the king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and at the fame time found himself at the foot of a mountain on a shore. The king immediately began to rage against his doctor for this piece of treachery and witchcraft ; but at length, knowing it was in vain to be angry, he fet himself to think on proper methods for getting a livelihood in this strange country: Accordingly he applied himself to some people whom he faw at work in a neighbouring wood; these people conducted him to a town that stood at a little distance from the wood, where after fome adventures, he married a woman of great beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman so long till he had by her seven sons and seven daughters: He was afterwards reduced to great want, and forced to think of plying in the streets as a porter, for his livelihood. One day as he was walking alone by the sea-fide, being seized with many melancholy reflections upon his former and present state of life, which had raised a fit of devotion in him, he threw off his cloaths with a design to wash himself according to the custom of the Mahometans, before he faid his prayers.

After his first plunge into the fea, he no fooner raifed his head above the water, but he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his fide. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of adventures, and betrayed him into fo long a state of misery and servitude; but was wonderfully surprised when he heard that the state he talked of, was only a dream and delufion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then stood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately taken it out again.

The Mahometan doctor took this occafion of instructing the Sultan, that nothing was impossible with God; and that He, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, can, if he pleases, make a single day, nay a single moment, appear to any of his creatures as a thoufand years.

I shall leave my reader to compare these eastern fa

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bles with the notions of those two great philosophers whom I have quoted in this paper; and shall only, by way of application, defire him to confider, how we may extend life beyond its natural dimensions by applying ourselves diligently to the pursuits of knowledge.

The hours of a wife man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions: The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he diftinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts; or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it.

How different is the view of past life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in in ignorance and folly ? The latter is like the owner of a barren country that fills his eye with the profpect of naked hills and plains which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape, divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can scarce caft his eye on a fingle fpot of his poffeffions that is not covered with fome beautiful plant or flower.-L.

SPECTATOR, Vol. II. No. 94.

I am very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleafures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves and useful to the world. The greatest part of our British youths lose their figure, and grow out of fashion by that time they are five and twenty. As soon as the natural gaiety and amiableness of the young man wears off, they have nothing left to recommend them, but lie by the rest of their lives among the lumber and refuse of the species. It fometimes happens indeed, that for want of applying themselves in due time to the pursuits of knowledge, they take up a book in their declining years, and grow very hopeful scholars, by that time they are threescore. I must therefore earnestly press my readers, who are in the flower of their youth, to labour at those accomplishments which may set off their perfons when their bloom is gone, and to lay in timely provifions for manhood and old age. In short, I would advise the youth of fifteen to be dreffing up every day the man of fifty, or to confider how to make himself venerable at threefcore.

• Young men, who are naturally ambitious, would do well to observe how the greatest men of antiquity made it their ambition to excel all their cotemporaries in knowledge. Julius Cæfar and Alexander, the most celebrated instances of human greatness, took a particular care to diftinguish themselves by their skill in the arts and sciences. We have still extant several remains of the former, which justify the character given of him by the learned men of his own age. As for the latter, it is a known faying of his, that he was more obliged to Aristotle who had instructed him, than to Philip who had given him life and empire. There is a letter of his recorded by Plutarch and Aulus Gellius, which he wrote to Aristotle upon hearing that he had published those lectures he had given him in private.. This letter was written in the following words at a time when he was in the height of his Persian con-quests.

ALEXANDER TO ARISTOTLE.-Greeting: You have not done well

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your

books

of select knowl

publish edge; for what is there now in which I can furpass others, if those things which I have been inftructed in, are communicated to every body? For my own part I declare to you, I would rather excel others in knowledge than power. Fare wel.

We fee, by this letter, that the love of conquest was but the second ambition in Alexander's foul. Knowledge is indeed that which, next to virtue, truly and effentially raises one man above another. It finishes one half of the human foul. It makes being pleasant to us, fills the mind with entertaining views,

and adminifters to it a perpetual series of gratifications. It gives ease to folitude, and gracefulness to retirement. It fills a public station with suitable abilities, and adds a lustre to those who are in the poffeffion of them.

Learning, by which I mean all useful knowledge, whether speculative or practical, is in popular and mixt governments the natural source of wealth and honour. If we look into most of the reigns from the eonquest, we shall find that the favourites of each reign have been those who have raised themselves. The greatest men are generally the growth of that particular age in which they flourish. A fuperior capacity for business, and a more extensive knowledge, are the steps by which a new man often mounts to favour, and outshines the rest of his cotemporaries. But when men are actually born to titles, it is almost impoffible that they should fail of receiving an additional greatness, if they take care to accomplish themselves for it.

The story of Solomon's choice does not only instruct us in that point of history, but furnishes out a very fine moral to us, namely, that he who applies his heart to wisdom, does at the fame time take the most proper method for gaining long life, riches, and reputation, which are very often not only the reward, but the effects of wisdom.

As it is very fuitable to my present subject, I shall first of all quote this paffage in the words of sacred writ, and afterwards mention an allegory, in which this whole passage is reprefented by a famous French poet: Not questioning but it will be very pleasing to fuch of my readers who have a taste for fine writing.

"In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God faid, afk what I shall give thee. And Solomon faid-Thou hast shewn unto thy servant David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee, and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, and thou hast given him a fon to fit on his throne, as it is this day. And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy fervant

king instead of David my father: And I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. Give therefore thy fervant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad, for who is able to judge this thy so great people! And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, because thou hast afked this thing, and haft not afked for thyself long life, neither haft afked riches for thyfelf, nor haft asked life of thine enemies, but hast ask- ed for thyself understanding to difcern judgment: Be-hold I have done according to thy words: Lo, I have given thee a wife and understanding heart, so that there was none like thee, before thee, neither after thee shall any arife like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour, so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes, and my command-ments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days. And Solomon awoke, and behold it was a dream."

The French poet has shadowed this story in an allegory, of which he seems to have taken the hint from the fables of the three goddesses appearing to Paris, or rather from the vision of Hercules, recorded by Xenophen, where pleasure and virtue are represented as real perfons, making their court to the hero with all their feveral charms and allurements; health, wealth, victory, and honour are introduced successively in their proper emblems and characters, each of them spreading their temptations, and recommending herself to the young monarch's choice. Wisdom enters the last, and so captivates him with her appearance, that he gives himself up to her. Upon which she informs him, that those who appeared before her were nothing else but her equipage, and that since he had placed his heart upon wisdom; health, wealth, victory, and honour should always wait on her as her handmaids. GUARDIAN, Vol. IL No. III

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