event the envious man, the Babylonian Desfontaines, died of spite and shame; Cador, cherished according to his services, continued to be the friend of the king, "who was then the only monarch on earth who had a friend." Many just and beneficent actions were performed; and among others, a Babylonian noble who had deprived a fisherman of his savings and his wife (as previously made known to Zadig in one of his adventures), was compelled to give them back; "but the fisherman, grown wise, only took the money."
Some of our readers have probably, in their youth, met with Parnell's "Hermit;" and, as probably, that versified attempt to justify the ways of Providence will have appeared more than commonly unpleasant, even revolting. Although the fable, derived from the East, had been at least twice used before Parnell adopted it, yet, strange to say, the fertile and original Voltaire did not disdain to incorporate it, without acknowledgment and without advantage to the story, in his gem of a tale.
