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

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

TH

"Your

HE Converfation had a fhort paufe. The prince, having confidered his fifter's obfervations, told her, that he had furveyed life with prejudice, and fuppofed mifery where fhe did not find it. 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 compafs, he must be more expofed to oppofition from enmity or mifcarriage from chance; whoever has many to please or to govern, muft ufe the miniftry of many agents, fome of whom will be wicked, and fome ignorant; by fome he will be rifled, and by others betrayed. If he gratifies one he will offend another: thofe that are not favoured will think themfelves injured; and, fince favours can be conferred but upon few, the greater number will be always difcontented."

"The

"The difcontent, faid the princefs, 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 moft juft 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 persist for ever in the fixed and inexorable juftice of diftribution: he will fometimes indulge his own affections, and fometimes thofe of his favourites; he will permit fome to please him who can never ferve him; he will discover in thofe 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 obftruct him by malevolence, and the good fometimes by mistake.

"The highest ftations cannot therefore hope to be the abodes of happiness, which I would willingly believe to have fled from thrones and palaces to feats of humble privacy and placid obfcurity. For what can hinder the fatisfaction, or intercept the expectations, of him whofe abilities are adequate to his employments, who fees with his own eyes the whole circuit of his influence, who choofes by his own knowledge all whom he trufts, and whom none are tempted to deceive by hope or fear? Surely he has nothing to do but to love and to be loved, to be virtuous and to be happy."

"Whether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect goodness, faid Nekayah, this world will never afford an opportunity of deciding. But this, at leaft, may be maintained, that we do not always find vifible happinefs in proportion to vifible virtue. All natural, and almost all political evils, are incident alike to the bad and good: they are confounded in the milery of a famine, and not much distinguished in the fury of a faction; they fink together in a tempeft, and are driven together from their country by invaders. All that virtue can afford is quietnefs of confcience, a fteady profpect of a happier ftate; this may enable us to endure calamity with patience; but remember that patience muft fuppofe pain."

CHAP. XXVIII.

RASSELAS AND NEKAYAH CONTINUE THEIR CON

"DEAR

VERSATION.

EAR princefs, faid Raffelas, you fall into the common errours of exaggeratory declamation, by producing, in a familiar difquifition, examples of national calamities, and fcenes of extenfive mifery, which are found in books rather than in the world, and which, as they are horrid, are ordained to be rare. Let us not imagine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life by mifrepresentations. I cannot bear that querulous eloquence which threatens every city with a fiege like that of Jerufalem, that makes famine attend on every flight of locufts, and fufpends peftilence on the wing of every blaft that iffues from the fouth.

"On neceffary and inevitable evils, which overwhelm kingdoms at once, all difputation is vain: when they happen they must be endured. But it is evident, that these bursts of univerfal diftrefs are more dreaded than felt; thoufands and ten thoufands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domeftick evils, and fhare the fame pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country perfue their enemies, or retreat before them. While courts are difturbed with inteftine competitions, and ambaffadors are negociating in foreign countries, the fmith ftill plies his anvil, and the husbandman drives his plow for. ward; the neceffaries of life are required and ob.

tained;

tained; and the fucceffive business of the feasons continues to make its wonted revolutions.

"Let us cease to confider what, perhaps, may never happen, and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at human fpeculation. We will not endeavour to modify the motions of the elements, or to fix the destiny of kingdoms. It is our business to confider what beings like us may perform; each labouring for his own happiness, by promoting within his circle, however narrow, the happiness of others.

"Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature; men and women are made to be companions of each other, and therefore I cannot be perfuaded but that marriage is one of the means of happinefs."

"I know not, faid the princefs, whether marriage be more than one of the innumerable modes of human mifery. When I fee and reckon the various forms of connubial infelicity, the unexpected caufes of lafting difcord, the diverfities of temper, the oppofitions of opinion, the rude collifions of contrary defire where both are urged by violent impulfes, the obftinate contefts of difagreeable virtues, where both are fupported by consciousness of good intention, I am fometimes difpofed to think with the feverer cafuifts of moft nations, that marriage is rather permitted than approved, and that none, but by the inftigation of a paffion too much indulged, entangle themselves with indiffoluble compacts."

"You feem to forget, replied Raffelas, that you have, even now, reprefented celibacy as lefs happy than marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot both be worst. Thus it happens when

wrong