him to an open declaration; but he eafily eluded all their attacks, and on which fide foever they preffed him, escaped from them to fome other topick.

As their familiarity increafed, they invited him often to the houfe of Imlac, where they diftinguished him by extraordinary refpect. He began gradually to delight in fublunary pleasures. He came early, and departed late; laboured to recommend himself by affiduity and compliance; excited their curiosity after new arts, that they might ftill want his affiftance; and when they made any excurfion of pleasure or inquiry, entreated to attend them.

By long experience of his integrity and wifdom, the prince and his fifter were convinced that he might be trusted without danger; and left he should draw any falfe hopes from the civilities which he received, discovered to him their condition, with the motives of their journey; and required his opinion on the choice of life.

"Of the various conditions which the world spreads before you, which you shall prefer, faid the fage, I am not able to inftruct you. I can only tell that I have chofen wrong. I have paffed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of fciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expence of all the common comforts of life: I have miffed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestick tenderness. If I have obtained any prerogatives · above other students, they have been accompanied with fear, difquiet, and fcrupulofity; but even of thefe

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thefe prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, fince my thoughts have been diverfified by more intercourse with the world, begun to question the reality. When I have been for a few days loft in pleafing diffipation, I am always tempted to think that my inquiries have ended in errour, and that I have fuffered much, and fuffered it in vain."

Imlac was delighted to find that the fage's understanding was breaking through its mifts, and refolved to detain him from the planets till he fhould forget his task of ruling them, and reafon fhould recover its original influence.

. From this time the aftronomer was received into familiar friendship, and partook of all their projects and pleasures: his refpect kept him attentive, and the activity of Raffelas did not leave much time unengaged. Something was always to be done; the day was spent in making obfervations which furnifhed talk for the evening, and the evening was clofed with a fcheme for the morrow.

The fage confeffed to Imlac, that fince he had mingled in the gay tumults of life, and divided his hours by a fucceffion of amufements, he found the conviction of his authority over the fkies fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less to an opinion which he never could prove to others, and which he now found fubject to variation, from caufes in which reafon had no part. "If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, faid he, my inveterate perfuafion rushes upon my foul, and my thoughts are chained down by fome irresistible violence; but they are foon difentangled by the prince's

converfation,

converfation, and inftantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually afraid of fpectres, who is fet at eafe by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which haraffed him in the dark; yet, if his lamp be extinguished, feels again the terrours which he knows that when it is light he fhall feel no more. But I am fometimes afraid left I indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which I am intrusted. If I favour myself in a known errour, or am determined by my own eafe in a doubtful queftion of this importance, how dreadful is my crime!”

"No disease of the imagination, anfwered Imlac, is fo difficult of cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and confcience then act interchangeably upon us, and fo often fhift their places, that the illufions of one are not diftinguished from the dictates of the other, If fancy prefents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give it pain, but when melancholick notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without oppofition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this reafon the fuperftitious are often melancholy, and the melancholy almost always fuperftitious.

"But do not let the fuggeftions of timidity overpower your better reafon: the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the obligation, which when you confider it with freedom, you find very little, and that little growing every day lefs. Open your heart to the influence of the

light, which, from time to time, breaks in upon you: when scruples importune you, which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, do not stand to parley, but fly to bufinefs or to Pekuah, and keep this thought always prevalent, that you are only one atom of the mafs of humanity, and have neither fuch virtue nor vice, as that you should be fingled out for fupernatural favours or afflictions."

CHAP. XLVI.

THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOPICK.

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LL this, faid the aftronomer, I have often thought, but my reafon has been so long, fubjugated by an uncontrolable and overwhelming idea, that it durft not confide in its own decifions. I now see how fatally I betrayed my quiet, by fuffering chimeras to prey upon me in fecret; but melancholy fhrinks from communication, and I never found a man before, to whom I could impart my troubles, though I had been certain of relief. I rejoice to find my own fentiments confirmed by yours, who are not eafily deceived, and can have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope that time and variety will diffipate the gloom that has fo long furrounded me, and the latter part of my days will be spent in peace."

"Your learning and virtue, faid Imlac, may justly give you hopes."

Raffelas then entered with the princefs and Pekuah, and inquired, whether they had contrived any new diverfion for the next day?

Such, faid Ne

kayah,

kayah, is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next with is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me fee fomething to-morrow which I never faw before."

Variety, faid Raffelas, is so necessary to content, that even the happy valley difgufted me by the recurrence of its luxuries; yet I could not forbear to reproach myself with impatience, when I faw the monks of St. Anthony fupport, without complaint, a life, not of uniform delight, but uniform hardship."

"Those men, anfwered Imlac, are lefs wretched in their filent convent than the Abiffinian princes in their prifon of pleasure. Whatever is done by the monks is incited by an adequate and reasonable motive. Their labour supplies them with neceffaries; it therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. Their devotion prepares them for another ftate, and reminds them of its approach, while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly diftributed; one duty fucceeds another, fo that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor loft in the shades of liftless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour; and their toils are cheerful, because they confider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advancing towards endless felicity."

"Do you think, faid Nekayah, that the monaftick rule is a more holy and lefs imperfect ftate than any other? May not he equally hope for future happiness who converfes openly with mankind, who fuccours

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