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streets of Bagdad, musing on the varieties of merchandise which the shops opened to his view; and observing the different occupations which busied the multitude on every side, he was awakened from the tranquillity of meditation, by a crowd that obstructed his passage. He raised his eyes, and saw the chief vizier,† who, having returned from the divan,‡ was entering his palace.

2. Ortogrul mingled with the attendants: and being supposed to have some petition for the vizier, was permitted to enter. He surveyed the spaciousness of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden tapestry, and the floors covered with silken carpets; and despised the simple neatness of his own little habitation.

3. "Surely," said he to himself, "this palace is the seat of happiness: where pleasure succeeds to pleasure, and discontent and sorrow can have no admission.-Whatever nature has provided for the delight of sense, is here spread forth to be enjoyed. What can mortals hope or imagine, which the master of this palace has not obtained? The dishes of luxury cover his table; the voice of harmony lulls him in his bowers; he breathes the fragrance of the groves of Java,|| and sleeps upon the down of the cygnets of Ganges.

4. "He speaks, and his mandate is obeyed; he wishes, and his wish is gratified; all whom he sees, obey him, and all whom he hears, flatter him. How different, O Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the perpetual torments of unsatisfied desire; and who hast no amusement in thy power, that can withhold thee from thy own reflections!

5. "They tell thee that thou art wise; but what does wisdom avail with poverty? None will flatter the poor; and the wise bave very little power of flattering themselves. That man is surely the most wretched of the sons of wretchedness, who lives with his own faults and follies always before him; and who has none to reconcile him to himself by praise and veneration. I

* Bagdad, a city in Turkey in Asia, situated on the river Tigris. For more than 500 years, it was the seat of the Caliphs and capital of the Mahometan empire, and was one of the most splendid and populous cities in the world. It has greatly decayed, and retains but little of its ancient splen.

dor.

+ Pronounced viz'-yere, the Prime Minister of the Turkish empire. + Divan, a Turkish council or assembly.

H Java, one of the principal East India islands. It is celebrated for the fertility of its soil, and produces in abundance the richest fruits, and finest spices. Ganges, a large river in Hindoostan, esteemed sacred by the natives.The cygnet is the young of the swan, a water fowl of snowy whiteness.

have long sought content, and have not found it; I will from this moment endeavor to be rich."

6. Full of his new resolution, he shut himself in his chamber for six months, to deliberate how he should grow rich. He sometimes purposed to offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings of India; and sometimes resolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda.*

7. One day, after some hours passed in violent fluctuations of opinion, sleep insensibly seized him in his chair. He dreamed that he was ranging a desert country, in search of some one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he stood on the top of a hill, shaded with cypress, in doubt whither to direct his steps, his father appeared on a sudden standing before him.— "Ortogrul," said the old man, “I know thy perplexity; listen to thy father; turn thine eye on the opposite mountain."

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8. Ortogrul looked, and saw a torrent tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noise of thunder, and scattering its foam on the impending woods. "Now," said his father, "behold the valley that lies between the hills." Ortogrul looked, and espied a little well, out of which issued a small rivulet. me now," said his father, "dost thou wish for sudden affluence, that may pour upon thee like the mountain torrent; or for a slow and gradual increase, resembling the rill gliding from the well ?"

"Tell

9. "Let me be quickly rich," said Ortogrul; "let the golden stream be quick and violent." "Look round thee," said his father, "once again," Ortogrul looked, and perceived the channel of the torrent dry and dusty; but following the rivulet from the well, he traced it to a wide lake, which the supply, slow and constant, kept always full. He awoke, and determined to grow rich by silent profit, and persevering industry.

10. Having sold his patrimony, he engaged in merchandize; and in twenty years purchased lands, on which he raised a house, equal in sumptuousness to that of the vizier, to which he invited all the ministers of pleasure, expecting to enjoy all the felicity which he had imagined riches able to afford. Leisure soon made him weary of himself, and he longed to be persuaded that he was great and happy. He was courteous and liberal: he gave all that approached him hopes of pleasing him, and all who should please him hopes of being rewarded. Every art of praise was tried, and every source of adulatory fiction was exhausted.

* Golconda, a province of Hindoostan, now called Hyderabad. It was for merly celebrated for its diamond mines.

11. Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found himself unable to believe them. His own heart told hint its frailties; his own understanding reproached him with his faults. "How long," said he, with a deep sigh, "have I been laboring in vain to amass wealth, which at last is useless! Let no man hereafter wish to be rich, who is already too wise to be flattered."

LESSON LXIII.

Schemes of Life often Illusory.-DR. JOHNSON.

1. OMAR, the son of Hassan, had passed seventy-five years in honor and prosperity. The favor of three successive califs* had filled his house with gold and silver; and whenever he appeared, the benedictions of the people proclaimed his passage.

