Elegant Extracts

according to the custom of my proach the place where he fat. I drew near after having washed myself, and offered rior nature ; and as my heart was entirely up my morning devotions, I ascended the subdued by the captivating strains I had high hills of Bagdat, in order to pafs the heard, I fell down at his feet, and wept. zeit of the day in meditation and prayer. The genius smiled upon me with a look of As I was here airing myself on the tops of compafion and affability that familiarized the mountains, I fell into a profound con- him to my imagination, and at once dirtemplation on the vanity of human life; pelled all the fears and apprehensions with and pafling from one thought to another, which I approached him. He lifted me Sorely, said I, man is but a shadow, and from the ground, and taking me by the life a dream. Whilft I was thus muling, I hand, Mirza, said he, I have heard thes caft my eyes towards the summit of a rock in thy soliloquies ; follow me. that was not far from me, where I disco- He then led me to the highest pinnacle vered one in the habit of a shepherd, with of the rock, and placing me on the top of a htele musical instrument in his hand. As it, Caft thy eyes eastward, said he, and tell I looked upon him, he applied it to his lips, me what thou feeit

. I fee, said I, a huge and began to play upon it. The sound of it valley, and a prodigious tide of water rol. was exceeding fweet

, and wrought into a ling through it. The valley that thou feeft, Sariety of tunes that were inexprellibly me- said he, is the vale of misery; and the tide lodious, and altogether different from any of water that thou seest, is part of the great thing I had ever heard: they put me in tide of eternity. What is the reason, said mind of those heavenly airs that are played 1, that the tide I see rises out of a thick to the departed souls of good men upon their mist at one end, and again lotes itself in a frit arrival in Paradise, to wear out the im- thick mist at the other? What thou seest, pressions of the last agonies, and qualify said he, is that portion of eternity which is them for the pleasures of that happy place. called Time, measured out by the sun, and My heart meited away in secret raptures. reaching from the beginning of the world

I had been often told, that the rock be- to its confummation. Examine now, said fore me was the baunt of a genius; and he, this sea that is bounded with darkness that several had been entertained with that at both ends, and tell me what thou discomulis, who had passed by it, but never verest in it. I see a bridge, said I, standheard that the musician had before made ing in the midit of the tide. The bridge himself visible. When he had raised my thou feeft, said he, is human life ; confider thoughts, by those transporting airs which it attentively. Upon a more leisurely fur

vey of it, I found that it consisted of three- The genius seeing ine indulge myself score and ten entire arces, with several in this melancholy prospect, told me I broken arches, which, added to those that had dwelt long enough upon it : Take were entire, made up the number about an thine eyes off the bridge, said he, and tell hundred. As I was counting the arches, me if thou seest any thing thou doft not the genius told me that this bridge confitto comprehend. L'pon looking up, What ed at first of a thousand arches; but that a mean, said I, those great flights of birds great food swept away the rett, and left the that are perpetually hovering about the bridge in the ruinous condition I now be- bridge, and settling upon it from time to held it: but tell me further, said he, what time? I fee vultures, harpies, ravens, corthou discovereit on it. I see multitudes of morants, and, among many other feathered people pafing over it, said I, and a black creatures, several little winged boys, that cloud hanging on each end of it. As I perch in great numbers upon the middle looked more attentively, I saw several of arches. Thele, said the genius, are envy, the passengers dropping through the bridge avarice, fuperftition, delpair, love, with into the great tide that flowed underneath the like cares and paflions that infest huit ; and upon further examination, per

man life. ceived there were innumerable trap-doors I here fetched a deep figh: Alas, said I, that lay conccaled in the bridge, which man was made in vain ! how is he given the passengers no sooner trod upon, but away to mifery and mortality! tortured in they fell through them into the tide, and life, and swallowed up in death! The immediately disappeared. These hidden genius being moved with compassion topit-falls were set very thick at the en- wards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a trance of the bridge, so that throngs of prospect. Look no more, said he, on man people no sooner broke through the in the first stage of his exilience, in his setcloud, but many of them fell into them. ting out for eternity; but cast thine eye They grew thinner towards the middle, on that thick milt into which the tide bears but multiplied and lay closer together the leveral generations of mortals that tall towards the end of the arches that were into it. I directed my fight as I was orentire.

dered, and whether or 110 the good genius There were indeed some persons, but ftrengthened it with any supernatural force, their number was very small, that conti- or distipated part of the mift that was benued a kind of hobbling march on the fore too thick for the eye to penetrate) I broken arches, but fell through one after faw the valley opening at the farther end, another, being quite tired and spent with and (preading forth into an immense ocean, so long a walk.

that had a huge rock of adımant running I paffed some time in the contempla- through the midit of it, and dividing it tion of this wonderful structure, and the into two equal parts. The clouds still great variety of objects which it presented. rcited on one half of it, infomuch that I My heart was filled with a deep melan- could discover nothing in it: but the other choly, to fce several dropping unexpectedly appeared to me a vail ocean, planted with in the midit of mirth and jollity, and catch- innumerable islands, that were covered ing at every thing that stood by them, to with fruits and fowers, and interwoven , fave themselves. Some were looking up with a thousand little shining seas that towards the heavens in a thoughtful pol- ran among them. I could see persons dresture, and, in the midit of a ipeculation, fed in glorious habits, with garlands upon itumbled and fell out of sight. Multitudes their heads, pasing among the trees, lying were very busy in the puríuit of bubbles, down by the sides of fountains, or reiting that glittered in their eyes, and danced be- on beds of flowers; and could hear a confore them; but often, when they thought futed harmony of singing birds, falling themselves within the reach of them, their waters, human voices, and musical instrufooting failed, and down they funk. In ments. Gladness grew in me at the difthis confusion of objects, I observed fome covery of so delightful a scene. I wished with scimitars in their hands, and others for the wings of an eagle, that I migàt fly with urinals, who ran to and fro upon the away to those happy feats; but the gebridge, thrusting several perfons on trap- nius told me there was no pallage to them, doors which did not seem to lie in their except through the gates of death that I . way, and which they enight have cicaped faw opening every moment upon the had they not been thus forced upon them. bridge. The islands, said he, that lie

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Elegant Extracts: Or, Useful and Entertaining Passages in Prose, Selected ...