My dear friend, think
what a sad pity it would be to bury such _parts_ in heathen countries,
among nasty, unconversable, horse-belching, Tartar people! Some say they
are cannibals; and then conceive a Tartar fellow _eating_ my friend, and
adding the _cool malignity_ of mustard and vinegar! I am afraid 't is
the reading of Chaucer has misled you; his foolish stories about
Cambuscan and the ring, and the horse of brass. Believe me, there are no
such things,--'t is all the poet's _invention_; but if there were such
darling things as old Chaucer sings, I would _up_ behind you on the
horse of brass, and frisk off for Prester John's country. But these are
all tales; a horse of brass never flew, and a king's daughter never
talked with birds! The Tartars really are a cold, insipid, smouchy set.
You'll be sadly moped (if you are not eaten) among them. Pray _try_ and
cure yourself. Take hellebore (the counsel is Horace's; 't was none of
my thought _originally_). Shave yourself oftener. Eat no saffron, for
saffron-eaters contract a terrible Tartar-like yellow. Pray to avoid the
fiend. Eat nothing that gives the heartburn. _Shave the upper lip_. Go
about like an European. Read no book of voyages (they are nothing but
lies); only now and then a romance, to keep the fancy _under_. Above
all, don't go to any sights of _wild beasts. That has been your ruin_.
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