CHAP.

XXII.

THE HAPPINESS OF A LIFE LED ACCORDING TO

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NATURE.

ASSELAS Went often to an affembly of learned men, who met at ftated times to unbend their minds, and compare their opinions. Their manners were fomewhat coarfe, but their converfation was inftructive, and their difputations acute, though fometimes too violent, and often continued till neither controvertift remembered upon what question they began. Some faults were almoft general among them: every one was defirous to dictate to the rest, and every one was pleafed to hear the genius or knowledge of another depreciated.

In this affembly Raffelas was relating his interview with the hermit, and the wonder with which he heard him cenfure a courfe of life which he had fo deliberately chofen, and fo laudably followed. The fentiments of the hearers were various. Some were of opinion, that the folly of his choice had been justly punished by condemnation to perpetual perfeverance. One of the youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced him an hypocrite. Some talked of the right of fociety to the labour of individuals, and confidered retirement as a desertion of duty. Others readily allowed, that there was a time when the claims of the publick were fatisfied, and when a man might properly fequefter himself, to review his life, and purify his heart.

One, who appeared more affected with the narrative than the reft, thought it likely, that the hermit would,

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would, in a few years, go back to his retreat, and, perhaps, if fhame did not reftrain, or death intercept him, return once more from his retreat into the world: "For the hope of happiness, faid he, is fo ftrongly impreffed, that the longest experience is not able to efface it. Of the prefent ftate, whatever it be, we feel, and are forced to confess, the misery; yet, when the fame ftate is again at a distance, imagination paints it as defirable. But the time will furely come, when defire will be no longer our torment, and no man fhall be wretched but by his own fault."

This, faid a philofopher, who had heard him with tokens of great impatience, is the present condition of a wife man. The time is already come, when none are wretched but by their own fault. Nothing is more idle, than to enquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach. The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impreffed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not inftilled by education, but infused at our nativity. He that lives according to nature will fuffer nothing from the delufions of hope, or importunities of defire: he will receive and reject with equability of temper; and act or fuffer as the reason of things fhall alternately prefcribe. Other men may amuse themselves with fubtle definitions, or intricate ratiocinations. Let them learn to be wife by easier means: let them obferve the hind of the foreft, and the linnet of the grove: let them confider the life of animals, whofe motions are regu

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lated by instinct; they obey their guide and are happy. Let us therefore, at length, cease to dif pute, and learn to live; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which they who utter them with fo much pride and pomp do not underftand, and carry with us this fimple and intelligible maxim, That deviation from nature is deviation from happinefs."

When he had spoken, he looked round him with a placid air, and enjoyed the consciousness of his own beneficence. "Sir, faid the prince, with great modefty, as I, like all the rest of mankind, am defirous of felicity, my closest attention has been fixed upon your difcourfe: I doubt not the truth of a pofition which a man so learned has fo confidently advanced. Let me only know what it is to live according to nature."

"When I find young men fo humble and fo docile, faid the philofopher, I can deny them no information which my ftudies have enabled me to afford. To live according to nature, is to act always with due regard to the fitness arifing from the relations and qualities of caufes and effects; to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of univerfal felicity; to co-operate with the general difpofition and tendency of the prefent fyftem of things."

The prince foon found that this was one of the fages whom he should understand lefs as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was filent, and the philofopher, fuppofing him fatisfied, and the reft vanquished, rofe up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the prefent fyftem.

CHA P. XXIII.

THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN

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THEM THE WORK OF OBSERVATION.

ASSELAS returned home full of reflections, doubtful how to direct his future steps. Of the way to happiness he found the learned and fimple equally ignorant; but, as he was yet young, he flattered himself that he had time remaining for more experiments, and further enquiries. He communicated to Imlac his obfervations and his doubts, but was answered by him with new doubts, and remarks that gave him no comfort. He therefore difcourfed more frequently and freely with his fifter, who had yet the fame hope with himself, and always affifted him to give some reason why, though he had been hitherto fruftrated, he might fucceed at laft.

"We have hitherto, faid fhe, known but little of the world: we have never yet been either great or mean. In our own country, though we had royalty, we had no power, and in this we have not yet feen the private receffes of domeftick peace. Imlac favours not our fearch, left we fhould in time find him mistaken. We will divide the tafk between us: you shall try what is to be found in the splendour of courts, and I will range the fhades of humbler life. Perhaps command and authority may be the fupreme bleffings, as they afford most opportunities of doing good: or, perhaps, what this world can give may be found in the modeft habitations of middle fortune; too low for great defigns, and too high for penury and diftrefs."

CHAP. XXIV.

THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OF HIGH

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STATIONS.

ASSELAS applauded the design, and appeared next day with a splendid retinue at the court of the Baffa. He was foon diftinguished for his magnificence, and admitted, as a prince whofe curiofity had brought him from diftant countries, to an intimacy with the great officers, and frequent converfation with the Baffa himself.

He was at firft inclined to believe, that the man must be pleased with his own condition, whom all approached with reverence, and heard with obedience, and who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom. "There can be no pleafure, faid he, equal to that of feeling at once the joy of thousands all made happy by wife adminiftration. Yet, fince, by the law of fubordination, this fublime delight can be in one nation but the lot of one, it is furely reasonable to think, that there is fome fatisfaction more popular and acceffible, and that millions can hardly be fubjected to the will of a fingle man, only to fill his particular breast with incommunicable content."

These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no folution of the difficulty. But as prefents and civilities gained him more familiarity, he found that almost every man who stood high in employment hated all the rest, and was hated by them, and that their lives were a continual fucceffion of plots and detections, ftratagems and escapes, faction and