 seems mature in life, and her robe is quite plain, without affectation or ornaments. Her eyes are piercing; her mien sedate: She stands not on a globe, (like Fortune) but upon a cube of marble, fixed as the rock she is on before the gate. You see on either side of her two lovely nymphs, the very copies of her looks and air. This matron in the middle is true learning, Wisdom herself; and the two young beauties are Truth and Persuasion. Her standing on a square, is an expressive type of certainty in the way to her; and denotes the unalterable and permanent nature of the blessings she bestows on those who come to†

her. From her they receive courage and serenity; that confidence and contempt of fear, which exempts the happy possessors from any disturbance, by the accidents and calamities of life.
T.
These are valuable gifts. But why without the walls does Wisdom stand?
O.
To present the purifying bowl to those who approach, and restore them to themselves. As a physician by degrees first finds out the cause of a violent disorder, and then removes it, in order to restore the man to health; so Wisdom, as she knows their malady, administers her sovereign medicine, and frees them from all their evils. She expels the mischiefs they had received from delusion, their ignorance and error, and delivers them from pride, lust, anger, avarice, and all the other vices they had contracted in the first inclosure. In a word, she restores them to sanity, and then sends them in to Happiness. and the Virtues.
T.
Who are, they? (I said).

O.
Do you not see within the gate, (my instructor replied) a society of matrons, beautiful and modest, drest unaffected, and without any thing of the gay excess? These are Science and her sisters, Fortitude, Justice, and Integrity, Temperance, Modesty, Liberality, Continence, Clemency, and Patience. They hail

their guests, and the company seem to be in raptures.
T.
But when the friends to virtue are admitted into this charming society, where do they lead then to?
O.
See you not (resumed the good old man,) the hill beyond the grove; that eminence which is the highest point of all the inclosures, and commands a boundless prospect. There, on a glorious throne, you may observe a majestic person in her bloom, well drest, but without art or lavish cost, and her temples adorned with a beautiful Tiar: This is Happiness
