PAUL AND VIRGINIA. I23 



my prefent calm, I make a fécond paflage through 

 the agitations of my own paft life, which I once 

 prized fo highly ; the protégions, the fortune, the 

 reputation, the pleafures, and the opinions, which 

 maintain a confiant conflid, all the World over. 

 I compare thole fucceffive tribes of Men, whom I 

 have feen contending with fo much fury, about 

 mere chimeras, and who are now no more, to the 

 little waves of my rivulet, which, foaming, dafh 

 themfelves againfb the rocks of it's bed, and then 

 difappear, never more to return. For my own 

 part, I quietly commit myfelf to the river of time, 

 to be borne down toward the ocean of futurity, 

 which is circumfcribed with no fhores, and, by 

 contemplating the adual harmonies of Nature, I 

 raife myfelf toward it's Author, and thus confole 

 myfelf, with the expeftation of a deftiny more 

 happy, in the World to come. 



Although the multiplicity of objeds, which, 

 from this elevation, now ftrike our view, are not 

 perceptible from my hermitage, which is fituated 

 in the centré of a foreft, flill the harmonies of that 

 fpot are very interefting, efpecially for a man, who, 

 like me, prefers retiring into himfelf, to ranging 

 abroad. The river which flows before my door, 

 jpafles in a flraight line, acrofs the woods, fo that 

 my eye is {Iruck with a long canal, cverlhadowed 



with 



