Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/560

386 Thus heav'n instructs thy mind: this trial o'er, Depart in peace, resign and sin no more. "On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew, The sage stood wond'ring as the seraph flew. Thus look'd Elisha, when to mount on high, His Master took the chariot of the sky; The fiery pomp ascending left the view; The prophet gaz'd, and wish'd to follow too. "The bending hermit here a pray'r begun,

Then, gladly turning, sought his ancient place, And pass'd a life of piety and peace."

"The same apologue occurs, with some slight additions and variations for the worse, in Howell's ; who professes to have taken it from the speculative Sir Philip Herbert's to his Son, a book which I have never seen. These Letters were published about the year 1650. It is also found in the  of Doctor Henry More, who has illustrated its important moral with the following fine reflections.

The affairs of this world are like a curious, but intricately contrived comedy; and we cannot judge of the tendency of what is past, or acting at present, before the entrance of the last act, which