tudes by long cohabitation, as foft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their furfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased with their children, and thofe 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, answered the princess, 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.' Those conditions, which flatter hope and attract defire, are so conftituted, that, as

we

we approach one, we recede from another. There are goods fo opposed that we cannot feize both, but, by too much prudence, may pafs between them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long confider ation ; he does nothing who endeavours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the bleffings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is de-, lighting 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."

С НА Р. XXXIX.

IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.

ERE Imlac entered, and inter

HERE

rupted them. "Imlac, faid Raffelas, I have been taking from the princefs the difmal hiftory of private life, and am almost difcouraged from further fearch."

"It seems 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 wifdom of its inhabitants; a country where the sci

ences

ences first 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 monuments of industry and power, before which all European magnificence is confeffed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are the schools of modern builders, and from the wonders which time has fpared we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has deftroyed."

"My curiofity, faid Raffelas, does not very strongly lead me to furvey piles of stone, or mounds of earth; my business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments of tem-ples, or trace choaked aqueducts, but to look upon the various scenes of the present world."

<< The

"The things that are now before us, faid the princefs, 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

"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 moft powerful motives of action. 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 almost all our moments.

Our