lous to obey, who was reverenced by hoary wisdom, and beloved by youthful beauty, was perhaps the most wretched of her sex. Perpetual adulation had made her haughty and fierce; her penetration and delicacy rendered almost every object offensive; she was disgusted with imperfections which others could not discover; her breast was corroded by detestation, when others were softened by pity; she lost the sweetness of sleep by the want of exercise, and the relish of food by continual luxury: but her life became yet more wretched, by her sensibility of that passion, on which the happiness of life is believed chiefly to depend.

Nourassin, the physician of Soliman, was of noble birth, and celebrated for his skill through all the East. He had just attained the meridian of life; his person was graceful, and his manner soft and insinuating. Among many others by whom Almerine had been taught to investigate nature, Nourassin had acquainted her with the qualities of trees and herbs. Of him she learned, how an innumerable progeny are contained in the parent plant; how they expand and quicken by degrees; how from the same soil each imbibes a different juice, which rising from the root hardens into branches above, swells into leaves, and flowers, and fruits, infinitely various in colour, and taste, and smell: of power to repel diseases, or precipitate the stroke of death.

Whether by the caprice which is common to violent passions, or whether by some potion which Nourassin found means to administer to his scholar, is not known; but of Nourassin she became enamoured to the most romantic excess. The pleasure

with which she had before reflected on the decree of the Fairy, 'that she should be sought in marriage by a sovereign prince,' was now at an end.

It was the custom of the nobles to present their daughters to the king, when they entered their eighteenth year; an event which Almerine had often anticipated with impatience and hope, but now wished to prevent with solicitude and terror. The period, urged forward, like every thing future, with silent and irresistible rapidity, at length arrived. The curiosity of Soliman had been raised, as well by accidental encomiums, as by the artifices of Omaraddin, who now hasted to gratify it with the utmost anxiety and perturbation: he discovered the confusion of his daughter, and imagined that it was produced, like his own, by the uncertainty and importance of an event, which would be determined before the day should be passed. He endeavoured to give her a peaceful confidence in the promise of the Fairy, which he wanted himself; and perceived, with regret, that her distress rather increased than diminished: this incident, however, as he had no suspicion of the cause, only rendered him more impatient of delay; and Almerine, covered with ornaments by which art and nature were exhausted, was, however reluctant, introduced to the king.

Soliman was now in his thirtieth year. He had sat ten years upon the throne, and for the steadiness of his virtue had been surnamed the Just. He had hitherto considered the gratification of appetite as a low enjoyment, allotted to weakness and obscurity; and the exercise of heroic virtue, as the superior felicity of eminence and power. He had as yet taken no wife; nor had he immured in his palace a multitude of unhappy beauties, in whom desire had no choice, and affection no object, to be successively forsaken after unresisted violation, and at last sink into the grave without having answered any nobler purpose, than sometimes to have grati

fied the caprice of a tyrant, whom they saw at no other season, and whose presence could raise no passion more remote from detestation than fear.

6

Such was Soliman; who, having gazed some moments upon Almerine with silent admiration, rose up, and turning to the princes who stood round him, To-morrow,' said he, I will grant the request which you have so often repeated, and place a beauty upon my throne, by whom I may transmit my dominion to posterity: to-morrow, the daughter of Omaraddin shall be my wife.'

The joy with which Omaraddin heard this declaration, was abated by the effect which it produced upon Almerine: who, after some ineffectual struggles with the passions which agitated her mind, threw herself into the arms of her women, and burst into tears. Soliman immediately dismissed his attendants; and taking her in his arms, inquired the cause of her distress: this, however, was a secret, which neither her pride nor her fear would suffer her to reveal. She continued silent and inconsolable; and Soliman, though he secretly suspected some other attachment, yet appeared to be satisfied with the suggestions of her father, that her emotion was only such as is common to the sex upon any great and unexpected event. He desisted from farther importunity, and commanded that her women should remove her to a private apartment of the palace, and that she should be attended by his physician Nourassin.

N° 104. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1753.

-Semita certe

Tranquille per virtutem patet unica vitæ.

But only virtue shews the paths of peace.

JUV.

NOURASSIN, who had already learned what had happened, found his despair relieved by this opportunity of another interview. The lovers, however, were restrained from condolence and consultation, by the presence of the women, who could not be dismissed: but Nourassin put a small vial into the hand of Almerine as he departed, and told her, that it contained a cordial, which, if administered in time, would infallibly restore the cheerfulness and vigour that she had lost. These words were heard by the attendants, though they were understood only by Almerine; she readily comprehended, that the potion she had received was poison, which would relieve her from languor and melancholy by removing the cause, if it could be given to the king before her marriage was completed. After Nourassin was gone, she sat ruminating on the infelicity of her situation, and the dreadful events of the morrow, till the night was far spent; and then, exhausted with perturbation and watching, she sunk down on the sofa, and fell into a deep sleep.

The king, whose rest had been interrupted by the effects which the beauty of Almerine had produced upon his mind, rose at the dawn of day; and send

ing for her principal attendant, who had been ordered to watch in her chamber, eagerly inquired what had been her behaviour, and whether she had recovered from her surprise. He was acquainted, that she had lately fallen asleep; and that a cordial had been left by Nourassin, which he affirmed would, if not too long delayed, suddenly recover her from languor and dejection, and which, notwithstanding, she had neglected to take. Soliman derived new hopes from this intelligence; and that she might meet him at the hour of marriage, with the cheerful vivacity which the cordial of Nourassin would inspire, he ordered that it should, without asking her any question, be mixed with whatever she first drank in the morning.

Almerine, in whose blood the long-continued tumult of her mind had produced a feverish heat, awaked parched with thirst, and called eagerly for sherbet her attendant, having first emptied the vial into the bowl, as she had been commanded by the king, presented it to her, and she drank it off. As soon as she had recollected the horrid business of the day, she missed the vial, and in a few moments she learned how it had been applied. The sudden terror which now seized her, hastened the effect of the poison and she felt already the fire kindled in her veins, by which in a few hours she would be destroyed. Her disorder was now apparent, though the cause was not suspected: Nourassin was again introduced, and acquainted with the mistake; an antidote was immediately prepared and administered; and Almerine waited the event in agonies of body and mind, which are not to be described. The internal commotion every instant increased; sudden and intolerable heat and cold succeeded each other; and in less than an hour, she was covered with a leprosy; her hair fell, her head swelled, and every feature in