THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA

... who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope ; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia.
Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor, in whose dominions the Father of. Waters begins his course; whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world the harvests of Egypt.
According to the custom which has descended from age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters of AbyssiniAn royalty, till the order of succession should call
him to the throne.
The place, which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains,' of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron forged -by artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could without the ...

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