therefore, ftop, while to stop is in our power: let us live as men who are fome time to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils not to count their past years by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the maladies which riot has produced."

They stared a while in filence one upon another, and at last drove him away by a general chorus of continued laughter.

The consciousness that his fentiments were just, and his intentions kind, was fcarcely fufficient to fupport him against the horror of derifion. But he recovered his tranquillity, and perfued his fearch.

THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.

AS he was one day walking in the street, he faw a spacious building which all were, by the open doors, invited to enter: he followed the stream of people, and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which profeffors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a fage raifed above the rest, who difcourfed with great energy on the government of the paffions. His look was venerable, his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He fhewed, with great ftrength of fentiment, and variety of illuftration, that human nature is degraded and debafed, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of paffion, ufurps the dominion of the mind, nothing enfues

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 luftre, 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 displayed the happiness 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 tenderness, or depreffed by grief; but walks on calmly through the tumults or privacies of life, as the fun perfues alike his course through the calm or the ftormy sky.

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 hearers to lay afide their prejudices, and arm themselves against the fhafts of malice or miffortune, by invulnerable patience; concluding, that this ftate 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 vifiting fo great a master of true wifdom. The lecturer hefitated 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 closes 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 discourse like angels, but they live like men."

Raffelas, who could not conceive how any man could reason 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 purpofes, 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 furprised: we know that death is always near, and it fhould therefore always be expected." "Young man, anfwered

E 4

the

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 emptiness of rhetorical found, and the inefficacy.of polished periods and ftudied fentences.

HE

CHAP. XIX.

A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.

E was ftill eager upon the fame enquiry; and having heard of a hermit, that lived near the loweft cataract of the Nile, and filled the whole country with the fame of his fanctity, refolved to vifit 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 pasture. "This, faid the poet, is the life which has been often celebrated for

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

The propofal pleafed them, and they induced the fhepherds, by small presents and familiar questions, 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 indistinct in their narratives and defcriptions, that very little could be learned from them. But it was evident that their hearts were cankered with discontent; that they confidered themfelves as condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich, and looked up with ftupid malevolence toward thofe that were placed above them.

The princess pronounced with vehemence, that fhe would never fuffer thefe 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 justly preferred to the placid gratifications of fields and woods. She hoped that the time would come, when, with a few virtuous and elegant companions, fhe 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 fhade.