and fat two hours in profound meditation, without perufing the paper which he held in his hand. He then retired to his own chamber, as overborne with affliction, and there read the inventory of his new poffeffions, which fwelled his heart with fuch tranfports, that he no longer lamented his father's death. He was now fufficiently compofed to order a funeral of modeft magnificence, fuitable at once to the rank of Nouradin's profeffion, and the reputation of his wealth. The two next nights he spent iu vifiting the tower and the caverns, and found the treasures greater to his eye than to his imagination.

Almamoulin had been bred to the practice of exact frugality, and had of fen looked with envy on the finery and expences of other young men: he therefore believed, that happiness was now in his power, fince he could obtain all of which he had hitherto been accustomed to regret the want. He refolved to give a loose to his defires, to revel in enjoyment, and feel pain or uneafiness no

more..

He immediately procured a fplendid equipage, dreffed his fervants in rich embroidery, and covered his horfes with golden caparifons. He showered down filver on the populace, and fuffered their acclamations to fwell him with infolence. The nobles faw him with anger, the wife men of the ftate combined against him, the leaders of armies threatened his deftruction. Almamoulin was informed of his danger: he put on the robe of mourning in the prefence of his enemies, and appeafed them with gold, and gems, and fupplication.

He then fought to strengthen himself by an alliance with the princes of Tartary, and offered the price of kingdoms for a wife of noble birth. His fuit was generally rejected, and his prefents refufed; but a princefs of Aftracan once condefcended to admit him to her prefence. She received him fitting on a throne, attired in the robe of royalty, and fhining with the jewels of Golconda; command sparkled in her eyes, and dignity towered on her forehead. Almamoulin approached and trembled. She faw his confufion, and difdained him: How,' fays fhe, dares the wretch hope my obedience, who thus fhrinks at my glance? Retire, and enjoy thy riches in fordid oftentation;

⚫ thou waft born to be wealthy, but never can't be great.'

He then contracted his defires to mere private and domeftick pleasures. He built palaces, he laid out gardens, he changed the face of the land, he tranfplanted forefts, he levelled mountains, opened profpects into diftant regions, poured fountains from the top of turrets, and rolled rivers through new channels.

Thefe amusements pleafed him for a time; but languor and weariness foon invaded him. His bowers loft their fragrance, and the waters murmured without notice. He purchased large tracts of land in diftant provinces, adorned them with houses of pleasure, and diverfified them with accommodations for different feafons. Change of place at first relieved his fatiety, but all the novelties of fituation were foon, exhaufted; he found his heart vacant, and his defires, for want of external objects, ravaging himself.

He therefore returned to Samarcand, and fet open his doors to thofe whom idlenefs fends out in fearch of pleasure. His tables were always covered with delicacies; wines of every vintage sparkled in his bowls, and his lamps fcattered perfumes. The found of the lute, and the voice of the finger, chafed away fadnefs; every hour was crowded with pleafure; and the day ended and began with feafts and dances, and revelry and merriment. Almamoulin cried out I have

o old to be much pained by hafty cenfure, I fhall not be afraid of taking into protection those whom I think condemned without a fufficient knowledge of their caufe.

He that adopts the fentiments of another, whom he has reafon to believe wifer than himself, is only to be blained when he claims the honours which are not due but to the author, and endeavours to deceive the world into praife and veneration, for to learn is the proper bufinefs of youth; and whether we increase our knowledge by books or by converfation, we are equally indebted to foreign affiftance.

The greater part of ftudents are not born with abilities to conftruct fyftems, or advance knowledge; nor can have any hope beyond that of becoming intelligent hearers in the fchools of art, of being able to comprehend what others difcover, and to remember what others teach. Even those to whom Providence hath allotted greater ftrength of understanding, can expect only to improve a fingle fcience. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can feldom add more than fome finall particle of knowledge to the hereditary ftock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thoufand intellects.

In fcience, which, being fixed and limited, admits of no other variety than fuch as arifes from new methods of diftribution, or new arts of illuftration, the neceffity of following the traces of our predeceffors is indifputably evident; but there appears no reafon, why imagination fhould be fubject to the fame reftraint. It might be conceived, that of thofe who profefs to forfake the narrow paths of truth, every one may deviate towards a different point, fince though rectitude is uniform and fixed, obliquity may be infinitely diverfified, The roads of science are narrow, fo that they who travel them muft either follow or meet one another; but in the boundless regions of poffibility, which Fiction claims for her dominion, there are furely a thoufand receffes unexplored, a thoufand flowers unplucked, a thousand fountains unexhausted, combinations of imagery yet unobferved, and races of ideal inhabitants not hitherto described.

