Occafions, whether fmall or great, with all the reafons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the minute detail of a domeftick day.

"Those who marry at an advanced age, will probably escape the encroachments of their children; but, in diminution of this advantage, they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian's mercy: or, if that fhould not happen, they must at leaft go out of the world before they fee thofe whom they love beft either wife or great.

"From their children, if they have lefs to fear, they have lefs alfo to hope, and they lofe, without equivalent, the joys of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impreffions, which might wear away their diffimilitudes by long cohabitation, as foft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their furfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found that thofe who marry late are beft pleafed with their children, and those who marry early with their partners."

"The union of these two affections, faid Raffelas, would produce all that could be wifhed. Perhaps there is a time when marriage might unite them, a time neither too early for the father, nor too late for the hufband."

"Every hour, anfwered the princefs, confirms my prejudice in favour of the position so often uttered by the mouth of Imlac, That nature fets her gifts on the right hand and on the left.' Thofe conditions, which flatter hope and attract defire, are fo conftiG 2

tuted,

tuted, that, as we approach one, we recede from another. There are goods fo opposed that we cannot feize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long confideration; he does nothing who endeavours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleafure. Of the bleffings fet before you make your choice, and be content. No man can tafte the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his fcent with the flowers of the fpring: no man can, at the fame time, fill his cup from the fource and from the mouth of the Nile."

CHA P. XXXIX.

IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.

HERE Imlac entered, and interrupted them. "Imlac, faid Raffelas, I have been taking from the princess the dismal hiftory of private life, and am almoft difcouraged from further fearch."

"It feems to me, faid Imlac, that while you are making the choice of life, you neglect to live. You wander about a fingle city, which, however large and diverfified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a country, famous among the earliest monarchies for the power and wisdom of its inhabitants; a country where the fciences firft dawned that illuminate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil fociety or domestick life.

"The old Egyptians have left behind them mo numents of industry and power, before which all

European

European magnificence is confeffed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are the fchools of modern builders, and from the wonders which time has fpared we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has destroyed."

My curiofity, faid Raffelas, does not very ftrongly lead me to furvey piles of ftone, or mounds of earth; my business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments of temples, or trace choaked aqueducts, but to look upon the various fcenes of the prefent world."

"The things that are now before us, faid the princess, require attention, and deferve it. What have I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient times? with times which never can return, and heroes, whofe form of life was different from all that the prefent condition of mankind requires or allows ?"

"To know any thing, returned the poet, we must know its effects; to fee men we must fee their works, that we may learn what reafon has dictated, or paffion has incited, and find what are the most powerful motives of action. To judge rightly of the prefent we must oppose it to the paft; for all judgment is comparative, and of the future nothing can be known. The truth is, that no mind. is much employed upon the prefent: recollection and anticipation fill up almoft all our moments. Our paffions are joy and grief, love and hatred, hope and fear. Of joy and grief the past is the object, and the future of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the paft, for the cause must have been before the effect.

"The prefent ftate of things is the confequence of the former, and it is natural to inquire what were the fources of the good that we enjoy, or the evil that we fuffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the ftudy of history is not prudent: if we are intrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may properly be charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.

"There is no part of history so generally useful as that which relates the progrefs of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reafon, the fucceffive advances of science, the viciffitudes of learning and ignorance which are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the extinction and refufcitation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invafions are peculiarly the business of princes, the ufeful or elegant arts are not to be neglected; thofe who have kingdoms to govern, have underftandings to cultivate.

"Example is always more efficacious than precept. A foldier is formed in war, and a painter muft copy pictures. In this, contemplative life has the advantage: great actions are feldom feen, but the labours of art are always at hand for those who defire to know what art has been able to perform.

"When the eye or the imagination is ftruck with any uncommon work, the next tranfition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed. Here begins the true ufe of fuch contemplation; we enlarge our comprehenfion by new ideas, and perhaps recover fome art loft to mankind, or learn what is lefs perfectly known in our

Own

own country.

At least we compare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our improvements, or, what is the first motion towards good, difcover our defects."

"I am willing, faid the prince, to see all that can deserve my fearch." "And I, faid the princefs, fhall rejoice to learn fomething of the manners of antiquity."

"The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness, and one of the most bulky works of manual industry, faid Imlac, are the Pyramids; fabricks raised before the time of hiftory, and of which the earliest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. Of these the greatest is still standing very little injured by time."

"Let us vifit them to-morrow, faid Nekayah. I have often heard of the Pyramids, and shall not reft, till I have feen them within and without with my own eyes."

THE

THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS.

HE refolution being thus taken, they fet out the next day. They laid tents upon their camels, being refolved to stay among the Pyramids till their curiofity was fully fatisfied. They travelled gent.y, turned afide to every thing remarkable, ftopped from time to time and converfed with the inhabitants, and obferved the various appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated nature.