think that he was going to resume himself, and to shew the fair side of his character; but these hopes soon vanished like the Evil Genii before the Faithful Ones, as the prince not only neglected the princess his wife, but compelled her to quit his palace, and to live at a distance from him. Neither did he take the least pains to conceal the cause of this conduct, which was an attachment to one of his former mistresses. He had long cohabited with one of his father's female subjects, a woman of ordinary rank, named Squobbimah, and he now returned to her; made her supply the place of his wife in the most public manner, and all who visited her, as several of the nobility were mean enough to do, were obliged to pay her the same respect, to their own degradation. Through the malevolence of this woman, he strove to put away his wife, notwithstanding that she had borne him a daughter; but he could find no just cause for it, as the laws of Georgia required.

One morning, chancing to throw his eyes upon the glass, which he had long disregarded on account of its faithful reflexion of his vices,

and had thrown into a cabinet with some other trinkets; he was thunderstruck at beholding the lineaments of his face indeed; but most shock ingly distorted and disfigured. He staggered back, fell on a sofa, and exclaimed: "This is the last stage of vice-I must-I will amend !— At that very moment Squobbimah entered the apartment, and perceiving the cloud which overbung the prince's brow, she desired to be informed of the cause of it. The prince related to her the story of the Fairy Prudentia's glass, and, pointing towards the cabinet, desired her to take it out, and view herself in it. She obeyed with a smile; but, beholding on the glass a reflexion of her own features, covered with hissing snakes in the place of hair, and with a complexion as black as an Ethiopian's, she shrieked with horror, and let the glass fall on the ground. It was dashed into a thousand pieces; but to their increasing terror, the pieces all reunited themselves, and then disappeared. A dark cloud overspread the heavens, the thunder growled, and the lightnings harrowed up the ground. The prince and Squobbimah were both dreadfully alarmed, and sunk almost lifeless on the

sofa during the continuation of the storm; but it was no sooner over, than the artful Squobbimah, aware that her keeping the prince any longer in her chains, depended on her immediately banishing the ill impressions of this adventure, laughed heartily at her own womanish fears, and represented to the prince that as the glass had always been a most troublesome and impertinent monitor to him, the Fairy Prudentia had deceived his parents, and satisfied her own malevolence, by pretending to have made their son an invaluable present. She would fain have persuaded him that the fairy's malice was excited by a jealousy of his love for her, and congratulated him on his having thus freed himself from her.

Although these arguments were far from restoring quiet to the mind of the prince, yet by a repetition of her allurements, she succeeded in rendering him insensible to all its reproaches, and riveted more strongly than ever his inglorious chains upon him.

The Georgians had now only reason to suppose that the prince would grow worse and worse every day; and, foreseeing a train of

disasters likely to ensue from having such a king, they never entered the mosques without making it the chief part of their prayers to the Holy Prophet, to intercede with Allah to grant a long life to the old king. They commiserated the fate of the forlorn princess, and respected her in proportion as she was slighted by the prince, and assailed by her enemies.

Matters were in this situation when, one day, the prince, who was very fond of the chace, in which he used to indulge himself, that he might return to his dalliance with Squobbimah with a delight increased by absence, went out on a hunting party attended by a numerous suite. The dogs had not sought far before they put up a beautiful white doe, which was very rare in that country, and which showed them such glorious sport, that the greatest part of the horsemen were very soon left behind.

The prince, who was enraptured with the beautiful appearance of the doe, and mounted on an Arabian horse as fleet as the wind, followed with the utmost eagerness, and was soon the only person who kept it in view. The doe then struck into a deep forest, and was followed by

the prince, with the dogs almost close to its heels. The doe ran for shelter into a thick underwood which the dogs surrounded, but would not enter after it. The prince, who was impressed with the strongest desire to have the doe in his possession, made repeated attempts to encourage them to rush in and seize it; but in vain; their ardour seemed not only abated; but they ceased to yelp; hung down their ears, and crouched as if afraid.

In an instant the whole cover appeared in a blaze; and, in the midst of the flame, the prince beheld the figure of a majestic female, who appeared quite unconcerned by the surrounding terrible element, and looked frowningly on the prince. Before the prince could recover from the torpidity, in which his surprise and terror had fixed him, the female thus addressed him in a grave, angry tone of voice:

"I am that Fairy Prudentia, — that Friend of your Royal Parents-whom you have heard them mention. I would willingly have proved myself a friend to you also; but your follies and blindness have prevented me. The glass-that