SIR,

Amidst the congratulations and praises of a free, a joyful, and now united people, people, who are ambitious to express their duty and their wishes in their various classes; I think myself happy to have your majesty’s most gracious permission to approach You, and, after the manner of the people whose character I have assumed, to bring an humble offering in my hand.

As some part of my subject led me to consider the advantages of our excellent constitution in comparison of others; my thoughts were naturally turned to your majesty, as its warmest friend and most powerful protector:  and as the whole is intended, to recommend the practice of virtue, as the means of happiness; to whom could I address it with so much propriety, as to a prince, who illustrates and enforces the precepts of the moralist by his life.

I am,
  May it please Your majesty,
      Your majesty’s
    Most faithful, most obliged,
      And most obedient
        Subject and Servant,

John Hawkesworth.

CHAP.  I.

Who is he among the children of the earth, that repines at the power of the wicked? and who is he, that would change the lot of the righteous?  He, who has appointed to each his portion, is God; the Omniscient and the Almighty, who fills eternity, and whose existence is from Himself! but he who murmurs, is man; who yesterday was not, and who to-morrow shall be forgotten:  let him listen in silence to the voice of knowlege, and hide the blushes of confusion in the dust.

Solyman, the mighty and the wife, who, in the one hundred and second year of the Hegyra, sat upon the throne of Persia, had two sons, Almoran and Hamet, and they were twins.  Almoran was the first born, but Solyman divided his affection equally between them:  they were both lodged in the same part of the seraglio, both were attended by the same servants, and both received instructions from the same teacher.

One of the first things that Almoran learnt, was the prerogative of his birth; and he was taught very early to set a high value upon it, by the terms in which those about him expressed their sense of the power, the splendor, and the delights of royalty.  As his mind gradually opened, he naturally considered these as the objects of universal define, and the means of supreme felicity:  he was often reminded, that the time was coming, when the sole possession of sovereign power would enable him to fulfil all his wishes, to determine the fate of dependent nations with a nod, and dispense life and death, and happiness and misery, at his will:  he was flattered by those who hoped to draw wealth and dignity from his favour; and interest prompted all who approached him, to administer to his pleasures with a zeal and assiduity, which had the appearance of reverence to his merit, and affection to his person.