ther died seven days
after his birth, and the father confided the child to the care of his
deceased wife's sister, who, however, had been his wife even before the
mother's death. The child grew up a most beautiful and most accomplished
boy, who soon knew more than his masters could teach him. He refused to
take part in the games of his playmates, and never felt so happy as when he
could sit alone, lost in meditation in the deep shadows of the forest. It
was there that his father found him, when he had thought him lost, and in
order to prevent the young prince from becoming a dreamer, the king
determined to marry him at once. When the subject was mentioned by the aged
ministers to the future heir to the throne, he demanded seven days for
reflection, and convinced at last that not even marriage could disturb the
calm of his mind, he allowed the ministers to look out for a princess. The
princess selected was the beautiful Gopa, the daughter of Da_nd_apa_n_i.
Though her father objected at first to her marrying a young prince who was
represented to him as deficient in manliness and intellect, he gladly gave
his consent when he saw the royal suitor distancing all his rivals both in
feats of arms and power of mind. Their marriage proved one of the happiest,
but the prince remained, as he had been before, absorbed in meditation on
the problems of life and death. 'Nothing is stable on earth,' he used to
say, 'nothing is real. Life is like the spark produced by the friction of
wood. It is lighted and is extinguished--we know not whence it came or
whither it goes. It is like the sound of a lyre, and the wise man asks in
vain from whence it came and whither it goes. There must be some supreme
intelligence where we could find rest. If I attained it, I could bring
light to man; if I were free myself, I could deliver the world.' The king,
who perceived the melancholy mood of the young prince, tried every thing to
divert him from his speculations: but all was in vain. Three of the most
ordinary events that could happen to any man, proved of the utmost
importance in the career of Buddha. We quote the description of these
occurrences from M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire:

'One day when the prince with a large retinue drove through
the eastern gate of the city on the way to one of his parks,
he met on the road an old man, broken and decrepit. One
could see the veins and muscles over the whole of his body,
his teeth cha