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impossible to describe the surprise, the joy, the transport he was in at his first awaking. He fancied himself in the retirements of the blest, and that the spirit of his dear Balsora, who he thought was just gone before him, was the first who came to congratulate his arrival. She soon informed him of the place he was in, which, notwithstanding all its horrors, appeared to him more sweet than the bower of Mahomet, in the company of his Balsora.

Helim, who was supposed to be taken up in the embalming of the bodies, visited the place very frequently. His greatest perplexity was how to get the lovers out of it, the gates being watched in such a manner as I have before related. This consideration did not a little disturb the two interred lovers. At length Helim bethought himself, that the first day of the full moon of the month Tizpa was near at hand. Now it is a received tradition among the Persians, that the souls of those of the royal family, who are in a state of bliss, do, on the first full moon after their decease, pass through the eastern gate of the Black Palace, which is therefore called the gate of Paradise, in order to take their flight for that happy place. Helim therefore, having made due preparation for this night, dressed each of the lovers in a robe of azure silk, wrought in the finest looms of Persia, with a long train of linen whiter than snow, that floated on the ground behind them. Upon Abdallah's head he fixed a wreath of the greenest myrtle, and on Balsora's a garland of the freshest roses. Their garments were scented with the richest perfumes of Arabia. Having thus prepared every thing, the full-moon was no sooner up, and shining in all its brightness, but he privately opened the gate of paradise, and shut it after the same manner as soon as they had passed through it. The band of negroes, who were posted at a little distance from the gate, seeing two such beautiful apparitions, that showed themselves to advantage by the light of the full moon, and being ravished with the odour that flowed from their garments, immediately concluded them to be the ghosts of the two persons lately deceased. They fell upon their faces as they passed through the midst of them, and continued

VOL. II.

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prostrate on the earth till such time as they were out of sight. They reported the next day what they had seen: but this was looked upon, by the king himself, and most others, as the compliment that was usually paid to any of the deceased of his family. Helim had placed two of his own mules at about a mile's distance from the Black Temple, on the spot which they had agreed upon for their rendezvous. Here he met them, and conducted them to one of his own houses, which was situated on Mount Khacan. The air on this mountain was so very healthful, that Helim had formerly transported the king thither, in order to recover him out of a long fit of sickness; which succeeded so well that the king made him a present of the whole mountain, with a beautiful house and gardens that were on the top of it. In this retirement lived Abdallah and Balsora. They were both so fraught with all kinds of knowledge, and possessed with so constant and mutual a passion for each other, that their solitude never lay heavy on them. Abdallah applied himself to those arts which were agreeable to his manner of living and the situation of the place; insomuch that in a few years he converted the whole mountain into a kind of garden, and covered every part of it with plantations or spots of flowers. Helim was too good a father to let him want any thing that might conduce to make his retirement pleasant.

In about ten years after their abode in this place the old king died, and was succeeded by his son Ibrahim, who, upon the supposed death of his brother, had been called to court, and entertained there as heir to the Persian empire. Though he was some years inconsolable for the death of his brother, Helim durst not trust him with the secret, which he knew would have fatal consequences, should it by any means come to the knowledge of the old king. Ibrahim was no sooner mounted to the throne, but Helim sought after a proper opportunity of making a discovery to him, which he knew would be very agreeable to so good-natured and generous a prince. It so happened, that before Helim found such an opportunity as he desired, the new king Ibrahim, having been separated from his company in a chase,

