Chapter 2

'By establishing a system of laws as the rule of government,' said HAMET, 'many evils will be avoided, and many benefits procured. If the law is the will only of the sovereign, it can never certainly be known to the people: many, therefore, may violate that rule of right, which the hand of the Almighty has written upon the living tablets of the heart, in the presumptuous hope, that it will not subject them to punishment; and those, by whom that rule is fulfilled, will not enjoy that consciousness of security, which they would derive from the protection of a prescribed law, which they have never broken. Neither will those who are inclined to do evil, be equally restrained by the fear of punishment; if neither the offence is ascertained, nor the punishment prescribed. One motive to probity, therefore, will be wanting; which ought to be supplied, as well for the sake of those who may be tempted to offend, as of those who may suffer by the offence. Besides, he who governs not by a written and a public law, must either administer that government in person, or by others: if in person, he will sink under a labour which no man is able to sustain; and if by others, the inferiority of their rank must subject them to temptations which it cannot be hoped they will always resist, and to prejudices which it will perhaps be impossible for them to surmount. But to administer government by a law which ascertains the offence, and directs the punishment, integrity alone will be sufficient; and as the perversion of justice will in this case be notorious, and depend not upon opinion but fact, it will seldom be practised, because it will be easily punished.'

ALMORAN, who had heard the opinions of HAMET with impatience and scorn, now started from his feat with a proud and contemptuous aspect: he first glanced his eyes upon his brother; and then looking disdainfully downward, he threw back his robe, and stretching out his hand from him, 'Shall the son of Solyman,' said he, 'upon whose will the fate of nations was suspended, whose smiles and frowns were alone the criterions of right and wrong, before whom the voice of wisdom itself was silent, and the pride even of virtue humbled in the dust; shall the son of Solyman be harnessed, like a mule, in the trammels of law? shall he become a mere instrument to execute what others have devised? shall he only declare the determinations of a statute, and shall his ear be affronted by claims of right? It is the glory of a prince, to punish for what and whom he will; to be the sovereign, not only of property, but of life; and to govern alike without prescription or appeal.'

HAMET, who was struck with astonishment at this declaration, and the vehemence with which it was uttered, after a short recollection made this reply: 'It is the glory of a prince, to govern others, as he is governed by Him, who is alone most merciful and almighty! It is his glory to prevent crimes, rather than to display his power in punishment; to diffuse happiness, rather than inforce subjection; and rather to animate with love, than depress by fear. Has not He that shall judge us, given us a rule of life by which we shall be judged? is not our reward and punishment already set before us? are not His promises and threatenings, motives to obedience? and have we not confidence and joy, when we have obeyed? To God, His own divine perfections are a law; and these He has transcribed as a law to us. Let us, then, govern, as we are governed; let us seek our happiness in the happiness that we bestow, and our honour in emulating the benevolence of Heaven.'

As ALMORAN feared, that to proceed farther in this argument would too far disclose his sentiments, and put HAMET too much upon his guard; he determined for the present to dissemble: and as he perceived, that HAMET'S opinion, and an administration founded upon it, would render him extreamly popular, and at length possibly establish him alone; he was now felicitous only to withdraw him from public notice, and persuade him to leave the government, whatever form it should receive, to be administered by others: returning, therefore, to his seat, and assuming an appearance of complacence and tranquillity, with which he could not form his language perfectly to agree; 'Let us then,' said he, 'if a law must be set up in our stead, leave the law to be executed by our slaves: and as nothing will be left for us to do, that is worthy of us, let us devote ourselves to the pleasures of ease; and if there are any enjoyments peculiar to royalty, let us secure them as our only distinction from the multitude.'

'Not so,' says HAMET; 'for there is yet much for a prince to do, after the best system of laws has been established: the government of a nation as a whole, the regulation and extent of its trade, the establishment of manufactories, the encouragement of genius, the application of the revenues, and whatever can improve the arts of peace, and secure superiority in war, is the proper object of a king's attention.

'But in these,' said ALMORAN, 'it will be difficult for two minds to concur; let us, then, agree to leave these also to the care of some other, whom we can continue as long as we approve, and displace when we approve no longer: we shall, by this expedient, be able to avert the odium of any unpopular measure; and by the sacrifice of a slave, we can always satisfy the people, and silence public discontent.'

