[Footnote 50: Cardonne, tom. i. p. 329, 330. This
confession, the complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this
world, (read Prior's verbose but eloquent poem,) and the
happy ten days of the emperor Seghed, (Rambler, No. 204,
205,) will be triumphantly quoted by the detractors of human
life. Their expectations are commonly immoderate, their
estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak of myself,
(the only person of whom I can speak with certainty,) my
happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty
numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to
add, that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the
present composition.]