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 shall have no comforts but the esteem of wife men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore, stop, while to stop is in our power: let us live as men who are fometime to grow old, and to whom it will be the most 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 They ftared a while in filence one upon another, and at last drove him away by a general chorus of continued laughter. The conscioufnefs that his fentiments were juft, and his intentions kind, was fcarcely fufficient to fupport him against the horror of derifion. But he recovered his tranquillity, and perfued his fearch. СНАР. XVIII. THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN. As he was one day walking in the ftreet, he faw a fpacious building which all were, by the open doors, invited to enter: he followed the stream of people, and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which profeffors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a fage raised above the reft, 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 ftrength of fentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, fancy, the parent of paffion, ufurps the dominion of the mind, nothing enfues but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation and confufion; that fhe betrays the fortreffes of the intellect to rebels, and excites her children to fedition against reafon their lawful fovereign. He compared reafon to the fun, of which the light is conftant, uniform, and lafting; and fancy to a meteor, of bright but tranfitory luftre, irregular in its motion, and delufive in its direction. He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time for the conquest of paffion, and difplayed the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the flave of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emafculated by tenderness, or depreffed by grief; but walks on calmly through the tumults or priva cies cies of life, as the fun perfues alike his course through the calm or the ftormy fky. He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on those modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay aside their prejudices, and arm themselves against the fhafts of malice or misfortune, by invulnerable patience; concluding, that this state only was happiness, and that this happiness was in every one's power. Raffelas liftened to him with the veneration due to the inftructions of a fuperiour being, and, waiting for him at the door, humbly implored the liberty of visiting fo great a master of true wifdom. The lecturer hefitated a moment, when Raffelas put a purfe of gold into. |