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fubdue nor humble, blafted his triumphs. His whole foul was fhaken with a ftorm of paffion. Wrath, pride, and defire of revenge, rofe into fury. With difficulty he restrained himfelf in public; but as foon as he came to his own house, he was forced to difclofe the agony of his mind. He gathered together his friends and family, with Zerefh his wife. "He told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and of all the things wherein the king had promoted him; and how he had advanced him above the princes and fervants of the king. He faid moreover, Yea, Efther the queen fuffered no man to come in with the king, to the banquet that fhe had prepared, but myself; and tomorrow also am I invited to her with the king." After all this preamble, what is the conclufion?" Yet all this availeth me nothing, fo long as I fee Mordecai the Jew fitting at the king's gate."

The fequel of Haman's history I fhall not now pursue. It might afford matter for much inftruction, by the confpicuous juftice of God in his fall and punishment. But contemplating only the fingular fituation, in which the expreffions juft quoted prefent him, and the violent agitation of his mind which they difplay, the following reflections naturally arife: How miferable is vice, when one guilty paffion creates fo much torment! how unavailing is profperity, when, in the height of it, a fingle difappointment can deftroy the relish of all its pleasures! how weak is human nature, which, in the abfence of real, is thus prone to form to itself imaginary woes!

SECTION IV.

Ortogrul; or, the vanity of riches.

BLAIR.

As Ortogrul of Bafa was one day wandering along the ftreets of Bagdat, mufing on the varieties of merchandise which the fhops offered to his view; and obferving the different occupations which bufied the multitudes on every fide, he was awakened from the tranquillity of meditation, by a crowd that obftructed his paffage. He raifed his eyes, and faw the chief vizier, who, having returned from the divan, was entering his palace.

Ortogrul mingled with the attendants; and being fuppofed to have fome petition for the vizier, was permitted to

enter. He furveyed the spaciousness of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden tapestry, and the floors covered with filken carpets; and defpifed the fimple neatnefs of his own little habitation.

"Surely," faid he to himfelf, "this palace is the feat of happiness; where pleasure fucceeds to pleasure, and difcontent and forrow 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 mafter 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 fleeps upon the down of the cygnets of Ganges. He fpeaks, and his mandate is obeyed; he wishes, and his with is gratified; all whom he fees obey him, and all whom he hears flatter him. How different, Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the perpetual torments of unfatisfied defire; and who haft no amufement in thy power, that can withhold thee from thy own reflections! They tell thee that thou art wife; but what does wisdom avail with poverty? None will flatter the poor; and the wife have very little power of flattering themfelves. That man is furely the most wretched of the fons of wretchednefs, who lives with his own faults and follies always before him; and who has none to reconcile him to himself by praife and veneration. I have long fought content, and have not found it; I will from this moment endeavour to be rich."

Full of his new refolution, he fhut himself in his chamber for fix months, to deliberate how he fhould grow rich. He fometimes purposed to offer himself as a counsellor toone of the kings in India; and fometimes refolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. One day, after fome hours paffed in violent fluctuation of opinion, fleepinfenfibly feized' him in his chair. He dreamed that he was ranging a defert country, in fearch of fome one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he food on the top of a hill, fhaded with cyprefs, in doubt whither to direct his fteps, his father appeared on a fudden ftanding beforehim. "Ortogrul," faid the old man, "I know thy perplexity; liften to thy father; turn thine eye on the oppofite

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mountain." Ortogrul looked, and faw a torrent tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noife of thunder, and scatstering its foam on the impending woods. "Now," said his father, "behold the valley that lies between the hills.". Ortogrul looked and efpied a little well, out of which iffued a fmall rivulet. "Tell me now," faid his father, "dost thou wifh for fudden affluence, that may pour upon thee like the mountain torrent; or for a flow and gradual increase, refembling the rill gliding from the well?" "Let me be quickly rich," faid Ortogrul; "let the golden ftream be quick and violent." "Look round thee," faid his father, "ónce again.' Ortogrul looked, and perceived the channel of the torrent dry and dufty; but following the rivulet from the well, he traced it to a wide lake, which the fupply, flow and conftant, kept always full. He awoke, and determined to grow rich by filent profit, and perfevering industry. Having fold his patrimony, he engaged in merchandife; and in twenty years purchafed lands, on which he raised at houfe, equal in fumptuoufnefs to that of the vizier, to which he invited all the minifters of pleasure, expecting to enjoy all the felicity which he had imagined riches able to afford. Leifure foon made him weary of himself, and he longed to be perfuaded that he was great and happy. He was courteous and liberal: he gave all that approached him hopes of pleafing him, and all who fhould please him, hopes of being rewarded. Every art of praise was tried, and every fource of adulatory fiction was exhaufted. Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found himself unable to believe them. His own heart told him its frailties; his own understanding reproached him with his faults. "How long," faid he, with a deep figh," have I been labouring in vain to amafs wealth, which at laft is ufelefs! Let no man hereafter wish to be rich, who is already too wife to be flattered !"

