CHAP. XXVI.

THE PRINCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS UPON PRIVATE LIFE.

NEKAYAH perceiving her brother's attention fixed, proceeded in her narrativé.

"In families, where there is or is not poverty, there is commonly difcord: if a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a great family, a family likewife is a little kingdom, torn with factions, and expofed to revolutions. An unpractifed obferver expects the love of parents and children to be conftant and equal; but this kindness feldom continues beyond the years of infancy: in a fhort time the children become rivals to their parents. Benefits are allayed by reproaches, and gratitude debafed by envy.

"Parents and children feldom act in concert: each child endeavours to appropriate the efteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet lefs temptation, betray each other to their children; thus fome place their confidence in the father, and fome in the mother, and by degrees, the house is filled with artifices and feuds.

"The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the old, are naturally oppofite, by the contrary effects of hope and defpondence, of expectation and experience, without crime or folly on either fide. The colours of life in youth and age appear different, as the face of nature in spring and winter. And how can children credit the affertions of parents, which their own eyes fhow them to be

falfe?

F 4

"Few

"Few parents act in fuch a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives. The old man trufts wholly to flow contrivance and gradual progreffion: the youth expects to force his way by genius, vigour, and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the youth reverences virtue. The old man deifies prudence: the youth commits himself to magnanimity and chance. The young man, who intends no ill, believes that none is intended, and therefore acts with openness and candour: but his father, having fuffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to fufpect, and too often allured to practife it. Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the fcrupulofity of age. Thus parents and children, for the greatest part, live on to love lefs and lefs: and, if thofe whom nature has thus closely united are the torments of each other, where fhall we look for tendernefs and confolation ?"

Surely, faid the prince, you must have been unfortunate in your choice of acquaintance: I am unwilling to believe, that the most tender of all relations is thus impeded in its effects by natural neceflity."

"Domeftick difcord, anfwered fhe, is not inevitably and fatally neceffary; but yet it is not eafily avoided. We feldom fee that a whole family is virtuous: the good and evil cannot well agree; and the evil can yet lefs agree with one another: even the virtuous fall fometimes to variance, when their virtues are of different kinds, and tending to extremes. In general, thofe parents have most re

vorence

verence who most deserve it: for he that lives well cannot be despised.

Many other evils infeft private life. Some are the flaves of fervants whom they have trufted with their affairs. Some are kept in continual anxiety to the caprice of rich relations, whom they cannot please, and dare not offend. Some husbands are imperious, and fome wives perverfe: and, as it is always more eafy to do evil than good, though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one may often make many miserable.”

"If fuch be the general effect of marriage, faid the prince, I fhall, for the future, think it dangerous to connect my intereft with that of another, left I should be unhappy by my partner's fault."

"I have met, faid the princefs, with many who live fingle for that reafon; but I never found that their prudence ought to raise envy. They dream away their time without friendship, without fondnefs, and are driven to rid themselves of the day, for which they have no use, by childish amusements, or vicious delights. They act as beings under the conftant fenfe of fome known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancour, and their tongues with cenfure. They are peevish at home, and malevolent abroad; and, as the outlaws of human nature, make it their bufinefs and their pleasure to disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or exciting fympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tafting the balm of pity, is a ftate more gloomy than foli

litude;

tude: it is not retreat, but exclufion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."

"What then is to be done? faid Raffelas; the more we enquire, the lefs we can refolve. Surely he is most likely to please himself that has no other inclination to regard."

TH

DISQUISITION UPON GREATNESS.

HE Conversation had a fhort pause. The prince, having confidered his fifter's observations, told her, that she had furveyed life with prejudice, and fuppofed mifery where fhe did not find it. "Your narrative, fays he, throws yet a darker gloom upon the profpects of futurity: the predictions of Imlac were but faint sketches of the evils painted by Nekayah. I have been lately convinced that quiet is not the daughter of grandeur, or of power: that her prefence is not to be bought by wealth, nor enforced by conqueft. It is evident, that as any man acts in a wider compass, he must be more exposed to oppofition from enmity or miscarriage from chance; whoever has many to please or to govern, must use the miniftry of many agents, fome of whom will be wicked, and fome ignorant; by fome he will be misled, and by others betrayed. If he gratifies one he will offend another: those that are not favoured will think themselves injured; and, fince favours can be conferred but upon few, the greater number will be always difcontented."

"The discontent, faid the princess, which is thus unreasonable, I hope that I fhall always have spirit to despise, and you, power to repress."

"Discontent, answered Raffelas, will not always be without reafon under the most just and vigilant administration of publick affairs. None, however attentive, can always difcover that merit which indigence or faction may happen to obfcure; and none, however powerful, can always reward it. Yet, he that fees inferiour defert advanced above him, will naturally impute that preference to partiality or caprice; and, indeed, it can scarcely be hoped that any man, however magnanimous by nature, or exalted by condition, will be able to perfift for ever in the fixed and inexorable justice of diftribution: he will fometimes indulge his own affections, and sometimes those of his favourites; he will permit fome to please him who can never ferve him; he will discover in those whom he loves, qualities which in reality they do not poffefs; and to thofe, from whom he receives pleasure, he will in his turn endeavour to give it. Thus will recommendations fometimes prevail which were purchased by money, or by the more deftructive bribery of flattery and fervility.

"He that has much to do will do fomething wrong, and of that wrong muft fuffer the confequences; and, if it were poffible that he fhould always act rightly, yet when fuch numbers are to judge of his conduct, the bad will cenfure and obstruct him by malevolence, and the good fometimes by mistake.

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