were fometimes nevertheless the fources of uneafinefs and inquietude: that the perfection of our intellectual faculties, often leads to difcover defects, which pain us in the observation: that the delicacy of our moral principles often fubjects us to inconveniencès, to which lefs fufceptible difpofitions are ftrangers. He might have obferved to the Prince, that let his conduct in the choice of wife and friends be ever fo wife, yet nevertheless his fcheme of pleasure might be liable to interruption, from the lofs or diftrefs of thofe friends; and ftill much more fubject to be disturbed by any difafter affecting those more intimate and dear connexions of wife and children: that these accidents, not to mention the fhock of feparation, might imbitter many days with forrow. But Imlac, however, is fuffered to purfue his narration, without any comment on the Prince's vifionary scheme of bliss.

At length the Prince, with the affiftance of Imlac, makes his escape with him from the Happy Valley, together likewife with his fifter, and her favourite maid. Having pafled through a diverfity of scenes, and observed a variety of characters, the Prince at laft meets with a wife and happy man.

As he was one day walking in the ftreet, he faw a fpacious building, which all were, by the open doors, invited to enter: he followed the stream of people, and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which profeffors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a fage raifed above the reft, who difcourfed with great energy on the government of the paffions. His look was venerable, his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He fhewed, with great strength of fentiment, and variety of illuftration, that human nature is degraded and debafed, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of paffion, ufurps the dominion of the mind, nothing enfues but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation, and confufion; that she betrays the fortreffes of the intellect to rebels, and excites her children to fedition against reafon, their lawful fovereign. He compared reafon to the fun, of which the light is conftant, uniform, and lafting; and fancy to a meteor, of bright but tranfiluftre, irregular in its motion, and delufive in its direction.

tory

He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time, for the conqueft of paffion, and difplayed the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the flave of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emafculated by tenderness, or depreffed by grief; but walks on calmly. through the tumults, or the privacies of life, as the fun purfues alike his courfe through the calm or the ftormy sky.

• He

He enumerated many examples of heroes immoveable by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on thofe modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay afide their prejudices, and arm themselves against the fhafts of malice or misfortune, by invulnerable patience; concluding, that this ftate only was happinefs, and that this happiness was in every one's power.'

Here the Writer prefents us with an abftract of the Stoical tenets; which, in the event, he turns to ridicule. The Prince, who had obtained leave to vifit his moral lecturer, found him one day inconfolable for the lofs of an only daughter. Raffelas urged to him the precepts which he himself had fo powerfully enforced. "Has Wisdom," faid the Prince, "no strength to arm the heart against calamity? Confider that external things are naturally variable, but truth and reason are always the fame." "What Comfort," faid the mourner, "can truth and reason afford me? Of what effect are they now, but to tell me that my daughter will not be reftored?"

Raffelas, however, was not difgufted with philofophy. He went often to an affembly of learned men, who met at stated times to unbend their minds, and compare their opinions. Their manners were fomewhat coarse, but their conversation was inftructive, and their difputations acute, though fometimes too violent, and often continued till neither controvertift remembered upon what queftion they began. Some faults were almoft general among them: every one was defirous to dictate to the reft, and every one was pleased to hear the genius or knowlege of another depreciated.

In this affembly Raffelas was relating his interview with the hermit, and the wonder with which he heard him cenfure a courfe of life he had fo deliberately chofen, and fo laudably followed. The fentiments of the hearers were various. Some were of opinion, that the folly of his choice had been justly pu nifhed by condemnation to perpetual perfeverance. One of the youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced him an hypocrite. Some talked of the right of fociety to the labour of individuals, and confidered retirement as a defertion of duty. Others readily allowed, that there was a time when the claims of the public were fatisfied, and when a man might properly fequefter himself, to review his life, and purify his heart.

The fame of a hermit had drawn Raffelas to vifit his cave; where he found the fage inhabitant fo weary of retirement, that he forfook it the next day, and returned with the prince, in order to reunite himself to fociety.

The

The learned reader will perceive that, in this extract, the writer has availed himself of the arguments of Tully. But let us attend to the continuation of the debate.

'One who appeared more affected with the narrative than the reft, thought it likely, that the hermit 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 happiness," fays 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 diftance, imagination paints it as defirable. But the time will furely come, when defire will be no longer our torment, and no man shall be wretched but by his own fault."

