"Those who marry at an advanced age, will probably escape the encroachments of their children; but, in dimi. nution of this advantage, they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helplefs, to a guardian's mercy: or, if that should not happen, they muft at least go out of the world before they fee thofe whom they love best either wife or great.

"From their children, if they have lefs to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lofe, without equivalent, the joys of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds fufceptible of new impreffions, which might wear away their diffimilitudes by long cohabitation, as foft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their furfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found that those who marry late are beft pleafed with their children, and those who marry early with their partners."

"The union of these two affections, faid Raffelas, would produce all that could be wifhed. Perhaps there is a time when marriage might unite them, a time neither too early for the father, nor too late for the husband."

Every hour, anfwered the princefs, confirms my prejudice in favour of the pofition fo often uttered by the mouth of Imlac, That nature fets her gifts on the right hand and on the left.' Those conditions, which flatter hope and attract defire, are so constituted, that, as we approach one, we recede from another.

There

There are goods fo opposed that we cannot feize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long confideration; he does nothing who endeavours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the bleffings fet before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his fcent with the flowers of the fpring: no man can, at the fame time, fill his cup from the fource and from the mouth of the Nile."

CHAP.

CHA P. XXXIX.

Imlac enters, and changes the conversation.

H'

ERE Imlac entered, and interrupted them. "Imlac, faid Raffelas, I have been taking from the princefs the difmal hiftory of private life, and am almost discouraged from further fearch,"

"It feems to me, faid Imlac, that while you are making the choice of life, you neglect to live. You wander about a fingle city, which, however large and

di

1

diverfified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a country, famous among the earliest monarchies for the power and wifdom of its inhabitants; a country where the sciences first dawned that illuminate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil fociety or domeftick life.

"The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments of industry and power before which all European magnificence is confeffed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are the fchools of modern builders, and from the wonders which time has fpared we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has

deftroyed."

"My