conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually afraid of spectres, who is fet at eafe by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which haraffed him in the dark; yet, if his lamp be extinguifhed, feels again the terrours which he knows that when it is light he fhall feel no more. But I am fometimes afraid left I indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which I am intrufted. If I favour myself in a known errour, or am determined by my own eafe in a doubtful queftion of this importance, how dreadful is my crime!"

"No difeafe of the imagination, anfwered Imlac, is fo difficult of cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and confcience then act interchangeably upon us, and fo often fhift their places, that the illufions of one are not diftinguished from the dictates of the other. If fancy prefents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give it pain, but when melancholick notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without oppofition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this reafon the fuperftitious are often melancholy, and the melancholy almost always fuperftitious.

"But do not let the fuggeftions of timidity overpower your better reafon: the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the obligation, which when you confider it with freedom, you find very little, and that little growing every day Jefs. Open your heart to the influence of the

light, which, from time to time, breaks in upon you when fcruples importune you, which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, do not fland to parley, but fly to bufinefs or to Pekuah, and keep this thought always prevalent, that you are only one atom of the mafs of humanity, and have neither fuch virtue nor vice, as that you fhould be fingled out for fupernatural favours or afflictions."

CHA P. XLVI.

THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOPICK.

Α LL this, faid the aftronomer, I have often

"ALL

thought, but my reafon has been fo long fubjugated by an uncontrolable and overwhelming idea, that it durft not confide in its own decifions. I now see how fatally I betrayed my quiet, by fuffering chimeras to prey upon me in fecret; but melancholy fhrinks from communication, and I never found a man before, to whom I could impart my troubles, though I had been certain of relief. I rejoice to find my own fentiments confirmed by yours, who are not eafily deceived, and can have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope that time and variety will diffipate the gloom that has fo long furrounded me, and the latter part of my days willbe spent in peace.

"Your learning and virtue, faid Imlac, may juftly give you hopes."

Raffelas then entered with the princefs and Pekuah, and inquired, whether they had contrived any new diverfion for the next day? "Such, faid Ne

kayah,

kayah, is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me fee something to-morrow which I never faw before."

Variety, faid Raffelas, is fo neceffary to content, that even the happy valley disgusted me by the recurrence of its luxuries; yet I could not forbear to reproach myself with impatience, when I faw the monks of St. Anthony fupport, without complaint, a life, not of uniform delight, but uniform hardship.'

"

"Those men, answered Imlac, are lefs wretched in their filent convent than the Abiffinian princes in their prison of pleasure. Whatever is done by the monks is incited by an adequate and reasonable motive. Their labour fupplies them with neceffaries; it therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. Their devotion prepares them for another state, and reminds them of its approach, while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly distributed; one duty fucceeds another, fo that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor loft. in the shades of liftlefs inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour; and their toils are cheerful, because they confider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advancing towards endless felicity.”

"Do you think, faid Nekayah, that the monaftick rule is a more holy and lefs imperfect ftate than any other? May not he equally hope for future happiness who converfes openly with mankind, who

fuccours the diftreffed by his charity, inftructs the ignorant by his learning, and contributes by his induftry to the general fyftem of life; even though he fhould omit fome of the mortifications which are practifed in the cloifter, and allow himself fuch harmless delights as his condition may place within his reach ?"

"This, faid Imlac, is a queftion which has long divided the wife, and perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either part. He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monaftery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to ftem the temptations of publick life; and if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have likewife little ftrength to refift evil. Many are weary of their conflicts with adverfity, and are willing to eject thofe paffions which have long bufied them in vain. And many are difmiffed by age and difeafes from the more laborious duties of fociety. In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily fheltered, the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of prayer and contemplation have fomething fo congenial to the mind of man, that, perhaps, there is fcarcely one that does not purpose to clofe his life in pious abftraction with a few affociates ferious as himfelf."

"Such, faid Pekuah, has often been my wifh, and I have heard the princefs declare, that fhe fhould not willingly die in a crowd."

"The liberty of ufing harmless pleasures, proceeded Imlac, will not be difputed; but it is ftill to

be

be examined what pleasures are harmless, The evil of any pleasure that Nekayah can image is not in the act itself, but in its confequences. Pleasure, in itfelf harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be tranfient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that, of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of fenfe. In the fate of future perfection, to which we all afpire, there will be pleasure without danger, and fecurity without reftraint."

The princess was filent, and Raffelas, turning to the aftronomer, afked him, whether he could not delay her retreat, by fhewing her fomething which fhe had not feen before?

"Your curiofity, faid the fage, has been fo general, and your purfuit of knowledge fo vigorous, that novelties are not now very easily to be found: but what you can no longer procure from the living may be given by the dead. Among the wonders of this country are the catacombs, or the ancient repofitories, in which the bodies of the earlieft generations were lodged, and where, by the virtue of the gums which embalmed them, they yet remain without corruption."

"I know not, faid Raffelas, what pleasure the fight of the catacombs can afford; but, fince nothing elfe offered, I am refolved to view them, and shall place this with many other things which I have done, because I would do fomething."

They