"This, faid a philofoper, who had heard him with tokens of great impatience, is the prefent 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 happinefs, 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 deftiny; not infilled by education, but infufed 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 reason of things fhall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse themselves with subtle definitions, or intricate ratiocination. Let them learn to be wife by easier means: let them obferve the hind of the forest, and the linnet of the grove let them confider the life of animals, whofe motions are regulated by inftinct; 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 understand, and carry with us this fimple and intelligible maxim, That deviation' from nature is deviation from happiness."

• When he had spoken, he looked round him with a placid air, and enjoyed the confcioufnefs of his own beneficence.

Sir, faid the prince, with great modefty, as I, like all the reft of mankin, am defirous of felicity, my closest attention has been fixed upon your difcourfe: I doubt not the truth of a

The lines in Italics are literally translated from Tully's Definition of the Law of Nature. Ad quam, fays the Roman, non docti jed navi, man injituti fed imbuti fumus.

Rev. May 1759.

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position 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 studies have enabled me to afford. To live according to nature, is to act always with due regard to the fitnefs 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 fhould underftand lefs as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was filent, and the philofopher, fuppofing him fatiffied, and the reft vanquished, rofe up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the prefent fyftem.'

In the character of this fage, the writer intends to expose the abfurdity of the Epicurean doctrine: and it must be confeffed, that he has taken an ingenious way of fhewing its futility, by making the philofopher found a fyftem of happiness upon a maxin which he is incapable of explaining intelligibly.

Raffelas was full of perplexities, and ftill continued doubtful concerning the way to happinefs. At length, his fifter and he agreed to divide between them the work of obfervation. The prince was to purfue his fearch in the splendour of courts, while the ranged through the fccnes of humbler life.

When they met, they compared their remarks, and each found the other unfuccefsful in the purfuit. Among other evils which infeft private life, the princeis Nekayah inftances marriage: Some hufbands, fays the, are imperious, and fome wives perverfe: and, as it is always more cafy to do evil than good, though the wildom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one may often make many miferable.'

If fuch be the general effect of marriage, faid the prince, I fhall, for the future, think it dangerous to connect my intereft with that of another, left I fhould be unhappy by my partner's fault."

I have met, faid the princefs, with many who live fingle for that reafon; but I never found that their prudence ought to raife envy. They dream away their time without friendship, without fondnefs, and are driven to rid themselves of the day, for which they have no ufe, by childish amusements, or vicious delights. They act as beings under the conftant fenfe of fome known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancour, and their tongues with cenfure. They are pecvifh at home, and malevolent abroad; and, as the out-laws of human nature, make it

their

their business and their pleafure to difturb that fociety which de bars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or ex citing fympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tafting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than folitude: it is not retreat but exclufion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleafures.'

This extravagant declamation may entertain thofe who have read little and thought lefs, but to others it will probably appear trite, inconclufive, and fallacious. When the writer tells us, that marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleafures,' we must confefs, that the antithefis is ftriking; but is the oppofition juft? If the author is a married man, we smile at his miftake; if he is fingle, and writes from his own feelings, we commiferate his condition.

After a pause in the converfation, Raffelas, whofe remarks on the condition of high life are but flender and imperfect, obferves, that quiet is not the daughter of grandeur. The higheft ftations, fays he, cannot hope to be the abodes of happiness, which I would willingly believe to have fled from thrones and palaces to feats of humble privacy and placid obfcurity. For what can hinder the fatisfaction, or intercept the expectations, of him whose abilities are adequate to his employments, who fees with his own eyes the whole circuit of his influence, who chooses by his own knowledge all whom he trufts, and whom none are tempted to deceive by hope or fear? Surely he has nothing to do but to love and to be loved, to be virtuous and to be happy.'

Whether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect goodness, faid Nekayah, this world will never afford an opportunity of deciding. But this, at leaft, may be maintained, that we do not always find vifible happinefs in proportion to vifible virtue. All natural and almost all political evils, are incident alike to the bad and good: they are confounded in the mifery of a famine, and not much diftinguifhed in the fury of a faction; they fink together in a tempeft, and are driven together from their country by invaders. All that virtue can afford is quietnefs of conscience, a fteady profpect of a happier ftate; this may enable us to endure calamity with patience; but remember that patience muft fuppofe pain.'

How unnaturally is this debate fupported? The prince, with all the fimplicity of a credulous virgin, fondly imagines that people in humble ftation have nothing to do but to love and to be loved, to be virtuous and to be happy,' while the princess opposes his delufion with bold, manly, and mafterly fentiments,

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