weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite
conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is
offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of
fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious and in time despotic.
Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten
upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.

"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the hermit has
confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's
misery has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom."

"I will no more," said the favourite, "imagine myself the Queen of
Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours which the Princess gave to
my own disposal in adjusting ceremonies and regulating the Court; I
have repressed the pride of the powerful and granted the petitions
of the poor; I have built new palaces in more happy situations,
planted groves upon the tops of mountains, and have exulted in the
beneficence of royalty, till, when the Princess entered, I had
almost forgotten to bow down before her."

"And I," said the Princess, "will not allow myself any more to play
the shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have often soothed my
thoughts with the quiet and innocence of pastoral employments, till
I have in my chamber heard the winds whistle and the sheep bleat;
sometimes freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes
with my crook encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of
the village maids, which I put on to help my imagination, and a
pipe on which I play softly, and suppose myself followed by my
flocks."