"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose, without equivalent the joys of early love and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their surfaces to each other."
[Rasselas] The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale in Two Volumes
At least 37 entries in the ESTC (1759, 1760, 1766, 1768, 1775, 1777, 1783, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799, 1800).<br>
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See <u>The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. In Two Volumes.</u> (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley; and W. Johnston, 1759). &lt;<a href="http://estc.bl.uk/T139510">Link to ESTC</a>&gt;
&lt;<a href="http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/rasselas.html">Link to Jack Lynch's online edition</a>&gt;<br>
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Reading <u>The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia</u>, ed. Thomas Keymer (Oxford: OUP, 2009). 