that I could gaze round for ever without fatiety; but, in a short time, I grew weary of looking on barren uniformity, where I could only fee again what I had already feen. I then defcended into the ship, and doubted for a while whether all my future pleasures would not end like this, in difguft and difappointment. Yet, furely, faid I, the ocean and the land are very different; the only variety of water is reft and motion, but the earth has mountains and vallies, deserts and cities: it is inhabited by men of different customs and contrary opinions; and I may hope to find variety in life, though I fhould mifs it in nature.

"With this thought I quieted my mind, and amused myself during the voyage, fometimes by learning from the failors the art of navigation, which I have never practifed, and fometimes by forming fchemes for my conduct in different fituations, in not one of which I have been ever placed.

"I was almoft weary of my naval amufements when we landed fafely at Surat. I fecured my money, and purchafing fome commodities for fhow, joined myself to a caravan that was paffing into the inland country. My companions, for fome reafon or other, conjecturing that I was rich, and, by my enquiries and admiration, finding that I was ignorant, confidered me as a novice whom they had a right to cheat, and who was to learn at the ufual expence the art of fraud. They exposed me to the theft of fervants, and the exaction of officers, and faw me plundered upon falfe pretences, without any advantage to themselves, but

that

that of rejoicing in the fuperiority of their own. knowledge."

Stop a moment, faid the prince. Is there fuch depravity in man, as that he should injure another without benefit to himself? I can eafily conceive that all are pleased with fuperiority; but your ignorance was merely accidental, which being neither your crime nor your folly, could afford them no reason to applaud themselves; and the knowledge which they had, and which you wanted, they might as effectually have fhewn by warning, as betraying you."

"Pride, faid Imlac, is feldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the mifery of others. They were my enemies, because they grieved to think me rich; and my oppreffors, because they delighted to find me weak.”

"Proceed, faid the prince: I doubt not of the facts which you relate, but imagine that you impute them to mistaken motives."

"In this company, faid Imlac, I arrived at Agra, the capital of Indoftan, the city in which the great Mogul commonly refides. I applied myself to the language of the country, and in a few months was able to converfe with the learned men; fome of whom I found morofe and referved, and others eafy and communicative; fome were unwilling to teach another what they had with difficulty learned themselves; and fome fhewed that the end of their ftudies was to gain the dignity of instructing.

"To

"To the tutor of the young princes I recom-` mended myself so much, that I was prefented to the emperour as a man of uncommon knowledge. The emperour asked me many questions concerning my country and my travels; and though I cannot now recollect any thing that he uttered above the power of a common man, he difmiffed me aftonished at his wisdom, and enamoured of his goodness.

"My credit was now fo high, that the merchants, with whom I had travelled, applied to me for recommendations to the ladies of the Court. I was surprised at their confidence of folicitation, and gently reproached them with their practices on the road. They heard me with cold indifference, and fhewed no tokens of fhame or forrow.

"They then urged their request with the offer of a bribe; but what I would not do for kindness, I would not do for money; and refused them, not because they had injured me, but because I would not enable them to injure others; for I knew they would have made ufe of my credit to cheat those who should buy their wares.

"Having refided at Agra till there was no more to be learned, I travelled into Perfia, where I saw many remains of ancient magnificence, and observed many new accommodations of life. The Perfians are a nation eminently focial, and their affemblies afforded me daily opportunities of remarking characters and manners, and of tracing human nature through all its variations.

"From Perfia I paffed into Arabia, where I faw a nation at once paftoral and warlike; who live

without

without any fettled habitation; whofe only wealth is their flocks and herds; and who have yet carried on, through all ages, an hereditary war with all mankind, though they neither covet nor envy their poffeffions.

CHAP. X.

IMLAC'S HISTORY CONTINUED.

WH

UPON POETRY.

A DISSERTATION

THEREVER I went, I found that poetry\ was confidered as the higheft learning, and regarded with a veneration fomewhat approaching to that which man would pay to the Angelick Nature. And yet it fills me with wonder, that, in almost all countries, the most ancient poets are confidered as the beft: whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an acquifition gradually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation furprised them as a novelty, and retained the credit by confent which it received by accident at firft: or whether, as the province of poetry is to defcribe Nature and Paffion, which are always the fame, the first writers took poffeffion of the most striking objects for defcription, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to thofe that followed. them, but tranfcription of the fame events, and new combinations of the fame images. Whatever be the reason, it is commonly obferved that the early writers are in poffeffion of nature, and their followers of art: that the first excel in ftrength and invention,

2

invention, and the latter in elegance and refine

ment.

"I was defirous to add my name to this illustrious fraternity. I read all the poets of Perfia and Arabia, and was able to repeat by memory the vơHumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I foon found that no man was ever great by imitation. My defire of excellence impelled me to transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was to be my fubject, and men to be my auditors: I could never defcribe what I had not feen: I could not hope to move thofe with delight or terrour, whofe interefts and opinions I did not understand.

"Being now refolved to be a poet, I faw every thing with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was fuddenly magnified: no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deferts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the foreft and flower of the valley. I obferved with equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the rivulet, and fometimes watched the changes of the fummer clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination: he must be converfant with all that is awfully vaft or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral or religious truth; and he, who knows