hear the wisdom of his lips, and thank him for all the happiness to which he has introduced me.

The wretch whom fortune has made my master, has lately purchased several slaves of both sexes: among the rest I hear a christian captive talked of with admiration. The eunuch who bought her, and who is accustomed to survey beauty with indifference, speaks of her with emotion! her pride, however, astonishes her attendant slaves not less than her beauty. It is reported that she refuses the warmest solicitations of her haughty lord: he has even offered to make her one of his four wives upon changing her religion, and conforming to his. It is probable she cannot refuse such extraordinary offers, and her delay is perhaps intended to enhance her favours.

I have just now seen her; she inadvertently approached the place without a veil, where I sat writing. She seemed to regard the heavens alone with fixed attention: there her most ardent gaze was directed. Genius of the sun! what unexpected softness! what animated grace! her beauty seemed the transparent covering of virtue. Celestial beings could not wear a look of more perfection, while sorrow humanized her form, and mixed my admiration with pity. I rose from the bank on which I sat, and she retired; happy that none observed us; for such an interview might have been fatal.

I have regarded, till now, the opulence and the power of my tyrant, without envy; I saw him with a mind incapable of enjoying the gift of fortune, and consequently regarded him as one loaded, rather than enriched, with its favours; but at present, when I think that so much beauty is reserved only for him; that so many charins should be lavished on a wretch incapable of feeling the greatness of the blessing, I own, I feel a reluctance to which I have hitherto been a stranger. el lade i rod

But

But let not my father impute those uneasy sensations to so trifling a cause as love. No, never let it be thought that your son, and the pupil of the wise Fum Hoam, could stoop to so degrading a passion, I am only displeased at seeing so much excellence so unjustly disposed of.

The uneasiness which I feel is not for myself, but for the beautiful christian. When I reflect on the barbarity of him for whom she is designed, I pity, indeed I pity her when I think that she must only share one heart, who deserves to command a thousand; excuse me, if I feel an emotion, which universal benevolence extorts from me. As I am convinced that you take a pleasure in those sallies of humanity, and are particularly pleased with compassion, I could not avoid discovering the sensibility with which I felt this beautiful stranger's distress. I have for a while forgot, in her's, the miseries of my own hopeless situation: the tyrant grows every day more severe; and love, which softens all other minds into tenderness, seems only to have increased his severity. Adieu.

LETTER XXXV.

TO THE SAME.

THE whole Haram is filled with a tumultuous joy; Zelis, the beautiful captive, has consented to embrace the religion of Mahomet, and become one of the wives of the fastidious Persian. It is impossible to describe the transport that sits on every face on this occasion. Music and feasting fill every apartment,

apartment, the most miser le slave seems to forget ns chairs, and svrirathizes with the happiness of Mostanau. The ern ve read beneath our feet is net tage Bur rair use, than every slave around him for their minero is master: mere machines of ked pea they walk viti shent assiduity, feel his mans, trú repen a : sexuitation. Heavens! how ase one man happy!

I vove of "; most beami siaves, and I among the number, have a quers to prepare for carrying hri a rau, i to (2e bruai apartment. The blaze cu terenes are to mitate the day: the dancersane singers are hired at a vast expence. The ***ppe sure to be cicated on the approaching feast of Berbeura, wenn unered taeis in gold are to Te scienten among the barren wives, in order to pray for ichiny tren the approaching union.

What will not rietes procure! an hundred domestics, who curse the tyrant in their souls, are commanded to wear a face of joy, and they are joyful.

An hundred fatturers are ordered to attend, and they ni his ears with praise. Beauty, all commanding beauty, sues for admittance, and scarcely receives an answer: even love itself seems to wait upon fortune, or though the passion be only feigned, yet it wears every appearance of sincerity; and what greater pleasure can even true sincerity confer, or what would the rich have more.

Nothing can exceed the intended magnificence of the bridegroom, but the costly dresses of the bride; S'x eunuchs in the most sumptucus habits are to conduct him to the nuptial couch, and wait his orders. S、 ladies, in all the magnificence of Persia, are diected to undress the bride. Their business is to ssist to encourage her, to divest her of every enbering part of her dress, all but the last coverwhich, by an artful complication of ribbons,

is

is purposely made difficult to unloose, and with which she is to part reluctantly even to the joyful possessor of her beauty.

Mostadad, O my father, is no philosopher; and yet he seems perfectly contented with ignorance. Possessed of numberless slaves, camels, and women, he desires no greater possession. He never opened the page of Mentius, and yet all the slaves tell me that he is happy.

Forgive the weakness of my nature, if I sometimes feel my heart rebellious to the dictates of wisdom, and eager for happiness like his. Yet why wish for his wealth with his ignorance; to be like him, incapable of sentimental pleasures, incapable of feeling the happiness of making others happy incapable of teaching the beautiful Zelis philosophy.

What, shall I in a transport of passion give up the golden mean, the universal harmony, the unchanging essence, for the possession of an hundred camels; as many slaves, thirty-five beautiful horses, and seventy-three fine women: first blast me to the centre! degrade me beneath the most degraded! pare my nails, ye powers of Heaven! ere I would stoop to such an exchange. What, part with philosophy, which teaches me to suppress my passions instead of gratifying them, which teaches me even to divest my soul of passion, which teaches serenity in the midst of tortures; philosophy, by which even now I am so very serene, and so very much at ease, to be persuaded to part with it for any other enjoyment! Never, never, even though persuasion spoke in the accents of Zelis!

A female slave informs me that the bride is to be arrayed in a tissue of silver, and her hair adorned with the largest pearls of Ormus; but why teaze you with particulars, in which we both are so little concerned; the pain I feel in separation throws a gloom over my mind, which in this scene of uni

versal joy I fear may be attributed to some other cause; how wretched are those who are like me, denied even the last resource of misery, their tears. Adieu.

LETTER XXXVI.

FROM THE SAME.

I BEGIN to have doubts whether wisdom be alone sufficient to make us happy. Whether every step we make in refinement is not an inlet into new disquietudes. A mind too vigorous and active, serves only to consume the body to which it is joined, as the richest jewels are soonest found to wear their settings.

When we rise in knowledge as the prospect widens, the objects of our regard become more obscure, and the unlettered peasant, whose views are only directed to the narrow sphere around him, beholds Nature with a finer relish, and tastes her blessings with a keener appetite, than the philosopher whose mind attempts to grasp an universal system.

As I was some days ago pursuing this subject among a circle of my fellow-slaves, an antient Guebre of the number, equally remarkable for his piety and wisdom, seemed touched with my conversation, and desired to illustrate what I had been saying with an allegory taken from the Zendavesta of Zoroaster; by this we shall be taught, says he, that they who travel in pursuit of wisdom, walk only in a circle; and after all their labour, at last return to their pristine ignorance; and in this also we shall

see