but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation and confufion; that the betrays the fortreffes of the intellect to rebels, and excites her children to fedition against reafon their lawful fovereign. He compared reafon to the fun, of which the light is conftant, uniform, and lafting; and fancy to a meteor, of bright but tranfitory lustre, irregular in its motion, and delufive in its direction.

He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time for the conqueft of paffion, and difplayed the happinefs of thofe who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the flave of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emafculated by tendernefs, or depreffed by grief; but walks on calmly through the tumults or privacies of life, as the fun perfues alike his courfe through the calm or the flormy fky.

He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on thofe modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and evil. He exhorted his harers to lay afide their prejudices, and arm themselves against the fhafts of malice or miffortune, by invulnerable patience; concluding, that this flite only was happiness, and that this happiness was in every one's power.

Raffelas liftened to him with the veneration due to the inftructions of a fuperiour being, and, waiting for him at the door, humbly implored the liberty of viting fo great a mafter of true wifdom. The Aurer hesitated a moment, when Raffelas put a

purfe

purfe of gold into his hand, which he received with a mixture of joy and wonder.

"I have found, faid the prince, at his return to Imlac, a man who can teach all that is neceffary to be known, who, from the unfhaken throne of rational fortitude, looks down on the fcenes of life changing beneath him. He fpeaks, and attention watches his lips. He reafons, and conviction clofes his periods. This man fhall be my future guide: I will learn his doctrines, and imitate his life."

"Be not too hafty, faid Imlac, to truft, or to admire, the teachers of morality: they difcourfe like angels, but they live like men."

Raffelas, who could not conceive how any man could reafon fo forcibly without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his vifit in a few days, and was denied admiffion. He had now learned the power of money, and made his way by a piece of gold to the inner apartment, where he found the philofopher in a room half darkened, with his eyes mifty, and his face pale. "Sir, faid he, you are come at a time when all human friendship is uselefs; what I fuffer cannot be remedied, what I have loft cannot be fupplied. My daughter, my only daughter, from whofe tenderness I expected all the comforts of my age, died laft night of a fever. My views, my purposes, my hopes are at an end: I am now a lonely being difunited from fociety."

"Sir, faid the prince, mortality is an event by which a wife man can never be furprifed: we know that death is always near, and it fhould therefore always be expected." "Young man, answered

the philofopher, you speak like one that has never felt the pangs of feparation." "Have you then forgot the precepts, faid Raffelas, which you fo powerfully enforced? Has wifdom no ftrength to arm the heart against calamity? Confider, that external things are naturally variable, but truth and reafon are always the fame." "What comfort, faid the mourner, can truth and reafon afford me? of what effect are they now, but to tell me, that my daughter will not be restored ?"

The prince, whofe humanity would not suffer him to infult mifery with reproof, went away convinced of the emptinefs of rhetorical found, and the inefficacy of polished periods and ftudied fentences.

CHAP. XIX.

A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.

HE was fill eager upon the fame enquiry; and having heard of a hermit, that lived near the lowest cataract of the Nile, and filled the whole country with the fame of his fanctity, refolved to visit his retreat, and enquire whether that felicity, which publick life could not afford, was to be found in folitude; and whether a man, whofe age and virtue made him venerable, could teach any peculiar art of fhunning evils, or enduring them?

Imlac and the princefs agreed to accompany him, and, after the neceffary preparations, they began their journey. Their way lay through the fields, where fhepherds tended their flocks, and the lambs were playing upon the pafture. "This, faid the poet, is the life which has been often celebrated for

its innocence and quiet; let us pafs the heat of the day among the fhepherds tents, and know whether all our fearches are not to terminate in paftoral fimplicity."

The propofal pleafed them, and they induced the fhepherds, by fmall prefents and familiar queftions, to tell their opinion of their own ftate: they were fo rude and ignorant, fo little able to compare the good with the evil of the occupation, and fo indiftinct in their narratives and defcriptions, that very little could be learned from them. But it was evident that their hearts were cankered with difcontent; that they confidered themselves as condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich, and looked up with stupid malevolence toward thofe that were placed above them.

The princess pronounced with vehemence, that fhe would never fuffer these envious favages to be her companions, and that she should not foon be defirous of seeing any more fpecimens of ruftick happiness; but could not believe that all the accounts of primeval pleasures were fabulous, and was yet in doubt, whether life had any thing that could be juftly preferred to the placid gratifications of fields and woods. She hoped that the time would come, when, with a few virtuous and elegant companions, the fhould gather flowers planted by her own hand, fondle the lambs of her own ewe, and liften, without care, among brooks and breezes, to one of her maidens reading in the shade.

CHAP. XX.

ON

THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY.

N the next day they continued their journey, till the heat compelled them to look round for fhelter. At a fmall distance they faw a thick wood, which they no fooner entered than they perceived that they were approaching the habitations of men. The fhrubs were diligently cut away to open walks where the fhades were darkeft; the boughs of oppofite trees were artificially interwoven; feats of flowery turf were raifed in vacant spaces, and a rivulet, that wantoned along the fide of a winding path, had its banks fometimes opened into fmall bafons, and its ftream fometimes obftructed by little mounds of ftone heaped together to increase its

murmurs.

They paffed flowly through the wood, delighted with fuch unexpected accommodations, and entertained each other with conjecturing what, or who, he could be, that, in thofe rude and unfrequented regions, had leifure and art for fuch harmless luxury.

As they advanced they heard the found of mufick, and faw youths and virgins dancing in the grove; and, going ftill further, beheld a ftately palace built upon a hill furrounded with woods. The laws of eaftern hofpitality allowed them to enter, and the mafter welcomed them like a man liberal and wealthy.

He was fkilful enough in appearances foon to difcern that they were no common guests, and spread