'To trust implicitly to another,' says HAMET, 'is to give up a prerogative, which is at once our highest duty and interest to keep; it is to betray our trust, and to sacrifice our honour to another. The prince, who leaves the government of his people implicitly to a subject, leaves it to one, who has many more temptations to betray their interest than himself: a vicegerent is in a subordinate station; he has, therefore, much to rear, and much to hope: he may also acquire the power of obtaining what he hopes, and averting what he rears, at the public expence; he may stand in need of dependents, and may be able no otherwise to procure them, than by conniving at the fraud or the violence which they commit: he may receive, in bribes, an equivalent for his share, as an individual, in the public prosperity; for his interest is not essentially connected with that of the state; he has a separate interest; but the interest of the state, and of the king, are one: he may even be corrupted to betray the councils, and give up the interests of the nation, to a foreign power; but this is impossible to the king; for nothing equivalent to what he would give up, could be offered him. But as a king has not equal temptations to do wrong, neither is he equally exposed to opposition, when he does right: the measures of a substitute are frequently opposed, merely from interest; because the leader of a faction against him, hopes, that if he can remove him by popular clamour, he shall succeed to his power; but it can be no man's interest to oppose the measures of a king, if his measures are good, because no man can hope to supplant him. Are not these the precepts of the Prophet, whose wisdom was from above?'--"Let not the eye of expectation be raised to another, for that which thyself only should bestow: suffer not thy own shadow to obscure thee; nor be content to derive that glory, which it is thy prerogative to impart."

'But is the prince,' said ALMORAN, always the wisest man in his dominions? Can we not find, in another, abilities and experience, which we do not possess? and is it not the duty of him who presides in the ship, to, place the helm in that hand which can best steer it?'

'A prince,' said HAMET, 'who sincerely intends the good of his people, can scarce fail to effect it; all the wisdom of the nation will be at once turned to that object: whatever is his principal aim, will be that of all who are admitted to his council; for to concur with his principal aim, must be the surest recommendation to his favour. Let us, then, hear others; but let us act ourselves.'

As ALMORAN now perceived, that the longer this conversation continued, the more he should be embarrassed; he put an end to it, by appearing to acquiesce in what HAMET had proposed. HAMET withdrew, charmed with the candour and flexibility which he imagined he had discovered in his brother; and not without some exultation in his own rhetoric, which, he supposed had gained no inconsiderable victory. ALMORAN, in the mean time, applauded himself for having thus far practised the arts of dissimulation with success; fortified himself in the resolutions he had before taken; and conceived new malevolence and jealousy against HAMET.

CHAP. IV.

While HAMET was exulting in his conquest, and his heart was overflowing at once with self-complacency, and affection to his brother; he was told, that OMAR was waiting without, and desired admittance. HAMET ordered that he should be immediately introduced; and when OMAR entered, and would have prostrated himself before him, he catched him in his arms in a transport of affection and esteem; and having ordered that none should interrupt them, compelled him to sit down on a sofa.

He then related, with all the joy of a youthful and an ardent mind, the conversation he had had with ALMORAN, intermixed with expressions of the highest praise and the most cordial esteem. OMAR was not without suspicion, that the sentiments which ALMORAN had first expressed with such vehemence of passion, were still predominant in his mind: but of these suspicions he did not give the least hint to HAMET; not only because to communicate suspicions is to accuse without proof, but because he did not think himself at liberty to make an ill report of another, though he knew it to be true. He approved the sentiments of HAMET, as they had indeed been infused by his own instructions; and some precepts and cautions were now added, which the accession of HAMET to a share of the imperial power made particularly necessary.

'Remember,' said OMAR, 'that the most effectual way of promoting virtue, is to prevent occasions of vice. There are, perhaps, particular situations, in which human virtue has always failed: at least, temptation often repeated, and long continued, has seldom been finally resisted. In a government so constituted as to leave the people exposed to perpetual seduction, by opportunities of dissolute pleasure or iniquitous gain, the multiplication of penal laws will only tend to depopulate the kingdom, and disgrace the state; to devote to the scymitar and the bow-string, those who might have been useful to society, and to leave the rest dissolute turbulent and factious. If the streets not only abound with women, who inflame the passenger by their appearance, their gesture, and their solicitations; but with houses, in which every desire which they kindle may be gratified with secrecy and convenience; it is in vain that "the feet of the prostitute go down to death, and that her steps take hold on hell:" what then can be hoped from any punishment, which the laws of man can superadd to disease and want, to rottenness and perdition? If you permit opium to be publickly sold at a low rate; it will be folly to hope, that the dread of punishment will render idleness and drunkenness strangers to the poor. If a tax is so collected, as to leave opportunities to procure the commodity, without paying it; the hope of gain will always surmount the fear of punishment. If, when the veteran has served you at the risque of life, you withold his hire; it will be in vain to threaten usury and extortion with imprisonment and fines. If, in your armies, you suffer it to be any man's interest, rather to preserve the life of a horse than a man; be assured, that your own sword is drawn for your enemy: for there will always be some, in whom interest is stronger than humanity and honour. Put no man's interest, therefore, in the ballance against his duty; nor hope that good can often be produced, but by preventing opportunities of evil.'

