they thought moft likely to make them happy." "Very few, faid the poet, live by choice. Every man is placed in his prefent condition by causes which acted without his forefight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate ; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbour better than his own." "I am pleafed to think, faid the prince, that my birth has given me at least one advantage over others, by enabling me to determine for myself. I have here the world before me; I will review it at leifure: furely happiness is fomewhere to be found." CHAP. THE PRINCE ASSOCIATES WITH YOUNG MEN OF SPIRIT AND GAIETY. RASSELAS rofe next day, and re folved to begin his experiments upon life. "Youth, cried he, is the time of glad nefs I will join myself to the young men, whofe only business is to gratify their defires, and whofe time is all fpent in a fucceffion of enjoyments." To fuch focieties he was readily admitted, but a few days brought him back weary and disgufted. Their mirth was without images, their laughter without motive; their pleasures were grofs and fenfual, in which the mind. had no part; their conduct was at once wild and mean; they laughed at order and at law, but the frown of power G 2 dejected, " dejected, and the eye of wisdom abashed them. that The prince foon concluded, he fhould never be happy in a course of life of which he was afhamed. He thought it unfuitable to a reasonable being to act without a plan, and to be fad or cheerful only by chance. "Happiness, faid he, must be something folid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty." But his young companions had gained fo much of his regard by their frankness and courtesy, that he could not leave them without warning and remonftrance. "My friends, faid he, I have seriously confidered our manners and our profpects, and find that we have mistaken our own intereft. The firft years of man muft make provifion for the laft. He that never thinks never can be wife. Perpetual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life fhort fhort or miferable. Let us confider that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy fhall ceafe, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we fhall have no comforts but the efteem of wife men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore, ftop, while to ftop is in our power let us live as men who are fome time to grow old, and to whom it will be the moft dreadful of all evils not to count their past years but by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the maladies which riot has produced.' ce at They ftared a while in filenMone upon another, and laft drove him away by a general chorus of continued laugh ter. G 3 The |