CHA P. I I. THE DISCONTENT OF RAS- HERE VALLEY. LERE the fons and daughters of Abisfinia lived only to know the foft viciffitudes of pleasure and repofe, attended by all that were skilful to delight, and gratified with whatever the fenfes can enjoy. They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and flept in the fortreffes of fecurity. Every art was practifed to make them pleafed with their own condition. The fages who inftructed them, told them of nothing but the miseries of publick life, and defcribed all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where difcord was always raging, and where man preyed upon man. To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were daily entertained with songs, the fubject of which was the the happy valley. Their appetites were excited by frequent enuinerations of different enjoyments, and revelry and merriment was the business of every hour from the dawn of morning to the clofe of even. Thefe methods were generally fuccessful; few of the princes had ever wifhed to enlarge their bounds, but paffed their lives in full conviction that they had all within their reach that art or nature could bestow, and pitied those whom fate had excluded from this feat of tranquillity, as the sport of chance and the flaves of mifery. Thus they rofe in the morning and lay down at night, pleased with each other and with themselves, all but Raf felas, who in the twenty-fixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from their paftimes and affemblies, and to delight in folitary walks and filent meA S dita ditation. He often fat before tables covered with luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before him: he rofe abruptly in the midst of the song, and haftily retired beyond the sound of mufick. His attendants obferved the : change, and endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure he neglected their officioufnefs, repulfed their invitations, and spent day after day on the banks of rivulets fheltered with trees, where he fometimes liftened to the birds in the branches, fometimes obferved the fifh playing in the stream, and anon caft his eyes upon the paftures and mountains filled with animals, of which fome were biting the herbage, and fome fleeping among the bushes. This fingularity of his humour made him much observed. One of the Sages, in whofe converfation he had formerly delighted, followed him fecretly, in hope of discovering the cause of his dif quiet. Raffelas, who knew not that any any one was near him, having for fome time fixed his eyes upon the goats that were broufing among the rocks, began to compare their condition with his own. "What," faid he, "makes the difference between man and all the reft of the animal creation? Every beast that ftrays befide me has the fame corporal neceffities with myfelf; he is hungry and crops the grafs, he is thirfty and drinks the ftream, his thirft and hunger are appeafed, he is fatisfied and fleeps; he rifes again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at reft. I am hungry and thirfty like him, but when thirst and hunger ceafe I am not at reft; I am, like him, pained with want, but am not, like him, fatisfied with fulness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloo-. -my; I long again to be hungry that I may again quicken my attention. The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fly fly away to the groves where they fitin feeming happiness on the branches, and wafte their lives in tuning one unvaried feries of founds. I likewife can call the lutanist and the finger, but the founds. that pleased me yesterday weary me to-day, and will grow yet more wearifome to-morrow. I can difcover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet T do not feel myfelf delighted. Man furely has fome latent fenfe for which this place affords no gratification, or he has fome defires diftinct from fenfe which muft be fatisfied before he can be happy." After this he lifted up his head, and feeing the moon rifing, walked towards the palace. As he paffed through the fields, and faw the animals around him, "Ye, faid he, are happy, and need not envy me that walk thus among you, burdened with myfelf; nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your felicity; for |