ther, and wisdom furely directs us to take the least evil in the choice of life."

"The caufes of good and evil, an-' swered Imlac, are fo various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, fo diverfified by various relations, and fo much fubject to accidents which cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his condition upon incontestable reasons of preference, must live and die inquiring and deliberating."

"But furely, faid Raffelas, the wise men, to whom we liften with reverence and wonder, chofe that mode of life for themselves which they thought moft likely to make them happy."

VOL. I.

I

" Very

pre

"Very few, faid the poet, live by choice. Every man is placed in his fent 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 pleased 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 somewhere to be found."

CHAP.

CHA P. XVII.

The prince affociates with young men of spirit and gaiety.

R

life.

ASSELAS rose next day, and refolved to begin his experiments upon "Youth, cried he, is the time of gladness: I will join myfelf to the young men, whofe only bufinefs is to gratify their defires, and whofe time is all spent in a fucceffion of enjoyments."

To fuch focieties he was readily admitted, but a few days brought him back weary and difgufted. Their mirth was without images, their laughter with

out motive; their pleafures 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 dejected, and the eye of wisdom abashed them.

The prince foon concluded, that he should 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 chearful only by chance. Happiness, said

66

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 with

Perpe

without warning and remonftrance. "My friends, faid he, I have feriously confi. dered our manners and our profpects, and find that we have mistaken our own interest. The first years of man must make provifion for the laft. He that never thinks never can be wife. tual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short 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 shall have no comforts but the efteem of wife men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore, stop, while to ftop is in our power: let us live as men who are fometime to grow old, and to whom it will