piercing eyes, and vivid understandings, turned loose upon mankind, with no other business than to fparkle and intrigue, to perplex and to destroy. For my own part, whenever chance brings within my observation, a knot of miffes bufy at their needles, I confider myfelf as in THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE; and though I have no extraordinary skill in plain-work or embroidery, look upon their operations with as much fatisfac tion as their governess, because I regard them as providing a fecurity against the most dangerous enfnarers of the foul, by enabling them to exclude Idleness from their folitary moments, and with Idlenefs, her attendant train of paffions, fancies, chimeras, fears, forrows, and defires, OVID and CERVANTES will inform them, that Love has no power but on those whom he catches unemployed: and HECTOR, in the Iliad, when he fees ANDROMACHE overwhelmed with tears, fends her for confolation to the loom and the diftaff." Certain it is, that wild wishes, and P vain

ANDROMACHE! my foul's far better part,
Why with untimely forrows heaves thy heart ?
'Tis fate condemns me to the filent tomb,
No hoftile hand can antedate my doom.""
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth,~
And fuch the hard condition of our birth,
No force can then refift, no flight can save;
All fink alike, the fearful and the brave.

No

f

vain imaginations, never take fuch firm poffeffion of the mind, as when it is found empty and unt employed. pos

1 4 entre beg oldest of 120 m 163

7

1911

IDLENESS, indeed, was the spreading root from which all the vices and crimes of the oriental nuns fo luxuriantly branched. Few of them had any taste for fcience, or were enabled, by the habits either of reflection or industry, to charm away the tedioufnefs of SOLITUDE, or to relieve that weariness which must neceffarily accompany their abftracted fituation. The talents with which nature had endowed them were uncultivated; the glimmering lights of reason were obfcured by a blind and headlong zeal; and their tempers foured by the circumftances of their forlorn condition. Certain it is, that the only means of avoiding unhappiness and mifery in Solitude, and perhaps in Society also, is to keep

No more but haften to thy task at home;
There guide the fpindle, and dire& the loom :
Me Glory fummons to the martial scene;
The field of combat is the sphere of men:
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim :
The firft in danger, as the first in fame.
Thus having said, the glorious chief refumes
His tow'ry helmet, black with fhading plumes.
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh; tank.
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye,
That stream'd at every look; then moving flow,
Sought her own palace, and indulg'd her woe.

the

the mind continually engaged in, or occupied by, fome laudable purfuit. The earliest profes fors of a life of Solitude, although they removed themselves far from the haunts of men, among "caverns deep," and "deferts idle," where Nature denied her fons the moft common of her bleffings, employed themselves in endeavouring to cultivate the rude and barren foil, during those intervals in which they were not occupied in the ordinary labours of religion; and even those whofe extraordinary fanctity confined them the, whole day to their cells, found the neceffity of filling up their leisure, by exercifing the ma nual arts for which they were refpectively fuited. The rules, indeed, which were originally eftablished in most of the convents, ordained that the time and attention of a monk fhould never be for a moment vacant or unemployed; but this excellent precept was foon rendered obfolete; and the fad confequences which refulted from its nonobfervance, we have already, in fome degree, described.

THE anxiety with which I have endeavoured

to describe THE ADVANTAGES and THE DISADVANTAGES which, under particular cir cumstances, and in particular fituations, are likely to be experienced by those who devote themfelves to folitary retirement, may, perhaps, occafion me to be viewed by fome as its romantic panegyrift, and by others as its uncandid cenfor. I fhall, therefore, endeavour, in this concluding chapter, to prevent a misconstruction of my opinion, by explicitly declaring the inferences which ought in fairness to be drawn from what I have faid.

The advocates for a life of uninterrupted SOCIETY will, in all probability, accuse me of being a morofe and gloomy philosopher; an inveterate enemy to focial intercourfe; who, by recommending a melancholy and fullen feclufion, and interdicting mankind from enjoying the pleafures of life, would four their tempers, fubdue their affections, annihilate the beft feelings of "the heart, pervert the noble faculty of reason, X

VOL. II.

and

2

and thereby once more plunge the world into that dark abyfs of barbarifm, from which it has been so happily rescued by the establishment and civilization of society.

The advocates for a life of continual SOLITUDE will moft probably, on the other hand, accufe me of a design to deprive the species of one of the most pleafing and fatisfactory delights,* by exciting an unjust antipathy, raising an unfounded alarm, depreciating the ufes, and aggra vating the abuses, of SOLITUDE; and by thefe

Ever means,

But the right of indulging this delight, even fuppofing it to exift, is denied by a very able philofopher. "Some of thofe fages," fays he, "that have exercised their abilities in the enthat the quiry after the Supreme good, have been of opinion, highest degree of earthly happiness is quiet; a calm repofe both of mind and body, undisturbed by the fight of folly, or the noife of bufinefs, the tumults of public commotion, or the agitations of private interests: a state in which the mind has no other employment, but to obferve and regulate her own motions, to trace thought from thought, combine one image with anos ther, raise fyftems of science, and form theories of virtue. To the scheme of those folitary fpeculatifts it has been juftly ob jected, that if they are happy, they are happy only by being useless: that mankind is one vaft republic, where every individual receives many benefits from the labours of others, which, by labouring in his turn for others, he is obliged to repay; and that, where the united efforts of all are not able to exempt all from mifery, none have a right to withdraw from their tafk of vigilance, or to be indulged in idle wisdom, or folitary pleasures."