Yet, whatever hope may perfuade, or reafon evince, experience can boaft of very few additions to ancient fable. The wars of Troy, and the travels of Ulyffes, have furnished almoft all fucceeding poets with incidents, characters, and fentiments. The Romans are confeffed to have attempted little more than to display in their own tongue the inventions of the Greeks. There is, in all their writings, fuch a perpetual recurrence of allufions to the tales of the fabulous age, that they must be confeffed often to want that power of giving pleafure which novelty fupplies; nor can we wonder that they excelled fo much in the graces of diction, when we consider how rarely they were employed in search of new thoughts.

The warmeft admirers of the great Mantuan poet can extol him for little more than the skill with which he has, by making his hero both a traveller and a warrior, united the beauties of the Iliad and the Odyffey in one compofition: yet his judgment was perhaps fometimes overborne by his avarice of the Homeric treatures; and, for fear of fuffering a sparkling ornament to be loft, he has inferted it where, it cannot fhine with it's original fplendor,

When Ulyffes vifited the infernal re gions, he found, among the heroes that perished at Troy, his competitor Ajax, who, when the arms of Achilles were adjudged to Ulyffes, died by his own hand in the madness of disappointment. He ftill appeared to refent, as on earth, his lofs and difgrace. Ulyffes endeavoured to pacify him with praifes and fubmiflion; but Ajax walked away without reply. This paffage has always been confidered as eminently beautiful; becaufe Ajax, the haughty chief, the unlettered foldier, of unfhaken courage, of immoveable conftancy, but without the power of recommending his own virtues by eloquence, or enforcing his affertions by any other argument than the word, had no way of making his anger known but by gloomy fullennefs and dumb ferocity. His hatred of a man whom he conceived to have defeated him only by volubility of tongue, was therefore naturally fhewn by filence more contemptuous and piercing than any words that fo rude an orator could have found, and by which he gave his enemy no opportunity of exerting the only power in which he was fuperior.

When

When Æneas is fent by Virgil to the fhades, he meets Dido the queen of Carthage, whom his perfidy had hurried to the grave; he accofts her with tenderness and excules; but the lady turns away like Ajax in mute difdain. She turns away like Ajax; but the resembles him in none of those qualities which gave either dignity or propriety to filence. She might, without any departure from the tenor of her conduct, have burft out like other injured women into clamour, reproach, and denunciation; but Virgil had his imagination full of Ajax, and therefore could not prevail on himfelf to teach Dido any other mode of refentment.

If Virgil could be thus feduced by imitation, there will be little hope that common wits fhould efcape; and accordingly we find, that befides the univerfal and acknowledged practice of copying the ancients, there has prevailed in every age a particular fpecies of fiction. At one time all truth was conveyed in allegory; at another, nothing was feen but in a vifion; at one period all the poets followed fheep, and every event produced a paftoral; at another they bufied themselves wholly in giving directions to a painter.

It is indeed eafy to conceive why any fashion fhould become popular, by which idlenefs is favoured, and imbecility affifted; but furely no man of genius can much applaud himself for repeating a tale with which the audience is already tired, and which could bring no honour to any but it's inventor.

There are, I think, two fchemes of writing, on which the laborious wits of the prefent time employ their faculties. One is the adaptation of fenfe to all the rhymes which our language can fupply to fome word, that makes the burden of the ftanza; but this, as it has been only ufed in a kind of amorous burlesque, can scarcely be cenfured with much acrimony. The other is the imitation of Spenfer, which, by the influence of fome men of learning and genius, feems likely to gain upon the age, and therefore deferves to be more attentively confidered.

To imitate the fictions and fenti ments of Spenfer can incur no reproach, for allegory is perhaps one of the most pleafing vehicles of inftruction. But I am very far from extending the fame refpect to his diction or his ftanza. His style was in his own time allowed to be vicious, so darkened with old words and peculiarities of phrafe, and fo remote from common ufe, that Johnson boldly pronounces him to have written no language. His ftanza is at once difficult and unpleafing; tirefome to the ear by it's uniformity, and to the attention by it's length. It was at firft formed in imitation of the Italian poets, without due regard to the genius of our language. The Italians have little variety of termination, and were forced to contrive such a stanza as might admit the greateft number of fimilar rhymes; but our words end with fo much diverfity, that it is feldom convenient for us to bring more than two of the fame found together. If it be justly obferved by Milton, that rhyme obliges poets to exprefs their thoughts in improper terms, thefe improprieties must always be multiplied, as the difficulty of rhyme is increafed by long concatenations.

The imitators of Spenfer are indeed not very rigid cenfors of themselves, for they feem to conclude, that when they have disfigured their lines with a few obfolete fyllables, they have accomplished their defign, without confidering that they ought not only to admit old words, but to avoid new. The laws of imitation are broken by every word introduced fince the time of Spenfer, as the character of Hector is violated by quoting Ariftotle in the play. It would indeed be difficult to exclude from a long poem all modern phrafes, though it is eafy to sprinkle it with gleanings of antiquity. Perhaps, however, the style of Spenfer might by long labour be juftly copied; but life is furely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wifely thrown away, and to learn what is of no value, but because it has been forgotten.

No CXXII,