from Southey's description. I say Turner, because though the subject might seem more adapted to Martin's cast of mind, Turner's colouring would well represent the fiery streams and the sulphureous atmosphere; and that colouring being transferred from earthly landscapes to its proper place his rich genius would have full scope for its appropriate display. Baly no doubt, as a state prisoner who was to be treated with the highest consideration as well as with the utmost indulgence, would have all the accommodations that Yamen could afford him. There he and the Pundits might
reason high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And find no end, in wandering mazes lost.
They might argue there of good and evil,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
and such discourses possibly