versation; they have no skill in commerce or the stocks, and I have no knowledge of the hiftory of families or the factions of the country; fo that when the first civilities are over, they ufually talk to one another, and I am left alone in the midst of the company. Though I cannot drink myself, I am obliged to encourage the circulation of the glass; their mirth grows more turbulent and obftreperous; and before their merriment is at an end, I am fick with difguft, and, perhaps, reproached with my fobriety, or by fome fly infinuations infulted as a cit.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the life to which I am condemned by a foolish endeavour to be happy by imitation; fuch is the happiness to which I pleafed myself with approaching, and which I confidered as the chief end of my cares and my labours. I toiled year after year with cheerfulnefs, in expectation of the happy hour in which I might be idle: the privilege of idleness is attained, but has not brought with it the bleffing of tranquility.

T.

I am,

Yours, &c.

MERCATOR.

No. CIII. Tuesday, October 30. 1753.

Aut cupimus?

Quid enim ratione timemus,

Juv.

How void of reafon are our hopes and fears!

DRYDEN,

In those remote times when by the intervention of Fairies, men received good and evil, which fucceeding generations could expect only from natural causes, Soliman, a mighty prince, reigned over a thousand provinces in the distant regions of the east. It is recorded of Soliman, that he had no favourite; but among the principal nobles of his court was Omaraddin.

Omaraddin had two daughters, Almerine and Shelimah. At the birth of Almerine, the fairy Elfarina had prefided; and in compliance with the importunate and reiterated request of the parents, had endowed her with every natural excellence both of body and mind, and decreed that "the fhould be fought in marriage by "a fovereign prince."

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When

When the wife of Omaraddin was pregnant with Shelimah, the fairy Elfarina was again invoked; at which Farimina, another power of the aërial kingdom, was offended. Farimina was inexorable and cruel; the number of her votaries, therefore was few. Elfarina was placable and benevolent; and Fairies of this character were observed to be fuperior in power, whether because it is the nature of vice to defeat its own purpose, or whether the calm and equal tenor of a virtuous mind prevents those mistakes, which are committed in the tumult and precipitation of outrageous malevolence. But Farimina, from whatever caufe, refolved that her influence should not be wanting; fhe, therefore, as far as he was able, precluded the influence of Elfarina, by first pronouncing the incantation which determined the fortune of the infant, whom she discovered by divination to be a girl. Farimina, that the innocent object of her malice might be defpifed by others, and perpetually employed in tormenting herself, decreed, "that her perfon should be rendered hideous by every fpecies of deformity, and that all her wishes "should spontaneously produce an oppofite effect."

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The parents dreaded the birth of the infant under this malediction, with which Elfarina had acquainted them, and which she could not reverse. The moment they beheld it, they were folicitous only to conceal it from the world; they confidered the complicated deformity of unhappy Shelimah, as fome reproach to themfelves; and as they could not hope to change her appearance, they did not find themselves interested in her felicity, They made no request to Elfarina, that the would by any intellectual endowment alleviate miseries which they fhould not participate, but feemed content

that

that a being fo hideous should fuffer perpetual difappointment; and, indeed, they concurred to injure an infant which they could not behold with complacency, by fending her with only one attendant to a remote castle which stood on the confines of a wood.

Elfarina, however, did not thus forfake innocence in diftrefs; but to counterbalance the evils of obfcurity, neglect, and uglinefs, fhe decreed, that "to the taste of "Shelimah the coarseft food should be the most exqui"fite dainty; that the rags which covered her, should "in her estimation be equal to cloth of gold; that she "should prize a palace less than a cottage; and that "in thefe circumftances love fhould be a stranger to "her breaft." To prevent the vexation which would arife from the continual disappointment of her wishes, appeared at first to be more difficult; but this was at length perfectly effected by endowing her with Con

tent.

While Shelimah was immured in a remote castle, neglected and forgotten, every city in the dominions of Soliman contributed to decorate the perfon, or cultivate the mind of Almerine. The house of her father was the refort of all who excelled in learning of whatever class; and as the wit of Almarine was equal to her beauty, her knowledge was foon equal to her wit.

Thus accomplished, she became the object of univerfal admiration; every heart throbbed at her approach, every tongue was filent when the spoke; at the glance of her eye every cheek was covered with blushes of diffidence or defire, and at her command every foot became fwift as that of the roe. But Almerine, whom ambition was thus jealous to obey, who was reverenced by hoary wisdom, and beloved by youthful beauty, was

perhaps

perhaps the moft wretched of her fex. Perpetual adulation had made her haughty and fierce; her penetration and delicacy rendered almost every object offenfive; she was disgufted with imperfections which others could not discover; her breast was corroded by detef tation, when others were foftened by pity; she lost the fweetness of fleep by the want of exercife, and the relifh of food by continual luxury; but her life became yet more wretched, by her fenfibility of that paffion, on which the happiness of life is believed chiefly to depend.

Nouraffin, the phyfician of Soliman, was of noble bir, and celebrated for his skill through all the East. He had just attained the meridian of life; his perfon was graceful, and his manner foft and infinuating. Among many others, by whom Almerine had been taught to investigate nature, Nouraffur had acquainted her with the qualities of trees and herbs. Of him she learned, how an innumerable progeny are contained in the parent plant; how they expand and quicken by degrees; how from the fame foil each imbibes a different juice, which rifing from the root hardens into branches above, fwells into leaves, and flowers, and fruits, infinitely various in colour, and taffe, and fmell: of power to repel ifeafes, or precipitate the ftroke of death.

Whether by the caprice which is common to vio. lent paffions, or whether by fome potion which Nouraffin found means to administer to his fcholar, is not known; but of Nouraffin fhe became enamoured to the moft romantic excefs. The pleafure with which the had before reflected on the decree of the fairy," that "fhe fhould be fought in marriage by a fovereign prince," was now at an end. It was the custom of

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the