Philosophers of late call it the Pole,
    Because it wheels and rolls itself about,
    As 'twere, in a kind of roly-poly way.

This city is to be constructed for the sole
use and benefit of the birds. The gods are
to be walled out. Without express permission,
Jupiter shall no longer visit the earth
and make love to his Alcmenas and Semeles,
nor feast on the fumes of sacrifice offered by
mortals. The birds approve the project,
swearing by gins and nets and traps that
they never heard of anything half so clever
before. Our Athenian Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza, remembering that fine feathers
make fine birds, now procure themselves
wings; and, pluming themselves greatly on
their ornithological costume, one superintends
the workmen, the other conducts the devotions
of his new countrymen. The city is
built—built entirely by birds:

Birds, not a soul beside! Ægyptian none,
Bricklayer, or stonemason, or carpenter,
But the birds with their own hands. 'Twas marvellous!
From Libya came about three thousand cranes,
Which swallow'd stones for the foundation, these
The cornrails with their beaks did chip and hew.
The storks, another myriad, bear the bricks,
Sea-larks brought water, herons served with hods,
And with their feet for shovels, dipping deep,
The geese threw up the mortar on the hods.

The two old men now agree that the new
city deserves a very grand name—a name
suggestive of lofty associations and, at last,
they fix on that of Cloudcuckootown. A
solemn invocation is then addressed, not to
the gods, but the birds of Olympus, in which
Apollo takes the place of the swan, Diana of
the goldfinch; and the ostrich is selected as
the Cybele of the birds, the mighty mother
of gods and men. The new city is visited by
various persons, of a buoyant and sanguine
turn of mind, who think to better their
condition by joining the aërial architects.
First, a poet, doing as he had often done
before, takes a flight into the clouds. Unable
to warm himself in the blaze of his poetic
fire, he makes the two Athenians give him
an old coat, and, not content with that, begs
to have the waistcoat. Then comes a prophet,
with an oracle, partly about the prosperity of
the city, but still more about a new pair of
shoes, of which the prophetic feet are
grievously in want. Next, a famous
geometrician appears, offering plans for the
proposed building, which combine all the
advantages of the circular with the parallelogramtic
mode of residences, so much advocated
by some modern reformers. He tries
to convince the old men of the extraordinary
merits of his plan, but which, with his circles
and circumlocutions, he naturally fails to
make all square with them; and when at
last they produce a horsewhip, and tell him
to find out by his geometry the road back,
he accepts the striking intimation, and flies
off at a tangent.

The birds now make proclamation against
the enemies of the Republic, and set a price
on the head of a noted poulterer, on whose
fowl proceedings they severely animadvert.
Meanwhile, the gods, who dislike the short
commons to which this aërial blockade has
reduced them, sends Iris with a message to
earth to bid men fill the streets with the
steam of sacrifice. The goddess of the
rainbow enters the gates of Cloudcuckootown
without applying to the jackdaws in
command, or even getting a passport from the
storks. She is arrested, questioned about
her business, informed that birds are gods
now, and that men must sacrifice to them,
and leave off sacrificing to Jove. Yes; by
Jove must they! Iris threatens them with
her father's anger, but prudently follows the
advice which she receives, and takes herself
off. In addition to the old original gods,
certain outlandish deities now take part in
the action. These supernatural foreigners,
who live in a back-of-beyond sort of heaven
of their own, lay all the blame of their
involuntary fast on Jupiter, and threaten
him with war, if he refuses to open the ports.
Ambassadors are sent from Olympus,
accompanied by a barbarian god. Our Athenian
friends refuse to make peace unless Jove
agree to deliver up his sceptre to the
legitimate monarchs of the sky. There is no
help for it. The condition is accepted, and
the birds enjoy their own again.

Another old familiar face meets us in
Athens, as we saunter arm-in-arm with our
merry poet through its crowded streets. The
queen of all social questions, the problem of
problems, the rights of woman question,
which throws the rights of man—if the
tyrant has any rights—completely into the
shade, meets us, in full voluptuousness and
imperial bulk, as we turn the corner. The
phantom of her frolic Grace may be rendered
visible to all who are interested in her mysterious
appearance, by the aid of our poetic eye-
glass. In one of his plays, which he calls
Ecclesiazusæ, Aristophanes presents us with
a most amusing picture of female supremacy.
There we see the strong-minded women of
Athens. We hear them affirm their equality
with men. They form themselves into a
committee, and resolve that they will be
men. One of them harangues the audience,
but, forgetting her assumed character, makes
all kinds of blunders swearing by the
patron goddess of the world's fairer half,
and addressing her colleagues as women, in
shameful disregard of the recent Resolution.
These inconsistencies are detected by one of
the lady-deputies, and her acuteness is
commended by another gentle legislator, who
exclaims, What a sagacious man! After
some consultation, they determine to enter
the public assembly. There are no orators
like women, they remark. Every one knows
that the youths who make such beautiful
speeches, are those which most resemble