2. Terrestrial happiness is of short continuance. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors. The vigor of Omar began to fail; the curls of beauty fell from his head! strength departed from his hands; and agility from his feet. He gave back to the calif the keys of trust, and the seals of secresy; and sought no other pleasure for the remains of life, than the converse of the wise, and the gratitude of the good.

3. The powers of his mind were yet unimpaired. His chamber was filled with visitants, eager to catch the dictates of experience, and officious to pay the tribute of admiration. Caled. the son of the viceroyt of Egypt, entered every day early, and retired late. He was beautiful and eloquent. Omar admired his wit, and loved his docility.

4. "Tell me," said Caled, "thou to whose voice nations have listened, and whose wisdom is known to the extremities of Asia, tell me how I may resemble Omar the prudent. The arts by which thou hast gained power and preserved it, are to thee no longer necessary or useful; impart to me the secret of thy conduct, and teach me the plan upon which thy wisdom has built thy fortune."

5. "Young man," said Omar, "it is of little use to form plans of life. When I took my first survey of the world, in my twentieth year, having considered the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solitude, I said thus to myself, leaning against a cedar, which spread its branches over my head:

* A successor of Mahomet among the Saracens.

+ A governor appointed by a king.

6. "Seventy years are allowed to man; I have yet fifty remaining. Ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowĺedge, and ten I will pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and therefore shall be honored; every city will shout at my arrival, and every student will solicit my friendship. Twenty years thus passed, will store my mind with images, which I shall be busy, through the rest of my life, in combining and comparing.

7. "I shall revel in inexhaustible accumulations of intellectual riches; I shall find new pleasures for every moment, and shall never more be weary of myself. I will not, however, deviate too far from the beaten track of life; but will try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife beautiful as the Houries,* and wise as Zobeide;† with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdad, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase, and fancy can invent.

8. "I will then retire to a rural dwelling; pass my days in obscurity and contemplation; and lie silently down on the bed of death. Through my life it shall be my settled resolution, that I will never depend upon the smile of princes; that I will never stand exposed to the artifices of courts; I will never pant for public honors, nor disturb my quiet with the affairs of state. Such was my scheme of life, which I impressed indelibly upon

my memory.

9. "The first part of my ensuing time was to be spent in search of knowledge, and I know not how I was diverted from my design. I had no visible impediments without, nor any ungovernable passions within. I regarded knowledge as the nighest honor and the most engaging pleasure; yet day stole upon day, and month glided after month, till I found that seven years of the first ten had vanished, and left nothing behind them.

10. "I now postponed my purpose of travelling; for why should I go abroad, while so much remained to be learned at home? I immured myself for four years, and studied the laws of the empire. The fame of my skill reached the judges; 1 was found able to speak upon doubtful questions; and was commanded to stand at the footstool of the calif. I was heard with attention; I was consulted with confidence; and the love of praise fastened on my heart.

11. "I still wished to see distant countries; listened with rapture to the relations of travellers; and resolved some time *Houries, among Mohammedans, nymphs of paradise, of exquisite beauty. + Pronounced Zo-bi`-de

to ask my dismission, that I might feast my soul with novelty: but my presence was always necessary; and the stream of business hurried me along. Sometimes I was afraid lest I should be charged with ingratitude; but I still proposed to travel, and therefore would not confine myself by marriage.

ures.

12. "In my fiftieth year, I began to suspect that the time of travelling was past; and thought it best to lay hold on the felicity yet in my power, and indulge myself in domestic pleasBut at fifty no man easily finds a woman beautiful as the Houries, and wise as Zobeide. I inquired and rejected, consulted and deliberated, till the sixty-second year made me ashamed of wishing to marry. I had now nothing left but retirement; and for retirement I never found a time till disease forced me from public employment.

13. "Such was my scheme, and such has been its consequence. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with unalterable resolutions of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the walls of Bagdad."

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1. In that season of the year, when the serenity of the sky, the various fruits which cover the ground, the discolored foliage of the trees, and all the sweet, but fading graces of inspiring autumn, open the mind of benevolence, and dispose it for contemplation, I was wandering in a beautiful and romantic country, till curiosity began to give way to weariness; and I sat down on the fragment of a rock overgrown with moss; where the rustling of the falling leaves, the dashing of waters, and the hum of the distant city, soothed my mind into a most perfect tranquillity; and sleep insensibly stole upon me, as I was indulging the agreeable reveries, which the objects around me naturally inspired.

2. I immediately found myself in a vast extended plain, in the middle of which arose a mountain higher than I had before any conception of. It was covered with a multitude of people, chiefly youth; many of whom pressed forward with the liveliest expression of ardor in their countenance, though the way was in many places steep and difficult.

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