I beheld Fantasia—­She smiled & as she smiled all the enchanting scene appeared lovelier—­rainbows played in the fountain & the heath flowers at our feet appeared as if just refreshed by dew—­I have seized you, said she—­as you slept and will for some little time retain you as my prisoner—­I will introduce you to some of the inhabitants of these peaceful Gardens—­It shall not be to any whose exuberant happiness will form an u[n]pleasing contrast with your heavy grief but it shall be to those whose chief care here is to acquired knowledged [sic] & virtue—­or to those who having just escaped from care & pain have not yet recovered full sense of enjoyment—­This part of these Elysian Gardens is devoted to those who as before in your world wished to become wise & virtuous by study & action here endeavour after the same ends by contemplation—­They are still unknowing of their final destination but they have a clear knowledge of what on earth is only supposed by some which is that their happiness now & hereafter depends upon their intellectual improvement—­Nor do they only study the forms of this universe but search deeply in their own minds and love to meet & converse on all those high subjects of which the philosophers of Athens loved to treat—­With deep feelings but with no outward circumstances to excite their passions you will perhaps imagine that their life is uniform & dull—­but these sages are of that disposition fitted to find wisdom in every thing & in every lovely colour or form ideas that excite their love—­Besides many years are consumed before they arrive here—­When a soul longing for knowledge & pining at its narrow conceptions escapes from your earth many spirits wait to receive it and to open its eyes to the mysteries of the universe—­many centuries are often consumed in these travels and they at last retire here to digest their knowledge & to become still wiser by thought and imagination working upon memory [92]—­When the fitting period is accomplished they leave this garden to inhabit another world fitted for the reception of beings almost infinitely wise—­but what this world is neither can you conceive or I teach you—­some of the spirits whom you will see here are yet unknowing in the secrets of nature—­They are those whom care & sorrow have consumed on earth & whose hearts although active in virtue have been shut through suffering from knowledge—­These spend sometime here to recover their equanimity & to get a thirst of knowledge from converse with their wiser companions—­They now securely hope to see again those whom they love & know that it is ignorance alone that detains them from them.  As for those who in your world knew not the loveliness of benevolence & justice they are placed apart some claimed by the evil spirit & in vain sought for by the good but She whose delight is to reform the wicked takes all she can & delivers them to her ministers not to be punished but to be exercised & instructed untill acquiring a love of virtue they are fitted for these gardens where they will acquire a love of knowledge