have found in thee all
the qualities requisite for trust--benevolence, experience, and
fortitude. I have long discharged an office, which I must soon quit at
the call of nature, and shall rejoice, in the hour of imbecility and
pain, to devolve it upon thee.'

"I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and protested, that
whatever could conduce to his happiness, would add likewise to mine.

"'Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not, without difficulty, credit. I have
possessed, for five years, the regulation of weather, and the
distribution of the seasons: the sun has listened to my dictates, and
passed, from tropick to tropick, by my direction; the clouds, at my
call, have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my
command; I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the
fervours of the crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers,
have, hitherto, refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by
equinoctial tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or
restrain. I have administered this great office with exact justice, and
made, to the different nations of the earth, an impartial dividend of
rain and sunshine. What must have been the misery of half the globe, if
I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the sun to
either side of the equator!'

CHAP. XLII.

THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED.

"I suppose he discovered in me, through the obscurity of the room, some
tokens of amazement and doubt, for, after a short pause, he proceeded
thus:

"'Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor offend me; for I
am, probably, the first of human beings to whom this trust has been
imparted. Nor do I know whether to deem this distinction a reward or
punishment; since I have possessed it, I have been far less happy than
before, and nothing but the consciousness of good intention could have
enabled me to support the weariness of unremitted vigilance.'

"How long, sir, said I, has this great office been in your hands?"

"'About ten years ago,' said he, 'my daily observations of the changes
of the sky, led me to consider, whether, if I had the power of the
seasons, I could confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the
earth. This contemplation fastened on my mind, and I sat, days and
nights, in imaginary dominion, pouring, upon this country and that, the
showers of fertility, and seconding every fall of rain with a due
proportion of sunshi