temperance, and mingled with retirement, being devoured with such eager haste, speedily surfeits and disgusts. Hence these are the persons who, after having run through a rapid course of pleasure, after having glittered for a few years in the foremost line of public amusements, are the most apt to fly at last to a melancholy retreat not led by religion or reason, but driven by disappointed hopes, and exhausted spirits, to the pensive conclusion that "all is vanity." If uninterrupted intercourse with the world wears out the man of pleasure, it no less oppresses the man of business and ambition. The strongest spirits must at length sink under it. The happiest temper must be soured by incessant returns of the opposition, the inconstancy, and the treachery of men: for he who lives always in the bustle of the world, lives in a perpetual warfare. Here an enemy encounters; there a rival supplants him: the ingratitude of a friend stings him this hour, and the pride of a superior wounds him the next. In vain he flies for relief to trifling amusements. These may afford a temporary opiate to care, but they communicate no strength to the mind; on the contrary, they leave it more soft and defenceless when molestation and injuries renew their attack. Let him who wishes for an effectual cure to all the wounds which the world can inflict, retire from intercourse with men to intercourse with God. When he enters into his closet, and shuts the door, let him shut out at the same time all intrusion of worldly care, and dwell among objects divine and immortal. Those fair prospects of order and peace shall there open to his view, which form the most perfect contrast to the confusion and misery of this earth. The celestial inhabitants quarrel not; among them is neither ingratitude nor envy, nor tumult. Men may harass one another; but in the kingdom of God concord

and tranquillity reign for ever. From such objects there beams upon the mind of the pious man a pure and enlivening light; there is diffused over his heart a holy calm. His agitated spirit reassumes its firmness, and regains its peace. The world sinks in its importance; and the load of mortality and misery loses almost all its weight. The green pastures open, and the still waters flow around him, beside which the Shepherd of Israel guides his flock. The disturbances and alarms so formidable to those who are engaged in the tumults of the world, seem to him only like thunder rolling afar off; like the noise of distant waters, whose sound he hears, whose course he traces, but whose waves touch him not and as religious retirement is thus evidently conducive to our happiness in this life, so it is absolutely necessary, in order to prepare us for the life to come."

The disposition to Solitude, however, of whatever kind or complexion it may be, is greatly in. fluenced by the temper and constitution of the body, as well as by the frame and turn of the mind. The action of those causes proceeds, perhaps, by slow and insensible degrees, and varies in its form and manner in each individual; but though gradual or multiform, it at length reaches its point, and confirms the subject of it in habits of rational retreat, or unnatural solitude.

The motives which conduce to a love of Solitude might, without doubt, be assigned to other causes; but a discussion of all the refined opera. tions to which the mind may be exposed, and its bent and inclination determined, by the two great powers of Sensation and Reflection, would be more curious than useful. Relinquishing all inquiry into the primary or remote causes of human action, to those who are fond of the useless subtilties of metaphysics, and confining our searches to those final or immediate causes which

re.

produce this disposition to enjoy the benefits of rational retirement, or encounter the mischiefs of irrational solitude, we shall proceed to shew the mischiefs which may result from the one, in order that they may be contrasted with the advantages which, in the first part, we have already shewed may be derived from the other.

CHAP. III.

The Disadvantages of Solitude.

THE retirement which is not the result of cool and deliberate reason, so far from improving the feelings of the heart, or strengthening the powers of the mind, generally renders men less able to discharge the duties and endure the burthens of life. The wiset and best formed system of retirement is, indeed, surrounded with a variety of dangers, which are not, without the greatest care and caution, easily avoided. But in every species of total Solitude, the surrounding perils are not only innumerable, but almost irresistible. It would, however, be erroneous to impute all the defects which may characterize such a recluse merely to the loneness of his situation. There are original defects implanted by the hand of Nature in every constitution, which no species of retirement or discipline can totally eradicate: there are certain vices, the seeds of which are so inherent, that no care, however great, can totally destroy. The advantages or disadvantages arising from retirement, will always be proportionate to the degrees of Virtue and Vice which prevail in the character of the recluse. It is certain that an occasional retreat from the business of the world will greatly improve the virtues, and increase the happiness, of him on whom Nature has bestowed a sound understanding and a sensible heart; but when the heart is corrupt, the under

standing weak, the imagination flighty, and the disposition depraved, Solitude only tends to increase the evil, and to render the character more rank and vicious; for whatever be the culture, the produce will unavoidably partake of the quality of the seeds and the nature of the soil; and Solitude, by allowing a weak and wicked mind leisure to brood over its own suggestions, re-creates and rears the mischief it was intended to prevent.

Where Solitude, sad nurse of care,
To sickly musing gives the pensive mind;
There madness enters; and the dim-ey'd fiend,.
Lorn Melancholy, night and day provokes
Her own eternal wound. The sun grows pale;
A mournful visionary light o'erspreads
The cheerful face of nature; earth becomes
A dreary desert; and the heavens frown above.
Then various shapes of curs'd illusion rise;
Whate'er the wretched fear, creating fear
Forms out of nothing; and with monsters teems
Unknown in hell. The prostrate soul beneath
A load of huge imagination heaves:

And all the horrors that the guilty feel,

With anxious flutterings wake the guilty breast.
From other cares absolv'd, the busy mind

Finds in itself a theme to pore upon;
And finds it miserable, or makes it so."

To enable the mind, however, to form an accurate judgment of the probable consequences of Solitude, it is, perhaps, necessary to have seen instances both of its advantageous and detrimental effects. The consequences vary with the subject on which it operates; and the same species of Solitude which to one character would be injurious, will prove to another of the highest benefit and advantage. The saine person, indeed, may, at different periods, as his disposition. changes, experience, under similar circumstances of retirement, very different effects. Certain, however, it is, that an occasional retreat from the tumultuous intercourses of society, or a judi

cious and well-arranged retirement, cannot be prejudicial. To have pointed out the train of Virtues it is capable of producing, and to have been silent upon the black catalogue of Vices that may result from extreme seclusion, would ́ have been the more pleasing task; but I have undertaken to draw the character of Solitude impartially, and must therefore point out its possible defects.

Man, in a state of solitary indolence and inac tivity, sinks, by degrees, like stagnant water, into impurity and corruption. The body suffers with the mind's decay. It is more fatal than excess of action. It is a malady that renders every hope of recovery vain and visionary. To sink from action into rest, is only indulging the common course of Nature; but to rise from long continued indolence to voluntary activity, is extremely difficult, and almost impracticable. A celebrated poet has finely described this class of unhappy beings in the following lines:

"Then look'd, and saw a lazy lolling sort,
Unseen at church, at senate, or at court,
Of ever listless loiterers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend.
Thee, too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there,
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness."

To preserve the proper strength, both of the body and the mind, labour must be regularly and seasonably mingled with rest. Each of them require their suited exercise and relaxations. Philosophers, who aim at the attainment of every superior excellency, do not indulge themselves in ease, and securely and indolently wait for the cruelties of fortune to attack them in their retirement; but, for fear she should surprise them in the state of inexperienced and raw soldiers, undisciplined for the battle, they sally out to meet her, and put themselves into regular training, and