gaining or the fear of losing it.  I will, therefore, depart to Tauris, where the Persian monarch resides in all the splendour of absolute dominion:  my reputation will fly before me, my arrival will be congratulated by my kinsmen and my friends; I shall see the eyes of those who predict my greatness sparkling with exultation, and the faces of those that once despised me clouded with envy, or counterfeiting kindness by artificial smiles.  I will show my wisdom by my discourse, and my moderation by my silence; I will instruct the modest with easy gentleness, and repress the ostentatious by seasonable superciliousness.  My apartments will be crowded by the inquisitive and the vain, by those that honour and those that rival me; my name will soon reach the court; I shall stand before the throne of the emperour:  the judges of the law will confess my wisdom, and the nobles will contend to heap gifts upon me.  If I shall find that my merit, like that of others, excites malignity, or feel myself tottering on the seat of elevation, I may at last retire to academical obscurity, and become, in my lowest state, a professor of Bassora.”

Having thus settled his determination, he declared to his friends his design of visiting Tauris, and saw with more pleasure than he ventured to express, the regret with which he was dismissed.  He could not bear to delay the honours to which he was destined, and, therefore, hastened away, and in a short time entered the capital of Persia.  He was immediately immersed in the crowd, and passed unobserved to his father’s house.  He entered, and was received, though not unkindly, yet without any excess of fondness or exclamations of rapture.  His father had, in his absence, suffered many losses, and Gelaleddin was considered as an additional burden to a falling family.

When he recovered from his surprise, he began to display his acquisitions, and practised all the arts of narration and disquisition:  but the poor have no leisure to be pleased with eloquence; they heard his arguments without reflection, and his pleasantries without a smile.  He then applied himself singly to his brothers and sisters, but found them all chained down by invariable attention to their own fortunes, and insensible of any other excellence than that which could bring some remedy for indigence.

It was now known in the neighbourhood that Gelaleddin was returned, and he sat for some days in expectation that the learned would visit him for consultation, or the great for entertainment.  But who will be pleased or instructed in the mansions of poverty?  He then frequented places of publick resort, and endeavoured to attract notice by the copiousness of his talk.  The sprightly were silenced, and went away to censure, in some other place, his arrogance and his pedantry; and the dull listened quietly for a while, and then wondered why any man should take pains to obtain so much knowledge which would never do him good.