of whatever country, and at whatever distance, in the persuasion, that beauty and virtue are one; and that, from their union, in this world or the next, must proceed a long and lasting happiness. Constituting at once the column, pedestal, and capital to each other, they form, as it were, that Doric column, which Palladio writes of; which, being neither Grecian, Roman, Gothic, nor Italian, is far more beautiful than either; and charms and fascinates wherever it is seen.

b

The dissertation of Maximus Tyrius, in which the doctrine of the Platonists, on this subject, is so fully explained, has most of the essential qualities of a poem. Well might Casaubon call that accomplished writer "Mellitissimus Platonicorum!" The pleasure, which is derived from scenery, we may trace, in some way or other, to something, which has an immediate or collateral reference to humanity. The conclusions of Alison, therefore, are perfectly just. For, unless the imagination be excited, the emotions of beauty and sublimity are unfelt. Hence, whatever increases the powers of that faculty, increases those emotions, in like proportion : and no objects or qualities being felt, either as beautiful or sublime, but such as are productive of some simple emotion, no composition of objects, or qualities, produce emotions of taste, in which that unity is not preserved.

It is association, then, which produces that intimate connexion, which subsists between the beauties of Nature and the beauty of sensation. Every scene, to be perfectly beautiful in the eye of man, must, in consequence, possess something which refers to humanity. Either horses, sheep, or oxen; either cottages, churches, or ruins; or something that has reference to ourselves, as sentient beings, must meet the eye or the ear in some part or other of the scene, or the whole is incomplete. The Mississippi would have less interest for the traveller, were not the warblings of the red-bird heard upon

a Diss. ix.; also Seneca de Benef. v. 1, 2; Lucret. lib. iii.; Cic. de Off. lib. iii. c. 3. b Misc. Observ. lib. i. c. 20.

its banks; and the solitudes of Valdarno would be far less affecting in their character, were there no echoes of matin and vesper chaunts from the monastery of Vallombrosa.

Every one feels how much even the most magnificent view acquires, if a sheperd is seen, tending his flocks, among the precipices: a fisherman hanging his nets on the side of a rock; a student reclining under a ruined arch; a woodman returning by the light of the moon; or if a hunter, weary of bounding among the crags, should

-throw him on the ridgy steep

Of some loose hanging rock to sleep.

It is, nevertheless, true, that, as every landscape should be observed from its proper point, so every sound must be heard in its proper place. Who is not displeased with the horn of the huntsman, if sounded in a garden? And who can listen to the bleating of sheep, confined in a house; or to the lowing of cattle near the windows of a drawing-room? And yet how agreeable are our sensations, when lambs bleat upon the mountains; when cows low among the meadows; and when the huntsman's bugle echoes through the forest!

Hence, all our more celebrated masters in the art of painting, never fail to animate their pictures with living objects; in unison with the scenes, they respectively exhibit. How comparatively unmoving were the creations of Salvator Rosa, without his groups of banditti! and how far less interesting were the rocks, valleys, and woods of the romantic Claude, were we to expunge his shepherds, his flocks, and his ruins! The poets seldom neglect to embellish their subjects in a similar manner". Full of those allusions and associations is the poem of Grongar Hill.

Grongar!-The imagination immediately transports us thither. This celebrated eminence, my Lelius, is situated in

* A neglect of this is one cause why De Lille's poem of Les Jardins excites so little interest.

the most picturesque part of the vale of Towy. No place do I remember, in which the combinations of water, wood, mountain and ruin, assume so agreeable a variety :-sacred have been the moments, I have passed, on that enchanting spot!

Grongar! in whose mossy cells,
Sweetly musing, Quiet dwells:
Grongar! in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made:
So oft I have, at evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,

Sat upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head;

While strayed my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over hill and over wood;

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

SOLITUDE.

