his head if ever he came within the shadow

upon of it.

From this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the vallies, but came to an untimely end in the two hundred and fiftieth year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to crofs it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perished in it, the river Harpath; and, what is very remarkable, iffues out of one of thofe mountains which Shalum wifhed might fall upon his brother, when he curfed him in the bitternefs of his heart.

Hilpa was in the hundred and fixtieth year of her age at the death of her husband, having brought him but fifty children before he was fnatched away, as has been already related, Many of the antediluvians made love to the young widow; though no one was thought fo likely to fucceed in her affections as her first lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in thofe days that a widow fhould be feen by a man within ten years after the decease of her husband.

Shalum falling into a deep melancholy, and refolving to take away that objection which had been raifed against him when he made his first addreffes to Hilpa, began, immediately after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the divifion of this country, He knew how to adapt every plant to its proper foil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional fecrets of that art from the first man, This employment

turned

turned at length to his profit as well as to his amufement: his mountains were in a few years fhaded with young trees, that gradually fhot up into groves, woods, and forefts, intermixed with walks, and lawns, and gardens; infomuch that the whole region, from a naked and defolate profpect, began now to look like a fecond Paradife. The pleasantnefs of the place, and the agreeable difpofition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildeft and wifeft of all who lived before the flood, drew into it multitudes of people, who were perpetually employed in the finking of wells, the digging of trenches, and the hollowing of trees, for the better diftribution of water through every part of this fpacious plantation.

The habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the space of feventy autumns, was wonderfully pleafed with the diftant profpect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with innumerable tufts of trees, and gloomy fcenes, that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the finest landfcapes the eye of man. could behold.

The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is faid to have written to Hilpa in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I fhall here tranflate it without departing from that noble fimplicity of fentiments and plainnefs of manners which appear in the original.

Shalum was at this time one hundred and eighty years old, and Hilpa one hundred and feventy,

• Į Shalum,

<

I Shalum, Master of Mount Tirzah, to Hilpa, Mistress of the Vallies.

WH

In the 778th year of the creation. HAT have I not fuffered, O thou daughter of Zilpah, fince thou gavest thyself away in marriage to my rival? I grew weary of the light of the fun, and have fince • ever been covering mytelf with woods and forefts, Thefe threescore and ten years have I bewailed the lofs of thee on the top of • Mount Tirzah, and foothed my melancholy among a thousand gloomy fhades of my own raifing. My dwellings are at prefent as the garden of God; every part of them is filled with fruits, and flowers, and fountains. The whole mountain is perfumed for thy reception. Come up into it, O my beloved, and let us people this fpot of the new world with a beautiful race of mortals; let us multiply exceedingly among thefe delightful fhades, and fill every quarter of them with fons and daughters. Remember, O thou daughter of Zilpah, that the age of man is but a thoufand years; that beauty is the admiration but of a few centuries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as a cedar on the top of Tirzah, which in three or four hundred years will fade away, and never be thought of by pofterity, unless a young wood fprings from its roots. Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains.'

6

6

Having here inferted this letter, which I look upon as the only Antediluvian billet-doux now extant, I shall in my next Paper give the anfwer to it, and the fequel of this story.

N° 585. Wednesday, August 25, 1714.

Ipfi lætitia voces ad fidera jactant

Intonfi montes: ipfæ jam carmina rupes,

Ipfa fonant arbusta.

VIRG. Ecl. v. 63.

The mountain tops unfhorn, the rocks rejoice; 'The lowly fhrubs partake of human voice.'

DRYDEN.

The Sequel of the ftory of SHALUM and HILPA.

TH

HE letter inferted in my laft had fo good an effect upon Hilpa, that the answered it in less than twelve months, after the following manner:

Hilpa, Miftrefs of the Vallies, to Shalum, • Mafter of Mount Tirzah.

W

In the 789th year of the creation. HAT have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Thou praisest Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not fecretly enamoured with the verdure of her meadows? Art thou not more affected with the prospect of her green vallies than thou wouldest be with the * By ADDISON.

• fight

fight of her perfon? The lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my flocks, make a pleafant echo in thy mountains, and found fweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forefts, and thofe breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah, are thefe like the riches • of the valley?

6

I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more • wife and happy than any of the fons of men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars; thou fearchest out the diversity of foils, thou understandeft the influences of the ftars, and • markest the change of feafons. Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of fuch an one? Difquiet me not, O Shalum; let me alone, that I may enjoy thofe goodly poffeffions which are fallen to my lot. lot. Win me not by thy enticing words. May thy trees increafe and multiply; mayeft thou add wood to wood, and fhade to fhade; but tempt not Hilpa to deftroy thy folitude, and make thy retirement populous.'

The Chinese fav that a little time after

wards the accepted of a treat in one of the neighbouring hills to which Shalum had invited her. This treat lafted for two years, and is faid to have coft Shalum five hundred antelopes, two thoufand oftriches, and a thoufand tuns of milk; but what most of all recom mended it, was the variety of delicious fruits and pot-herbs, in which no perfon then living could any way equal Shalum.

He