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and almost fainting with heat and thirst, saw himself at the foot of Mount Khacan: he immediately ascended the hill, and coming to Helim's house demanded some refreshments. Helim was very luckily there at that time; and, after having set before the king the choicest of wines and fruits, finding him wonderfully pleased with so seasonable a treat, told him that the best part of his entertainment was to come; upon which he opened to him the whole history of what had passed. The king was at once astonished and transported at so strange a relation; and seeing his brother enter the room with Balsora in his hand, he leaped off from the sofa on which he sat, and cried out It is he! It is my Abdallah!" -Having said this, he fell upon his neck and wept. The whole company, for some time, remained silent, and shedding tears of joy. The king at length, after having kindly reproached Helim for depriving him so long of such a brother, embraced Balsora with the greatest tenderness, and told her that she should now be a queen indeed; for that he would immediately make his brother king of all the conquered nations on the other side the Tigris. He easily discovered in the eyes of our two lovers, that, instead of being transported with the offer, they preferred their present retirement to empire. At their request therefore he changed his intentions, and made them a present of all the open country as far as they could see from the top of Mount Khacan. Abdallah, continuing to extend his former improvements, beautified this whole prospect with groves and fountains, gardens, and seats of pleasure, till it became the most delicious spot of ground within the empire, and is therefore called the Garden of Persia. This caliph, Ibrahim, after a long and happy reign, died without children, and was succeeded by Abdallah, a son of Abdallah and Balsora. This was that king Abdallah who afterwards fixed the imperial residence upon Mount Khacan, which continues at this time to be the favourite palace of the Persian empire.

ADDISON.

ON THE BEAUTIES OF THE CREATION. (No. 169).

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IN fair weather, when my heart is cheered, and I feel that exaltation of spirits which results from light and warmth, joined with a beautiful prospect of nature, I regard myself as one placed by the hand of God in the midst of an ample theatre, in which the sun, moon and stars, the fruits also and vegetables of the earth, perpetually changing their positions or their aspects, exhibit an elegant entertainment to the understanding as well as to the eye.

Thunder and lightning, rain and hail, the painted bow, and the glaring comets, are decorations of this mighty theatre. And the sable hemisphere studded with spangles, the blue vault at noon, the glorious gildings and rich colours in the horizon, I look on as so many successive scenes.

When I consider things in this light, methinks it is a sort of impiety to have no attention to the course of nature, and the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. To be regardless of those phenomena that are placed within our view, on purpose to entertain our faculties, and display the wisdom and power of their Creator, is an affront to Providence, of the same kind (I hope it is not impious to make such a simile) as it would be to a good poet to sit out his play without minding the plot or beauties of it.

And yet how few are there who attend to the drama of nature, its artificial structure, and those admirable machines whereby the passions of a philosopher are gratefully agitated, and his soul affected with the sweet emotions of joy and surprise!

How many fox-hunters and rural squires are to be found in Great Britain, who are ignorant that they have all this while lived on a planet; that the sun is several thousand times bigger than the earth; and that there are other worlds within our view, greater and more glorious than our own! "Ay, but," says some illiterate fellow, "I enjoy the world, and leave others to contemplate it." "Yes, you eat and drink, and run about upon it: that is, you enjoy it as a brute; but to enjoy it as a rational being is to know it, to be

sensible of its greatness and beauty, to be delighted with its harmony, and by these reflections to obtain just sentiments of the Almighty Mind that framed it."

The man who, unembarrassed with vulgar cares, leisurely attends to the flux of things in heaven and things on earth, and observes the laws by which they are governed, hath secured to himself an easy and convenient seat, where he beholds with pleasure all that passes on the stage of nature; while those about him are, some fast asleep, and others struggling for the highest places, or turning their eyes from the entertainment prepared by Providence, to play at push-pin with one another.

With this ample circumference of the world, the glorious lights that are hung on high, the meteors in the middle region, the various livery of the earth, and the profusion of good things that distinguish the seasons, yield a prospect which annihilates all human grandeur. But when we have seen frequent returns of the same things, when we have often viewed the heaven and the earth in all their various array, our attention flags and our admiration ceases. All the art and magnificence in nature could not make us pleased with the same entertainment presented a hundred years successively to our view.

I am led into this way of thinking by a question started the other night, viz.: whether it were possible that a man should be weary of a fortunate and healthy course of life? My opinion was, that the bare repetition of the same objects, abstracted from all other inconveniencies, was sufficient to create in our minds a distaste of the world; and that the abhorrence old men have of death, proceeds rather from a distrust of what may follow, than from the prospect of losing any present enjoyments. For (as an ancient author somewhere expresses it) when a man has seen the vicissitudes of night and day, winter and summer, spring and autumn, the returning faces of the several parts of nature, what is there further to detain his fancy here below?

The spectacle indeed is glorious, and may bear viewing several times. But in a very few scenes of revolving years we feel a satiety of the same images; the mind grows

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