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would, in a few years, go back to his retreat, and, perhaps, if fhame did not reftrain, or death intercept him, return once more from his retreat into the world: "For the hope of happinefs, faid he, is fo ftrongly impreffed, that the longest experience is not able to efface it. Of the prefent ftate, whatever it be, we feel, and are forced to confefs, the mifery; Yet, when the fame ftate is again at a distance, imagination paints it as defirable. But the time will furely come, when defire will be no longer our torment, and no man fhall be wretched but by his own fault."

"This, faid a philofopher, who had heard him with tokens of great impatience, is the present condition of a wife man. The time is already come, when none are wretched but by their own fault. Nothing is more idle, than to enquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach. The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that univerfal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impreffed; which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not inftilled by education, but infused at our nativity. He that lives according to nature will fuffer nothing from the delufions of hope, or importunities of defire: he will receive and reject with equability of temper; and act or fuffer as the reafon of things fhall alternately prefcribe. Other men may amufe themfelves with fubtle definitions, or intricate ratiocinations. Let them learn to be wife by eafier means: let them obferve the hind of the foreft, and the linnet of the grove: let them confider the life of animals, whofe motions are regu

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lated by instinct; they obey their guide and are happy. Let us therefore, at length, ceafe to difpute, and learn to live; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which they who utter them with fo much pride and pomp do not underftand, and carry with us this fimple and intelligible maxim, That deviation from nature is deviation from happinefs."

When he had spoken, he looked round him with a placid air, and enjoyed the consciousness of his own beneficence. "Sir, faid the prince, with great modefty, as I, like all the rest of mankind, am defirous of felicity, my clofeft attention has been fixed upon your difcourfe: I doubt not the truth of a pofition which a man fo learned has fo confidently advanced. Let me only know what it is to live according to nature."

"When I find young men fo humble and fo docile, faid the philofopher, I can deny them no information which my ftudies have enabled me to afford. To live according to nature, is to act always with due regard to the fitness arifing from the relations and qualities of caufes and effects; to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of univerfal felicity; to co-operate with the general difpofition and tendency of the prefent fyftem of things."

The prince foon found that this was one of the fages whom he should understand lefs as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was filent, and the philofopher, fuppofing him fatisfied, and the rest vanquished, rofe up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the prefent system.

VOL. XI.

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T

CHAP. XXIII.

THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN

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THEM THE WORK OF OBSERVATION.

ASSELAS returned home full of reflections, doubtful how to direct his future fteps. Of the way to happinefs he found the learned and fimple equally ignorant; but, as he was yet young, he flattered himself that he had time remaining for more experiments, and further enquiries. He communicated to Imlac his obfervations and his doubts, but was answered by him with new doubts, and remarks that gave him no comfort. He therefore difcourfed more frequently and freely with his fifter, who had yet the fame hope with himfelf, and always affifted him to give fome reafon why, though he had been hitherto fruftrated, he might fucceed at laft.

"We have hitherto, faid fhe, known but little of the world: we have never yet been either great or mean. In our own country, though we had royalty, we had no power, and in this we have not yet feen the private receffes of domeftick peace. Imlac favours not our fearch, left we fhould in time find him miftaken. We will divide the tafk between us: you fhall try what is to be found in the splendour of courts, and I will range the fhades of humbler life. Perhaps command and authority may be the fupreme bleflings, as they afford moft opportunities of doing good: or, perhaps, what this world can give may be found in the modeft habitations of middle fortune; too low for great defigns, and too high for penury and diftrefs."

CHA P. XXIV.

THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OF HIGH

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STATIONS.

ASSELAS applauded the defign, and appeared next day with a splendid retinue at the court of the Baffa. He was foon diftinguished for his magnificence, and admitted, as a prince whofe curiofity had brought him from diftant countries, to an intimacy with the great officers, and frequent converfation with the Baffa himself.

He was at first inclined to believe, that the man must be pleased with his own condition, whom all approached with reverence, and heard with obedience, and who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom. "There can be no plea fure, faid he, equal to that of feeling at once the joy of thousands all made happy by wife adminiftration. Yet, fince, by the law of fubordination, this fublime delight can be in one nation but the lot of one, it is furely reasonable to think, that there is fome fatisfaction more popular and acceffible, and that millions can hardly be subjected to the will of a fingle man, only to fill his particular breaft with incommunicable content."

These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no folution of the difficulty. But as prefents and civilities gained him more familiarity, he found that almost every man who ftood high in employment hated all the reft, and was hated by them, and that their lives were a continual fucceffion of plots and detections, stratagems and escapes, faction and

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treachery. Many of those who surrounded the Baffa, were fent only to watch and report his condu&t; every tongue was muttering cenfure, and every eye was fearching for a fault.

At laft the letters of revocation arrived, the Baffa was carried in chains to Conftantinople, and his name was mentioned no more.

"What are we now to think of the prerogatives of power, faid Raffelas to his fifter; is it without any efficacy to good? or, is the fubordinate degree only dangerous, and the fupreme fafe and glorious? Is the Sultan the only happy man in his dominions? or, is the Sultan himself fubject to the torments of fufpicion, and the dread of enemies?"

In a fhort time the fecond Baffa was depofed. The Sultan, that had advanced him, was murdered by the Janifaries, and his fucceffor had other views and different favourites.

CHA P. XXV.

THE PRINCESS PERSUES HER ENQUIRY WITH MORE DILIGENCE THAN SUCCESS.

TH

HE princefs, in the mean time, infinuated herself into many families; for there are few doors, through which liberality, joined with good humour, cannot find its way. The daughters of many houses were airy and cheerful, but Nekayah had been too long accustomed to the converfation of Imlac and her brother to be much pleafed with childish levity and prattle which had no meaning. She found their thoughts narrow, their wifhes low, and their merriment often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as

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