To these precepts of OMAR, HAMET listened as to the instructions of a father; and having promised to keep them as the treasure of life, he dismissed him from his presence. The heart of HAMET was now expanded with the most pleasing expectations; but ALMORAN was pining with solicitude, jealousy, and distrust: he took every opportunity to avoid both OMAR and HAMET; but HAMET still retained his confidence, and OMAR his suspicions.

CHAP. V.

In the mean time, the system of government was established which had been proposed by OMAR, and in which HAMET concurred from principle, and ALMORAN from policy. The views of ALMORAN terminated in the gratification of his own appetites and passions; those of HAMET, in the discharge of his duty: HAMET, therefore, was indefatigable in the business of the state; and as his sense of honour, and his love of the public, made this the employment of his choice, it was to him the perpetual source of a generous and sublime felicity. ALMORAN also was equally diligent, but from another motive: he was actuated, not by love of the public, but by jealousy of his brother; he performed his task as the drudge of necessity, with reluctance and ill will; so that to him it produced pain and anxiety, weariness and impatience.

To atone for this waste of time, he determined to crowd all that remained with delight: his gardens were an epitome of all nature, and on his palace were exhausted all the treasures of art; his seraglio was filled with beauties of every nation, and his table supplied with dainties from the remotest corners of his dominions. In the songs that were repeated in his presence, he listened at once to the voice of adulation and music; he breathed the perfumes of Arabia, and he tasted the forbidden pleasure of wine. But as every appetite is soon satiated by excess, his eagerness to accumulate pleasure deprived him of enjoyment. Among the variety of beauty that surrounded him, the passion, which, to be luxurious, must be delicate and refined, was degraded to a mere instinct, and exhausted in endless dissipation; the caress was unendeared by a consciousness of reciprocal delight, and was immediately succeeded by indifference or disgust. By the dainties that perpetually urged him to intemperance, that appetite, which alone could make even dainties tasteful, was destroyed. The splendor of his palace and the beauty of his gardens, became at length so familiar to his eye, that they were frequently before him, without being seen. Even flattery and music lost their power, by too frequent a repetition: and the broken slumbers of the night, and the languor of the morning, were more than equivalent to the transient hilarity that was inspired by wine. Thus passed the time of ALMORAN, divided between painful labours which he did not dare to shun, and the search of pleasure which he could never find.

HAMET, on the contrary, did not seek pleasure, but pleasure seemed to seek him: he had a perpetual complacence and serenity of mind, which rendered him constantly susceptible of pleasing impressions; every thing that was prepared to refresh or entertain him in his seasons of retirement and relaxation, added something to the delight which was continually springing in his breast, when he reviewed the past, or looked forward to the future. Thus, the pleasures of sense were heightened by those of his mind, and the pleasures of the mind by those of sense: he had, indeed, as yet no wise; for as yet no woman had fixed his attention, or determined his choice.

Among the ambassadors whom the monarchs of Asia sent to congratulate the sons of Solyman upon their accession to the throne, there was a native of Circassia, whose name was Abdallah. Abdallah had only one child, a daughter, in whom all his happiness and affection centered; he was unwilling to leave her behind, and therefore brought her to the court of Persia. Her mother died while she was yet an infant; she was now in the sixteenth year of her age, and her name was ALMEIDA. She was beautiful as the daughters of Paradise, and gentle as the breezes of the spring; her mind was without stain, and her manners were without art.

She was lodged with her father in a palace that joined to the gardens of the seraglio; and it happened that a lamp which had one night been left burning in a lower apartment, by some accident set fire to the net-work of cotton that surrounded a sopha, and the whole room was soon after in a flame. ALMORAN, who had been passing the afternoon in riot and debauchery, had been removed from his banquetting room asleep; but HAMET was still in his closet, where he had been regulating some papers that were to be used the next day. The windows of this room opened towards the inner apartments of the house in which Abdallah resided; and HAMET, having by accident looked that way, was alarmed by the appearance of an unusual light, and starting up to see whence it proceeded, he discovered what had happened.

Having hastily ordered the guard of the night to assist in quenching the flame, and removing the furniture, he ran himself into the garden. As soon as he was come up to the house, he was alarmed by the shrieks of a female voice; and the next moment, ALMEIDA appeared at the window of an apartment directly over that which was on fire. ALMEIDA he had till now never seen, nor did he so much as know that Abdallah had a daughter: but though her person was unknown, he was strongly interested in her danger, and called out to her to throw herself into his arms. At the sound of his voice she ran back into the room, such is the force of inviolate modesty, though the smoke was then rising in curling spires from the windows: she was, however, soon driven back; and part of the floor at the same instant giving way, she wrapt her veil round her, and leaped into the garden. HAMET caught her in his arms; but though he broke her fall, he sunk down with her weight: he did not, however, quit his charge, but perceiving she had fainted, he made haste with her into his apartment, to afford her such assistance as he could procure.

