His table was crowded by men of every nation, who all admired his knowledge, and folicited his favour. His companions, not being able to mix in the converfation, could make no difcovery of their ignorance or furprife, and were gradually initiated in the world as they gained knowledge of the language.

The prince had, by frequent lectures, been taught the use and nature of money; but the ladies could not, for a long time, comprehend what the merchants did with fmall pieces of gold and filver, or why things of fo little ufe fhould be received as equivalent to the neceffaries of life.

They studied the language two years, while Imlac was preparing to fet before them the various ranks and conditions of mankind. He grew acquainted with all who had any thing uncommon in their fortune or conduct. He frequented the voluptuous and the frugal, the idle and the bufy, the merchants and the men of learning.

The prince being now able to converfe with fluency, and having learned the caution neceffary to be obferved in his intercourfe with ftrangers, began to accompany Imlac to places of refort, and to enter into all affemblies, that he might make his choice of life.

For fome time he thought choice needless, because all appeared to him equally happy. Wherever he went he met gaiety and kindness, and heard the fong of joy or the laugh of careleffness. He began to believe that the world overflowed with univerfal plenty, and that nothing was withheld either from want or merit; that every hand showered liberality, VOL. XI.

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and every heart melted with benevolence;" and who then, fays he, will be fuffered to be wretched?”

Imlac permitted the pleafing delufion, and was unwilling to crufh the hope of inexperience, till one day, having fat a while filent, "I know not, faid the prince, what can be the reafon that I am more unhappy than any of our friends. I fee them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, but feel my own mind refilefs and uneafy. I am unfatisfied with thofe pleafures which I feem moft to court, I live in the crowds of jullity, not fo much to enjoy company as to fhun myfelf, and am only loud and merry to conceal my fadnefs."

"Every man, faid Imlac, may, by examining his own mind, guefs what paffes in the minds of others: when you feel that your own gaiety is counterfeit, it may juftly lead you to fufpect that of your companions not to be fincere. Envy is commonly reciprocal. We are long before we are convinced that happines is never to be found, and each believes it poffeted by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for hita. In the affembly, where you paffed the laft night, there appeared fuch fprightlines of air, and volatility of fancy, as might have fuited beings of an higher order, formed to inhabit ferener regions, inacceffible to care or for-row: yet, believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread the moment when folitude fhould deliver him to the tyranny of reflection."

"This, faid the prince, may be true of others, fince it is true of me; yet, whatever be the general infelicity of man, one condition is more happy than

another,

another, and wifdom furely directs us to take the leaft evil in the choice of life."

"The causes of good and evil, anfwered Imlac, are fo various and uncertain, fo often entangled with each other, fo diverfified by various relations, and fo much fubject to accidents which cannot be forefeen, that he who would fix his condition upon inconteftible reasons of preference, muft live and die enquiring and deliberating."

"But surely, faid Raffelas, the wife men, to whom we liften with reverence and wonder, chofe that mode of life for themselves which they thought moft likely to make them happy."

Very few, faid the poet, live by choice. Every man is placed in his prefent condition by causes which acted without his forefight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbour better than his own."

"I am pleased to think, faid the prince, that my birth has given me at leaft one advantage over others, by enabling me to determine for myself. I have here the world before me; I will review it at leifure: furely happiness is fomewhere to be found."

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CHAP. XVII.

THE PRINCE ASSOCIATES WITH YOUNG MEN OF SPIRIT AND GAIETY.

ASSELAS rofe next day, and refolved to begin his experiments upon life. "Youth, cried he, is the time of gladnefs: I will join myself to the young men, whofe only bufinefs is to gratify

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their defires, and whofe time is all spent in a fucceffion of enjoyments."

To fuch focieties he was readily admitted, but a few days brought him back weary and disgusted. Their mirth was without images; their laughter without motive; their pleasures were grofs and fenfual, in which the mind had no part; their conduct was at once wild and mean; they laughed at order and at law, but the frown of power dejected, and the eye of wifdom abashed them.

The prince foon concluded, that he should never be happy in a courfe of life of which he was afhamed. He thought it unfuitable to a reafonable being to act without a plan, and to be fad or cheerful only by chance. "Happiness, faid he, must be fomething folid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty."

But his young companions had gained fo much of his regard by their franknefs and courtesy, that he could not leave them without warning and remonftrance. My friends, faid he, I have feriously confidered our manners and our profpects, and find that we have miftaken our own intereft. The first years of man muft make provifion for the laft. He that never thinks never can be wife. Perpetual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the fpirits for an hour, will make life fhort or miferable. Let us confider that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy fhall cease, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we fhall have no comforts but the esteem of wife men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore,

therefore, stop, 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 moft 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 juft, and his intentions kind, was fcarcely fufficient to support him against the horror of derifion. But The recovered his tranquillity, and perfued his fearch.

THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.

AS he was one day walking in the ftreet, 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 fchool of declamation, in which profeffors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a fage raised 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 strength of fentiment, and variety of illuftration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of paffion, pfurps the dominion of the mind, nothing enfues