could neither fubdue nor humble, blasted his triumphs. His whole foul was fhaken with a form of paffion. Wrath, pride, and defire of revenge, rofe into fury. With difficulty he restrained himself 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 she had prepared, but myself; and tomorrow alfo am I invited to her with the king." After all this preambley 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 hiftory 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 agita tion 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 single disappointment can deftroy the relifh of all its pleafures! 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 streets of Bagdat, mufing on the varieties of merchan dife 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 raised 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 fpaciousness of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden tapestry, and the floors covered with filken carpets; and despised the fimple neatnefs of his own little habitation.'

"Surely," said he to himfelf, "this palace is the featof happiness; where pleasure fucceeds to pleasure, and difcontent and forrow can have no admiffion. Whatever nature has provided for the delight of fenfe, is here fpread forth to be enjoyed. What can mortals hope or imagine, which the mafter of this palace has not obtained? The difhes 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 wifhes, and his wifh 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 per petual 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 himfelf in his cham ber for fix months, to deliberate how he fhould grow rich. He fometimes purposed to offer himself as a counsellor to one 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, fleep He dreamed that he infenfibly feized him in his chair.

was ranging a defert country, in fearch of fome one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he ftood on the top of a hill, fhaded with cyprefs, in doubt whither to direct his fteps, his father appeared on a fudden ftanding before him. Ortogrul," faid the old man, "I know thy perplexity; liften to thy father; turn thine eye on the oppofite mountain." Ortogrul looked, and faw a torrent

tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noife of thunder, and scattering its foam on the impending woods. "Now," faid 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," doft thou wish for fudden affluence, that may pour upon thee like the mountain torrent; or for a flow and gradual increafe, 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, "once again." Ortogrul looked, and perceived the channel of the torrent dry and duây; 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 merchandise ; and in twenty years purchrafed lands, on which he raised a houfe, equal in fumptuoufnefs to that of the vizier, to which he invited all the minifters of pleafure, 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 praife was tried, and every fource of adulatory fiction was exhausted. Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found himfelf 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 useless! Let no man hereafter with 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 wifdom 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 carly 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, the was only about eighteen years of age, and her husband was also very young a feafon of life very unequal to oppose the interested views of artful and afpiring men; who, instead of expofing them to danger, fhould have been the protect-ors of their innocence and youth.

4

This extraordinary young perfon, befides the folid en-dowments of piety and virtue, poffeffed the moft engaging. difpofition, the most accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with king Edward vi, the had received all her education with him, and feemed even to poffefs a greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and claffical lit erature, She had attained a knowledge of the Romans and Greek languages, as well as of feveral modern tongues; had paffed most of her time in an application to learning ;and expreffed a great indifference for other occupations and amufements ufual with her fex 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, fhé told him, that the "received more pleasure from that author, than the others could reap from all their fport and gaiety."er heart, replete with this love of literature and ferious nudies, and with tenderness towards her husband, who was deferving of her affection, had never opened itfelf 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 enterprise fo dangerous, not to fay fo criminal; and defired to remain in that private station. in which fhe was born. Overcome at laft with the entreaties, rather than reafons, of her father and father in law, and, above all, of her husband, fhe fubmitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her own

ance.

judgment. But her elevation was of very fhort continuThe 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 he had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which fhe had been expofed, rendered no unwelcome news to her. The queen's bigoted zeal, under colour 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 she would be perfuaded, during that time, to pay, by a timely converfion to popery, fome regard to her eternal welfare. LadyJane had prefence of mind, in thofe 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, fhe exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady perfeverance. On the day of her execution, her hufband, lord Guilford, defired permiffion to fee her; but fhe refused 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, fhe faid, would be only for a moment; and they would foon rejoin each other in a scene, where their affections would be for ever united ; and where death, difappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have accefs to them, or disturb 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 gare directions that the fhould be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She faw her husband