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IN scenes, like those of Grongar, tranquillity loves to repose; and solitude, beloved by the good, and sought as a refuge by the great, most delights to linger. Delicacy and distinction," says Sir William Temple, “make a man solitary." By a love of solitude, however, far am I from alluding to that misanthropic dislike of society, which impels man to forsake his fellow, in order to indulge a selfish and indignant passion. A desire of solitude of that nature is seldom engendered by a contemplation of Nature; which impels only to that description of retirement, the charms of which we may whisper to a friend: an idea, realized in a picture of Solitude, painted by Gaspar Poussin, in the collection of his Majesty: illustrated by Balzaca; and alluded to by Cowper.

I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd,
"How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!"
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, "solitude is sweet."

a La solitude est véritablement une belle chose; mais il y auroit plaisir d'avoir un ami fait comme vous, à qui on pût dire quelquefois, que c'est une belle

An affectionate friend does, indeed, illumine with a serene lustre that engaging society of solitude, which, in a world like this, a cultivated mind frequently finds only in the sanctuary of its own bosom: when books are its friends, and the birds are its companions.

In retirement, statesmen recruit their mental strength, like Achilles stringing his bow; an eagle sharpening his talons; or an elephant whetting his tusks. In retirement, the man of learning or genius strips himself of all ornament; his thoughts become concentrated, and his desires moderated. To those devoted to worldly, or to scientific pursuits, it gives that temperate rest, so necessary to recruit the weary organs of activity-It affords the leisure to arrange the materials of thought; to mature the labours of art; and to polish the works of genius. It relieves the mind from the frivolities of life; and lessens its anxieties, as much as every improvement in mechanics diminishes the value of bodily strength.

To a life of solitude has been objected a destitution of employment and if the accusation were just, the censure were severe. For without occupation, the mind becomes listless; it preys upon itself; and we should be in danger of becoming melancholy, even to weariness of life. In nothing, therefore, does Pliny err more, than when he says, that there are only two things, by which we ought to be actuated: "a love of immortal fame; or continual inactivity." But let no one be

chose.-LET. CHOIS. liv. ii. v. 24. La Bruyère has a similar sentiment:-La solitude est certainement une belle chose; mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un qui sache répondre à qui on puisse dire de tems en tems que la solitude est une belle chose.-LA BRUYERE. De Lille, too, in the first canto of his Homme des Champs. Also La Fontaine :

Ma sœur, lui dit Progné, comment vous portez-vous !
Voici tantôt mille ans que l'on ne vous a vue.
Ne quitterez-vous point ce séjour solitaire?
Ah! reprit Philomèle, en est-il de plus doux?

Le désert est-il fait pour des talens si beaux ?

Solitude is well treated of in Vita Solitaria; and a contempt of the world in De Contemptu Mundi.

actuated by the opinion of Pliny, in this important particular. Idleness quickens the approach of disease and want; as naturally as the advance of astronomy accelerated the fall of astrology. Where idleness prevails, vice prevails; and where vice is long tolerated, crime walks with gigantic stride over all the land. To live without labour is destructive to the body; to be indolent is fatal to the mind; and both are destined to be the operative causes of each other's misery.

The listless torments of indolence are well described by Seneca, in his fine Treatise on the Tranquillity of the Mind; and even Pliny himself, in another part of his works, observing that the mental faculties are raised and enlarged by the activity of the body, exemplifies his argument, by drawing an excellent picture of an old senator, retiring into the country, and guarding himself from lassitude by continual occupation,

O Solitude!-romantic maid-
Whether by nodding towers you tread,
Or haunt the desert's trackless gloom,
Or hover o'er the yawning tomb,

Or climb the Andes' clifted side,

Or by the Nile's coy source abide ;

Or, starting from your half-year's sleep,

From Hecla view the thawing deep,

Or, at the purple dawn of day,
Tadmor's marble wastes survey;

You, Recluse, again I woo,

And again your steps pursue.-GRAINGER.

Thus sings the poet! But the man of the world-Oh!-he will tell you that the poet dreams.

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Solitude," he exclaims, "is nothing better than a dreary waste, for idleness to linger in." And does retirement indeed offer no objects to engage our attention? Does it not, on the other hand, present a succession of amusements and pleasures, ever changing and ever varied? Can he want exercise, who has a garden! Can he want mental recreation, who has a library? Can he be destitute of objects to engage his research, who has the volume of Nature always unfolded before him? On the contrary, so