tage of its errors; cherish its prejudices; applaud its fuperftition, and defend its vices. The fashionable circles may, perhaps, welcome fuch characters as their best supporters, and highest ornaments; but to them the calm and tranquil pleasures of retirement are dreary and difgufting.

To all thofe, indeed, whom VICE has betrayed into GUILT, and whose bosoms are stung by the adders of REMORSE, Solitude is doubly terrible; and they fly from its fhades to scenes of worldly pleasure, in the hope of being able to filence the keen reproaches of violated conscience in the tumults of Society.-Vain attempt !

"GUILT is the fource of SORROW! 'tis the fiend, "Th' avenging fiend, that follows them behind "With whips and stings. The bleft know none of this, But reft in everlasting peace of mind,

"And find the height of all their heaven is Goop

NESS."

SOLITUDE, indeed, as well as RELIGION, has been represented in such dismal, disagreeable colours, by those who were incapable of tasting its fweets, and enjoying its advantages, that many difmifs it totally from all their schemes of happiness, and fly to it only to alleviate the bit ternefs of fome momentary paffion, or temporary adverfity, or to hide the blushes of approaching fhame. But there are advantages to be derived

from

from Solitude even under fuch circumstances, by those who are otherwife incapable of enjoying them. Those who know the most delightful comforts, and fatisfactory enjoyments, of which a wellregulated Solitude is productive, like those who are acquainted with the folid benefits to be derived from RELIGION, will feek Retirement, in the hours of profperity and content, as the only means by which they can be enjoyed in true perfection. The tranquillity of its fhades will give richness to their joys; its uninterrupted quietude will enable them to expatiate on the fulness of their felicity; and they will turn their eyes with foft compaffion on the miseries of the world when compared with the bleffings they enjoy.

Strongly, therefore, as the focial principle ope rates in our breasts; and neceffary as it is, when properly regulated, to the improvement of our minds, the refinement of our manners, and the ame lioration of our hearts; yet fome portion of our time ought to be devoted to rational retirement : and we must not conclude that thofe who occafionally abftain from the tumultuous pleasures, and promifcuous enjoyments, of the world, are morofe characters, or of peevifh difpofitions; nor ftigmatize those who appear to prefer the calm delights of Solitude to the tumultuous pleasures of the world, as unnatural and anti-social.

"Whoever thinks, muft fee that man was made
"To face the storm, not languish in the fhade :
"Action's his fphere, and for that fphere defign'd,
"Eternal pleasures open on his mind.

"For this fair Hope leads on th' impaffion'd foul
"Thro' life's wild lab'rinths to her diftant goal;
"Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,
"The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame;
"Or fondly gives Reflection's cooler eye
"In SOLITUDE, an image of a future sky."

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

OF

THE MOTIVES TO SOLITUDE.

THE motives which induce men to exchange the tumultuous joys of Society for the calm and temperate pleasures of Solitude, are various and accidental; but whatever may be the final cause of such an exchange, it is generally founded on an inclination to escape from fome present or impending constraint; to shake off the fhackles of the world; to tafte the sweets of soft repofe; to enjoy the free and undisturbed exertion of the intellectual faculties; or to perform, beyond the reach of ridicule, the important duties of religion. But the busy pursuits of worldly-minded men prevent the greater part of the fpecies from feeling these motives, and, of course, from tafting the sweets of unmolefted exiftence. Their pleasures are pursued in paths which lead to very different goals: and the real, conftant, unaffected lover of Retirement is a character fo rarely found, that it seems to prove the truth of LORD VERULAM'S * obfervation, that he who is really C4 attached

* LORD BACON fays, "It would have been hard for him who spoke it, to put more truth and untruth together in as

attached to SOLITUDE, must be either more or less than man; and certain it is, that while the WISE and VIRTUOUS discover in Retirement an uncommon and transcending brightness of character, the VICIOUS and the IGNORANT are buried under its weight, and fink even beneath their ordinary level. Retirement gives additional firmness to the principles of those who seek it from a noble love of independence, but loofens

the

few words, than in that speech, Whoever is delighted in SOLITUDE, is either a wild beast or a god.' For it is most true, that a natural and fecret hatred and averfion toward fociety in any man hath fomewhat of the favage beast: but it is most untrue, that it fhould have any character at all of the Divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in Solitude, but out of a love and defire to sequester a man's felf for a higher conversation; fuch as is found to have been falfely and feignedly in some of the heathens; as Epimenides, the Arcadian; Numa, the Roman; Empedocles, the Sicilian; and Appollonius, of Tyana; and truly and really in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what SOLITUDE is, and how far it extendeth for a crowd is not company; and faces are but gallery pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: "Magna civitas, magna folitudo;" because in a great town friends are fcattered, fo that there is not that fellowship for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and mi- ̧ ferable Solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this fenfe also of Solitude, whofoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beaft, and not from humanity.”