By degrees all made advances, and all resented
repulse. The table was then covered with delicacies
in vain; the musick sounded in empty rooms; and
Abouzaid was left to form in solitude some new
scheme of pleasure or security.
Resolving now to try the force of gratitude, he
inquired for men of science, whose merit was
obscured by poverty. His house was soon crowded
with poets, sculptors, painters, and designers, who
wantoned in unexperienced plenty, and employed
their powers in celebration of their patron. But in
a short time they forgot the distress from which
they had been rescued, and began to consider their
deliverer as a wretch of narrow capacity, who was
growing great by works which he could not perform,
and whom they overpaid by condescending
to accept his bounties. Abouzaid heard their
murmurs and dismissed them, and from that hour
continued blind to colours, and deaf to panegyrick.
As the sons of art departed, muttering threats
of perpetual infamy, Abouzaid, who stood at the
gate, called to him Hamet the poet. "Hamet,"
said he, "thy ingratitude has put an end to my
hopes and experiments: I have now learned the
vanity of those labours that wish to be rewarded
by human benevolence; I shall henceforth do good,
and avoid evil, without respect to the opinion of
men; and resolve to solicit only the approbation of
that Being whom alone we are sure to please by
endeavouring to please him.
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