terrestrial passions. My condition appears attractive. I am surrounded
with riches and splendour; no man approaches me but with homage and
flattery; every object of gratification solicits my acceptance. I am not
only endowed with a capacity of obtaining all that I can wish, and that
by supernatural means, but I am almost constantly forestalled in my
wishes. Who would not say, that I am blessed? Who that heard but a
description of my state, would not envy me? O ye shepherds, happy,
thrice happy, in the confinedness of your prospects, ye would then envy
me! Instructed as I am, instructed by too fatal experience, with reason
I envy you. Hark to that swain who is now leading his flock from the
durance in which they were held till the morning peeped over the eastern
hills! The little lambs frisk about him, thankful for the liberty they
have regained, and he stretches out his hand for them to lick. Now he
drives them along the extended green, and in a wild and thoughtless note
carols a lively lay. He sings perhaps of the kind, but bashful
shepherdess. His hat is bound about with ribbon; the memorial of her coy
compliance and much-prized favour. How light is his heart, how chearful
his gait, and how gay his countenance! He leads in a string a little
frolic goat with curving horns: I suppose the prize that he bore off in
singing, which is not yet tamed to his hand, and familiarised to his
flock. What though his coat be frieze? What though his labour constantly
return with the returning day? I wear the attire of kings; far from
labouring myself, thousands labour for my convenience. And yet he is
happier than I. Envied simplicity; venerable ignorance; plenteous
poverty! How gladly would I quit my sumptuous palace, and my magic arts,
for the careless, airy, and unreflecting joys of rural simplicity!"

It was in a late excursion of this kind that he had beheld the beauteous
Imogen. His eye was struck with the charms of her person, and the
amiableness of her manners. Never had he seen a complexion so