for truft, benevolence, experience, and fortitude. I have long difcharged an office which I must foon quit at the call of nature, and shall rejoice in the hour of imbecility and pain to devolve it upon thee."

"I thought myself honoured by this teftimony, and protefted, that whatever could conduce to his happiness would add likewife to mine."

"Hear Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have poffeffed for five years the regulation of weather, and the diftribution of the feafons: the fun has liftened to my dictates, and paffed from tropick to tropick by my direction; the clouds, at my call, have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my command; I have restrained the rage of the dog

ftar,

ftar, and mitigated the fervours of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have perifhed by equinoctial tempefts, which I found myself unable to prohibit or reftrain. I have administered this great office with exact juftice, and made to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and funfhine. What must have been the misery of half the globe, if I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the fun to either fide of the equator?"

CHAP. XLII.

THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS

'I

EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED.

SUPPOSE he discovered in me, through the obscurity of the room, fome tokens of amazement and doubt, for, after a fhort paufe, he proceeded thus:

"Not to be eafily credited will neither furprife nor offend me; for I am, probably, the first of human beings to whom this truft has been imparted. Nor do I know whether to deem this diftinction a reward or punishment; fince I have poffeffed it I have been far lefs happy than before, and nothing but the confcioufnefs of good intention could have enabled me to fupport the weariness of unremitted vigilance.".

"How

"How long, Sir," faid I, "has this great office been in your hands?"

"About ten years ago," faid he, "my daily observations of the changes of the sky led me to confider, whether, if I had the power of the feafons, I could confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the earth. This contemplation fastened on my mind, and I fat days and nights in imaginary dominion, pouring upon this country and that the fhowers of fertility, and feconding every fall of rain with a due proportion of funshine. I had yet only the will to do good, and did not imagine that I should ever have the power.

"One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in my mind a fudden wish that I could fend rain on the fouthern mountains, and raife the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I command

ed

ed rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with that of the inundation, I found that the clouds had liftened to my lips."

"Might not fome other caufe," said I, produce this concurrence? the Nile does not always rife on the fame day."

I

"Do not believe," faid he with impatience, that fuch objections could escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboured against truth with the utmoft obftinacy. fometimes fufpected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart this fecret but to a man like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impoffible, and the incredible from the falfe."

"Why, Sir," said I," do you call that incredible, which you know, or think you know, to be true?"

"Because,"