different from those which had fixed the attention of ALMORAN. As he
knew not to how narrow a sphere caprice or jealousy might confine him,
he considered what pleasures were least dependent upon external
advantages; and as the first popular commotion which mould happen after
his brother's accession to the throne, might probably cost him his life,
he was very inquisitive about the state into which his spirit would be
dismissed by the Angel of Death, and very diligent to do whatever might
secure him a share of the permanent and unchangeable felicity of
Paradise.

This difference in the situation of ALMORAN and HAMET, produced great
dissimilarity in their dispositions, habits, and characters; to which,
perhaps, nature might also in some degree contribute. ALMORAN was
haughty, vain, and voluptuous; HAMET was gentle, courteous, and
temperate: ALMORAN was volatile, impetuous, and irascible; HAMET was
thoughtful, patient, and forbearing. Upon the heart of HAMET also were
written the instructions of the Prophet; to his mind futurity was
present by habitual anticipation; his pleasure, his pain, his hopes, and
his fears, were perpetually referred to the Invisible and Almighty
Father of Life, by sentiments of gratitude or resignation, complacency
or confidence; so that his devotion was not periodical but constant.

But the views of ALMORAN were terminated by nearer objects: his mind was
perpetually busied in the anticipation of pleasures and honours, which
he supposed to be neither uncertain nor remote; these excited his
hopes, with a power sufficient to fix his attention; he did not look
beyond them for other objects, nor enquire how enjoyments more distant
were to be acquired; and as he supposed these to be already secured to
him by his birth, there was nothing he was solicitous to obtain as the
reward of merit, nor any thing that he considered himself to possess as