friend, and that while many were soliciting for the first rank of favour, all those would be alienated whom he disappointed. He therefore resolved to associate with a few equal companions, selected from among the chief men of the province. With these he lived happily for a time, till familiarity set them free from restraint, and every man thought himself at liberty to indulge his own caprice, and advance his own opinions. They then disturbed each other with contrariety of inclinations and difference of sentiments, and Abouzaid was necessitated to offend one party by concurrence, or both by indifference.

"He afterwards determined to avoid a close union with beings so discordant in their nature, and to diffuse himself in a larger circle. He practised the smile of universal courtesy, and invited all to his table, but admitted none to his retirements. Many who had been rejected in his choice of friendship, now refused to accept his acquaintance; and of those whom plenty and magnificence drew to his table, every one pressed forward to

ward

ward intimacy, thought himself overlooked in the crowd, and murmured because he was not distinguished above the rest. By degrees all made advances, and all resented repulse. The table was then covered with delicacies in vain; the music sounded in empty rooms, and Abouzaid was left to form in solitude some new scheme of pleasure or security.

"Resolving now to try the force of gratitude, he enquired for men of science, whose merit was obscured by poverty. His house was soon crowded with poets, sculptors, painters, and designers, who wantoned in unexperienced plenty, and employed their powers in celebration of their patron. But in a short time they forgot the distress from which they had been rescued, and began to consider their deliverer as a wretch of narrow capacity, who was growing great by works which he could not perform, and whom they overpaid by condescending to accept his bounties. Abouzaid heard their mumurs, and dismissed them, and from that hour continued blind to colours, and deaf to panegyric.

"As the sons of art departed, muttering threats of perpetual infamy, Abouzaid, who stood at the gate, called to him Hamet the poet. Hamet,' said he,

thy ingratitude has put an end to my hopes and experiments; I have now learned the vanity of those labours, that wish to be rewarded by human benevolence; I shall henceforth do good, and avoid evil, without respect to the opinion of men; and resolve to solicit only the approbation of that being, whom alone we are sure to please, by endeavouring to please him."-(No. 190.)

None will, I believe, presume to affirm that this description is either just or na→ tural. The events of life, notwithstanding their accidental contrariety, will ever be found, upon a close inspection, to bear a greater or less resemblance to each other. Riches, it is certain, will most generally produce splendour, and poverty despondence. It is also certain, that the rich man will possess more, means of gratification than he that is poor; and he will generally be enabled to vary his pleasures, or to combine them, so as to compensate

in

in some measure the want of novelty: this is not to be acquired by indigence. The mind is apt to reject, as false, that which towers too much above common events, and common exeperience; and to exceed probability, is generally the fate of those who too much indulge their ima gination. Something more than disapprobation is incurred by that moralist, who neglects truth to indulge a vitiated principle of gloomy, and, perhaps, envious speculation. If we are to suppose the writings of Dr. Johnson to have been a transcript of his mind, he must have been wretched" beyond all names of wretchedness." But here reason pauses, and deliberate reflexion penetrates the veil. Incredulus odi.

Dr. Johnson uniformly displays to us all the miseries of life: but where shall we find one scene of its felicities. That it has felicities every man's bosom will inform him; and that it has misfortunes is no less certain. Both are certain, and much of both depends upon ourselves. I think it will be found that every stage of existence possesses its appropriate plea

sures

sures; nor are the thoughtless murmurs of inexperience, or the captious complaints

of debility, to be the estimate of the whole. Johnson has drawn an invidious and cynical comparison between youth and age, (No. 196) in which more ill nature than truth predominates.

In No 203 is the following severe observation; it cannot be called just.

"So full is the world of calamity, that every source of pleasure is polluted, and every retirement of tranquility disturbed. When time has supplied us with events sufficient to employ our thoughts, it has mingled them with so many disasters, that we shrink from their remembrance, dread their intrusion upon our minds, and fly from them as from enemies that pursue us with torture."

It is difficult to conceive a man more oppressed with melancholy, or more governed by prejudice, than Dr. Johnson.*

In

* That his prejudices were ever on the wing for gratification may fairly be presumed from the following anecdote.

His first introduction to Mrs. Thrale, now Mrs. Piozzi,. was brought about by the means of Mr. Woodhouse, who had at that time excited considerable interest by the pub

lication