dancers fhewed their activity before the princes, in hope that they should pass their lives in this blissful captivity, to which thefe only were admitted whose performance was thought able to add novelty to luxury. Such was the appearance of fecurity and delight which this retirement afforded, that they, to whom it was new, always defired that it might be perpetual; and as those, on whom the iron gate had once clofed, were never suffered to return, the effect of longer experience could not be known. Thus every year produced new schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprisonment.

The palace ftood on an eminence raised about thirty paces above the furface of the lake. It was divided into many fquares or courts, built with greater

greater or lefs magnificence, according to the rank of those for whom they were defigned. The roofs were turned into arches of maffy ftone joined by a cement that grew harder by time, and the building stood from century to century deriding the folftitial rains and equinoctial hurricanes, without need of reparation.

This houfe, which was fo large as to be fully known to none but some ancient officers who fucceffively inherited the fecrets of the place, was built as if fufpicion herself had dictated the plan. To every room there was an open and fecret paffage, every square had a com· munication with the reft, either from the upper ftories by private galleries, or by fubterranean paffages from the B 4 lower.

lower apartments. Many of the columns had unfufpected cavities, in which a long race of monarchs had repofited their treasures. They then clofed up the opening with marble, which was never to be removed but in the utmost exigencies of the kingdom; and recorded their accumulations in a book which was itfelf concealed in a tower not entered but by the emperour, attended by the prince who stood next in fucceffion.

CHAP.

CHA P. II.

THE DISCONTENT OF RASSELAS IN THE

H

HAPPY VALLEY.

ERE the fons and daughters of Abiffinia lived only to know the foft viciffitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by all that were fkilful to delight, and gratified with whatever the fenfes can enjoy. They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and flept in the fortreffes of fecurity. Every art was practifed to make them pleased with their own condition. The fages who inftructed them, told them of nothing but the miferies of publick life, and defcribed all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where difcord was always raging, and where man preyed upon man.

To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were daily entertained with fongs, the subject of which was the happy valley. Their appetites were excited by frequent enumerations of different enjoyments, and revelry and merriment was the business of every hour from the dawn of morning to the close of even.

These methods were generally fuccessful; few of the princes had ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but paffed their lives in full conviction that they had all within their reach that art or nature could bestow, and pitied those whom fate had excluded from this feat of tranquillity, as the fport of chance and the flaves of mifery.

Thus they rofe in the morning and lay down at night, pleased with each other