time will soon come when the regulator of the year must mingle with
the dust. The care of appointing a successor has long disturbed
me; the night and the day have been spent in comparisons of all the
characters which have come to my knowledge, and I have yet found
none so worthy as thyself.'"



CHAPTER XLIII--THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.



"'Hear, therefore, what I shall impart with attention, such as the
welfare of a world requires. If the task of a king be considered
as difficult, who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he
cannot do much good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him on
whom depends the action of the elements and the great gifts of
light and heat? Hear me, therefore, with attention.

"'I have diligently considered the position of the earth and sun,
and formed innumerable schemes, in which I changed their situation.
I have sometimes turned aside the axis of the earth, and sometimes
varied the ecliptic of the sun, but I have found it impossible to
make a disposition by which the world may be advantaged; what one
region gains another loses by an imaginable alteration, even
without considering the distant parts of the solar system with
which we are acquainted. Do not, therefore, in thy administration
of the year, indulge thy pride by innovation; do not please thyself
with thinking that thou canst make thyself renowned to all future
ages by disordering the seasons. The memory of mischief is no