culiarly proper for the perufal of youth, are; because. the great variety of events and scenes it contains, interest and engage the attention more than the Iliad; because characters and images drawn from familiar life, are more useful to the generality of readers, and are also more difficult to be drawn ; and because the conduct of this poem, confidered as the most perfect of Epopees, is more artful and judicious than that of the other. The difcuffion of these beauties will make the subject of fome enfuing paper. Ꮓ i No. No. LXXVI. Saturday, July 23. 1753 Duc me, PARENS, celfique dominator poli, SENECA ex Cleanthe. Conduct me, thou of beings caufe divine, HARRIS. BOZALDAB, Caliph of Egypt, had dwelt fecurely for many years in the filken pavalions of pleasure, and had every morning anointed his head with the oil of gladness, when his only fon Aboram, for whom he had crowded his treasuries with gold, extended his dominions with conquefts, and fecured them with impreg nable fortreffes, was fuddenly wounded, as he was hunting, with an arrow from an unknown hand, and expired in the field. Bozaldab, in the diftraction of grief and defpair, refused to return to his palace, and retired to the gloomieft grotto in the neighbouring mountain: he there rolled himself on the duft, tore away the hairs of his hoary beard, and dafhed the cup of confolation that Patience offered him to the ground. He fuffered not his min frels ftrels to approach his prefence; but liftened to the fcreams of the melancholy birds of midnight, that flirt through the folitary vaults and echoing chambers of the Pyramids. "Can that God be benevolent," he cried, "who thus wounds the foul, as from an ambush, "with unexpected forrows, and crushes his creatures "in a moment with irremediable calamity? Ye lying "Imans, prate to us no more of the justice and the "kindness of an all-directing and all-loving Providence! “He, whom ye pretend reigns in heaven, is fo far "from protecting the miferable fons of men, that he "perpetually delights to blaft the fweeteft flowerets " in the garden of Hope; and, like a malignant giant, "to beat down the strongest towers of Happiness with "the iron mace of his anger. If this Being poffeffed "the goodness and the power with which flattering "priefts have invefted him, he would doubtlefs be in- ' "clined, and enabled to banish thofe evils which ren"der the world a dungeon of diftress, a vale of vanity "and woe-I will continue in it no longer!" At that moment he furiously raised his hand, which Despair had armed with a dagger, to ftrike deep into his bofom; when fuddenly thick flashes of lightning fhot through the cavern, and a being of more than hu man beauty and magnitude, arrayed in azure robes, crowned with amaranth, and waving a branch of palm in his right hand, arrefted the arm of the trembling. and aftonished Caliph, and faid with a majestic smile, "Follow me to the top of this mountain." "Look from hence," faid the awful conductor; "I am Caloc, the Angel of Peace; Look from hence, in"to the valley." Bozaldab opened his eyes and beheld a barren, a fulry, and folitary island, in the midst of which fat a pale meagre, 1 meagre, ghaftly figure: it was a merchant just perishing with famine, and lamenting that he could find neither wild berries nor a single spring in this forlorn uniuhabited defert; and begging the protection of heaven against the tigers that would now certainly deftroy him, fince he had confumed the laft fuel he had collected to make nightly fires to affright them. He then caft a cafket of jewels on the fand, as trifles of no ufe; and crept, feeble and trembling, to an eminence, where he was accustomed to fit every evening, to watch the setting fun and to give a fignal to any fhip that might haply approach the island. 26 "Inhabitant of heaven," cried Bozaldab, "fuffer not this wretch to perish by the fury of wild beafts." "Peace," said the Angel," and obferve." He looked again, and behold a veffel arrived at the defolate ifle. What words can paint the rapture of the ftarving merchant, when the captain offered to tranfport him to his native country, if he would reward him with half the jewels of his cafket? No fooner had this pitylefs commander received the ftipulated fum, than he held a confultation with his crew, and they agreed to feize the remaining jewels, and leave the unhappy exile in the fame helpless and lamentable condition in which they discovered him. He wept and trembled, intreated and implored in vain. Will heaven permit fuch injuftice to be practifed," exclaimed Bozaldab!" Look again," said the Angel, " and behold the very ship in which, fhort-fighted 66 as thou art, thou wishedst the merchant might em"bark, dashed in pieces on a rock; doft thou not hear "the cries of the finking failors? Prefume not to direct "the Governor of the Universe in his difpofal of events. 66 events. The man whom thou has pitied shall be "taken from this dreary folitude, but not by the me"thod thou wouldst prescribe. His vice was avarice, "by which he became not only abominable, but "wretched; he fancied some mighty charm in wealth, "which, like the wand of Abdiel, would gratify every "wish and obviate every fear. This wealth he has now been taught not only to despise but abhor: he "caft his jewels upon the fand, and confeffed them to "be useless; he offered part of them to the mariners, "and perceived them to be pernicious: he has now "learnt, that they are rendered useful or vain, good 66 or evil, only by the fituation and temper of the pof"feffor. Happy is he whom distress has taught wif "dom! But turn thine eyes to another and more in"teresting scene." The Caliph inftantly beheld a magnificent palace, adorned with the ftatues of his ancestors wrought in jafper; the ivory doors of which, turning on hinges of the gold of Golconda, discovered a throne of diamonds, furrounded with the Rajas of fifty nations, and with ambaffadors in various habits, and of different complexions; on which fat Aboram, the much-lamented fon of Bozaldab, and by his fide a princess fairer than a Houri. "Gracious Alla!-it is my fon," cried the Caliph"O let me hold him to my heart!" "Thou canst not "grasp an unsubstantial vision,” replied the Angel : "I am now fhewing thee what would have been the "destiny of thy fon, had he contined longer on the "earth." "And why," returned Bozaldab, was he "not permitted to continue? Why was not I fuffered "to be a witness of fo much felicity and power!" "Confider the fequel," replied he that dwells in the Sfth |