of mankind, and often congratulated him on the bleffing that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with indifference but the praises of his condition, to which he always returned a general anfwer, and diverted the conversation to fome other topick.

"Amidst this willingness to be pleafed, and labour to please, I had quickly reason to imagine that fome painful fentiment preffed upon his mind. He often looked up earnestly towards the fun, and let his voice fall in the midst of his difcourfe. He would fometimes when we were alone, gaze upon me in filence with the air of a man who longed to fpeak what he was yet refolved to fupprefs. He would often fend for me with vehement injunctions of hafte, though, when I came to him, he had nothing extraordinary to fay. And fometimes, when I was leaving him, would call me back, pause a few moments, and then difmifs me.

СНАР. XL.

THE ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS THE CAUSE OF HIS UNEASINESS.

AT laft the time came when the fecret burst his

reserve. We were fitting together last night in the turret of his house, watching the emerfion of a fatellite of Jupiter. A fudden tempeft clouded the sky, and disappointed our obfervation. We fat a while filent in the dark, and then he addreffed him. felf to me in thefe words: "Imlac, I have long confidered thy friendship as the greatest bleffing of my life. Integrity without knowledge is weak and

useless,

useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. I have found in thee all the qualities requifite for truft, benevolence, experience, and fortitude. I have long difcharged an office which I must foon quit at the call of nature, and fhall rejoice in the hour of imbecility and pain to devolve it upon thee."

"I thought myself honoured by this teftimony, and protested, that whatever could conduce to his happiness would add likewife to mine."

"Hear Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have poffeffed for five years the regulation of weather, and the distribution of the feafons: the fun has liftened to my dictates, and paffed from tropick to tropick by my direction; the clouds, at my call, have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; I have restrained the rage of the dog-ftar, and mitigated the fervours of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial tempefts, which I found myself unable to prohibit or reftrain. I have administered this great office with exact juftice, and made to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and funshine. What must have been the mifery of half the globe, if I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the fun to either fide of the equator?"

CHAP. XLI.

THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED

"I

AND JUSTIFIED.

SUPPOSE he difcovered in me, through the obfcurity of the room, fome tokens of amazement and doubt, for, after a fhort paufe, he pro

ceeded thus:"

Not to be eafily credited will neither furprise nor offend me; for I am, probably, the firft of human beings to whom this truft has been imparted. Nor do I know whether to deem this diftinction a reward or punishment; fince I have poffeffed it I have been far lefs happy than before, and nothing but the consciousness of good intention could have enabled me to fupport the wearinefs of unremitted vi gilance."

"How long, Sir, faid I, has this great office been in your hands?"

"About ten years ago, faid he, my daily ob→ fervations of the changes of the fky led me to confider, whether, if I had the power of the seasons, I could confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the earth. This contemplation fastened on my mind, and I fat days and nights in imaginary dominion, pouring upon this country and that the fhowers of fertility, and feconding every fall of rain with a due proportion of funfhine. I had yet only the will to do good, and did not imagine that I should ever have the power.

"One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in my mind a fudden wifh that

I could

I could fend rain on the fouthern mountains, and raife the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with that of the inundation, I found that the clouds had listened to my lips."

"Might not fome other cause, faid I, produce this concurrence? the Nile does not always rife on the fame day."

"Do not believe, faid he with impatience, that fuch objections could efcape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboured against truth with the utmost obftinacy. I fometimes fufpected myself of madnefs, and fhould not have dared to impart this fecret but to a man like you, capable of diftinguishing the wonderful from the impoffible, and the incredible from the falfe.”

"Why, Sir, faid I, do you call that incredible, which you know, or think you know, to be true?"

"Because, said he, I cannot prove it by any external evidence; and I know too well the laws of demonstration to think that my conviction ought to influence another, who cannot, like me, be confcious of its force. I, therefore, fhall not attempt to gain credit by difputation. It is fufficient that I feel this power, that I have long poffeffed, and every day exerted it. But the life of man is fhort, the infirmities of age increase upon me, and the time. will foon come, when the regulator of the year must mingle with the duft. The care of appointing. a fucceffor has long disturbed me; the night and the day have been spent in comparisons of all the characters which have come to my knowledge, and I have yet found none fo worthy as thyself.

CHAP. XLII.

THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.

"HEAR, therefore, what I fhall impart with at

tention, fuch as the welfare of a world requires. If the task of a king be confidered as difficult, who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he cannot do much good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him, on whom depends the action of the elements, and the great gifts of light and heat!-Hear me therefore with attention.

"I have diligently confidered the position of the earth and fun, and formed innumerable schemes in which I changed their fituation. I have fometimes turned afide the axis of the earth, and fometimes varied the ecliptick of the fun: but I have found it impoffible to make a difpofition by which the world may be advantaged; what one region gains, another lofes by an imaginable alteration, even without confidering the diftant parts of the folar fyftem with which we are unacquainted. Do not therefore, in thy adminiftration of the year, indulge thy pride by innovation; do not please thyfelf with thinking that thou canst make thyself renowned to all future ages, by disordering the feafons. The memory of mifchief is no defirable fame. Much lefs will it become thee to let kindness or intereft prevail. Never rob other countries of rain. to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is fufficient."

"I promised, that when I poffeffed the power, I would use it with inflexible integrity; and he dif