She was covered only with the light and loose robe in which she slept, and her veil had dropped off by the way. The moment he entered his closet, the light discovered to him such beauty as before he had never seen: she now began to revive; and before her senses returned, she pressed the prince with an involuntary embrace, which he returned by straining her closer to his breast, in a tumult of delight, confusion, and anxiety, which he could scarce sustain. As he still held her in his arms, and gazed silently upon her, she opened her eyes, and instantly relinquishing her hold, shrieked out, and threw herself from him. As there were no women nearer than that wing of the palace in which his brother resided, and as he had many reasons not to leave her in their charge; he was in the utmost perplexity what to do. He assured her, in some hasty and incoherent words, of her security; he told her, that she was in the royal palace, and that he who had conveyed her thither was HAMET. The habitual reverence of sovereign power, now surmounted all other passions in the bosom of ALMEIDA: she was instantly covered with new confusion; and hiding her face with her hands, threw herself at his feet: he raised her with a trepidation almost equal to her own, and endeavoured to sooth her into confidence and tranquillity.

Hitherto her memory had been wholly suspended by violent passions, which had crowded upon her in a rapid and uninterrupted succession, and the first gleam of recollection threw her into a new agony; and having been silent a few moments, she suddenly smote her hands together, and bursting into tears, cried out, 'Abdallah! my father! my father!'--HAMET not only knew but felt all the meaning of the exclamation, and immediately ran again into the garden: he had advanced but a few paces, before he discerned an old man sitting upon the ground, and looking upward in silent anguish, as if he had exhausted the power of complaint. HAMET, upon a nearer approach, perceived by the light of the flame that it was Abdallah; and instantly calling him by his name, told him, that his daughter was safe. At the name of his daughter, Abdallah suddenly started up, as if he had been roused by the voice of an angel from the sleep of death: HAMET again repeated, that his daughter was in safety; and Abdallah looking wistfully at him, knew him to be the king. He was then struck with an awe that restrained him from enquiry: but HAMET directing him where he might find her, went forward, that he might not lessen the pleasure of their interview, nor restrain the first transports of duty and affection by his presence. He soon met with other fugitives from the fire, which had opened a communication between the gardens and the street; and among them some women belonging to ALMEIDA, whom, he conducted himself to their mistress. He immediately allotted to her and to her father, an apartment in his division of the palace; and the fire being now nearly extinguished, he retired to rest.

CHAP. VI.

Though the night was far advanced, yet the eyes of HAMET were strangers to sleep: his fancy incessantly repeated the events that had just happened; the image of ALMEIDA was ever before him; and his breast throbbed with a disquietude, which, though it prevented rest, he did not wish to lose.

ALMORAN, in the mean time, was slumbering away the effects of his intemperance; and in the morning, when he was told what had happened, he expressed no passion but curiosity: he went hastily into the garden; but when he had gazed upon the ruins, and enquired how the fire began, and what it had consumed, he thought of it no more.

But HAMET suffered nothing that regarded himself, to exclude others from his attention: he went again to the ruins, not to gratify his curiosity, but to see what might yet be done to alleviate the misery of the sufferers, and secure for their use what had been preserved from the flames. He found that no life had been lost, but that many persons had been hurt; to these he sent the physicians of his own houshold: and having rewarded those who had assisted them in their distress, not forgetting even the soldiers who had only fulfilled his own orders, he returned, and applied himself to dispatch the public business in the chamber of council, with the same patient and diligent attention as if nothing had happened. He had, indeed, ordered enquiry to be made after ALMEIDA; and when he returned to his apartment, he found Abdallah waiting to express his gratitude for the obligations he had received.

HAMET accepted his acknowledgements with a peculiar pleasure, for they had some connexion with ALMEIDA; after whom he again enquired, with an ardour uncommon even to the benevolence of HAMET. When all his questions had been asked and answered, he appeared still unwilling to dismiss Abdallah, though he seemed at a loss how to detain him; he wanted to know, whether his daughter had yet received an offer of marriage, though he was unwilling to discover his desire by a direct enquiry: but he soon found, that nothing could be known, which was not directly asked, from a man whom reverence and humility kept silent before him, except when something was said which amounted to a command to speak. At length, however, he said, not without some hesitation, 'Is there no one, Abdallah, who will thank me for the preservation of thy daughter, with a zeal equal to thy own?' 'Yes,' replied Abdallah, 'that daughter whom thou hast preserved.' This reply, though it was unexpected was pleasing: for HAMET was not only gratified to hear, that ALMEIDA had expressed herself warmly in his behalf, at least as a benefactor; but he judged, that if any man had been interested in her life as a lover, the answer which Abdallah had given him would not so readily have occurred to his mind.