Note 050
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.

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The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire —Fall In The East —Chapter 52