he could not leave them, without warning
and remonstrance. "My friends," said he "I have seriously considered our
manners and our prospects, and find that we have mistaken our own
interest. The first years of man must make provision for the last. He
that never thinks, never can be wise. Perpetual levity must end in
ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour,
will make life short or miserable. Let us consider, that youth is of no
long duration, and that, in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy
shall cease, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we shall
have no comforts but the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing
good. Let us, therefore, stop, while to stop is in our power: let us
live as men who are sometime to grow old, and to whom it will be the
most dreadful of all evils to count their past years by follies, and to
be reminded of their former luxuriance of health, only by the maladies
which riot has produced."

They stared awhile, in silence, one upon another, and, at last, drove
him away by a general chorus of continued laughter.

The consciousness that his sentiments were just, and his intentions
kind, was scarcely sufficient to support him against the horrour of
derision. But he recovered his tranquillity, and pursued his search.

CHAP. XVIII.

THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.

As he was one day walking in the street, he saw a spacious building,
which all were, by the open doors, invited to enter: he followed the
stream of people, and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which
professors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a
sage, raised above the rest, who discoursed, with great energy, on the
government of the passions. His look was venerable, his action graceful,
his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed, with great
strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is
degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the
higher; that when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of
the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful government,
perturbation and confusion; that she betrays the fortresses of the
intellect to rebels, and excites her children to sedition against
reason, their lawful sovereign. He compared reason to the sun, of which
the light is constant, uniform, and lasting; and fancy to a meteor, of
bright but transitory lustre, irregular