SECTION V.

Lady Jane Grey.

DR. JOHNSON,

THIS excellent perfonage was defcended from the royal line of England by both her parents.

She was carefully educated in the principles of the reformation; and her wisdom and virtue rendered her a fhining

example to her fex, But it was her lot to continue only a fhort period on this ftage of being; for in early life, fhe fell a facrifice to the wild ambition of the duke of Northumberland who promoted a marriage between her and his fon, lord Guilford Dudley; and raised her to the throne of England, in oppofition to the rights of Mary and Elizabeth. At the time of their marriage, fhe was only about eighteen years of age, and her husband was alfo very young: a feafon of life very unequal to oppofe the interefted views of artful and afpiring men; who instead of expofing them to danger fhould have been the protectors of their innocence and youth.

This extraordinary young perfon, befides the folid endowments of piety and virtue, poffeffed the most engaging difpo-, fition, the moft accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with king Edward VI. fhe had received all her education with him, and feemed even to poffefs a greater facility in: acquiring every part of manly and claffical literature. She had attained a knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, as well as of feveral modern tongues; had paffed moft of her time in an application to learning; and expreffed a great indifference for other occupations and amusements ufual with her sex and ftation. Roger Afcham, tutor to the lady Elizabeth, having at one time paid her a vifit, found her employed in reading Plato, while the reft of the family were engaged in a party of hunting in the park; and upon his admiring the fingularity of her choice, the told him, that fhe "received more pleasure from that author, than the others could reap from all their sport and gaiety." Her heart, replete with this love of literature and ferious ftudies, and with tendernefs towards her husband, who was deferving of her affection, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the information of her advancement to the throne was by no means agreeable to her. She even refufed to accept of the crown; pleaded the preferable right of the two princeffes; expreffed her dread of the confequences attending an enterprife fo dangerous, not to fay fo criminal; and defired to remain in that private station in which fhe was born. Overcome at last with the entreaties, rather than reafons, of her father and father in law, and, above all, of her husband, she submitted to their will, and

was prevailed on to relinquifh her own judgment. But her elevation was of very fhort continuance. The nation declared for queen Mary; and the lady Jane, after wearing the vain pageantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a private life, with much more fatisfaction than the felt when the royalty was tendered to her.

Queen Mary, who appears to have been incapable of generofity or clemency, determined to remove every perfon, from whom the leaft danger could be apprehended. Warning was, therefore, given to lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which the had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which he had been expofed, rendered no unwelcome news to her. The queen's bigoted zeal, under color of tender mercy to the prifoner's foul, induced her to fend priests, who molefted her with perpetual disputation; and even a reprieve of three days was granted her, in hopes that he would be perfuaded, during that time, to pay, by a timely converfion to popery, fome regard to her eternal welfare. Lady Jane had prefence of mind, in those melancholy circumstances, not only to defend her religion by folid arguments, but alfo to write a letter to her fifter, in the Greek language; in which, befides fending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, the exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like fteady perfeverance. On the day of her execution, her husband, lord Guildford, defired permiffion to fee her; but the refufed her confent, and fent him word, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would too much unbend their minds from that conftancy, which their approaching end required of them. Their feparation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would foon rejoin each other in a scene, where their affections would be forever united; and where death, difappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have access to them, or difturb their eternal felicity.

It had been intended to execute the lady Jane and lord Guilford together on the fame fcaffold, at Tower hill; but the council, dreading the compaffion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She faw her husband led to execu

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