CHAPTER II.

_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 some present or impending constraint; to shake off the shackles of the world; to taste the sweets of soft repose; 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 species from feeling these motives, and, of course, from tasting the sweets of unmolested existence. Their pleasures are pursued in paths which lead to very different goals: and the real, constant, and unaffected lover of retirement is a character so rarely found, that it seems to prove the truth of lord Verulam’s observation, that he who is really 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 sink even beneath their ordinary level. Retirement gives additional firmness to the principles of those who seek it from a noble love of independence, but loosens the feeble consistency of those who only seek it from novelty and caprice.

To render solitude serviceable, the powers of the mind, and the sensibilities of the heart, must be co-equal, and reciprocally regulate each other; weakness of intellect, when joined with quick feelings, hurries its possessor into all the tumult of worldly pleasure; and when mingled with torpid insensibility, impels him to the cloister. Extremes, both in solitude and in society, are equally baneful.

A strong sense of shame, the keen compunctions of conscience, a deep regret for past follies, the mortification arising from disappointed hopes, and the dejection which accompanies disordered health, sometimes so affect the spirits, and destroy the energies of the mind, that the soul shrinks back upon itself at the very approach of company, and withdraws to the shades of solitude, only to brood and languish in obscurity. The inclination to retire, in cases of this description, arises from a fear of meeting the reproaches or disregard of an unpitying and unreflecting world, and not from that erect spirit which disposes the mind to self enjoyment.

The disgust arising from satiety of worldly pleasures, frequently induces a temporary desire for solitude. The dark and gloomy nature, indeed, of this disposition, is such as neither the splendors of a throne, nor the light of philosophy, are able to irradiate and dispel. The austere and petulant Heraclitus abandoned all the pleasures and comforts of society, in the vain hope of being able to gratify his discontented mind, by indulging an antipathy against his fellow creatures; flying from their presence he retired, like his predecessor Timon, to a high mountain, where he lived for many years among the beasts of the desert, on the rude produce of the earth, regardless of all the comforts a civilized society is capable of bestowing. Such a temper of mind proceeds from a sickened intellect and disordered sensibility, and indicates the loss of that fine, but firm sense of pleasure, from which alone all real enjoyment must spring. He who having tasted all that can delight the senses, warm the heart, and satisfy the mind, secretly sighs over the vanity of his enjoyments, and beholds all the cheering objects of life with indifference, is, indeed, a melancholy example of the sad effects which result from an intemperate pursuit of worldly pleasures. Such a man may, perhaps, abandon society, for it is no longer capable of affording him delight; but he will be debarred from all rational solitude, because he is incapable of enjoying it, and a refuge to the brute creation seems his only resource. I have, indeed, observed even noblemen and princes in the midst of abundance, and surrounded by all the splendor that successful ambition, high state, vast riches, and varying pleasures can confer, sinking the sad victims of satiety; disgusted with their glories; and dissatisfied with all those enjoyments which are supposed to give a higher relish to the soul; but they had happily enriched their minds with notions far superior to all those which flow from the corrupted scenes of vitiated pleasures; and they found, in solitude, a soft and tranquil pillow, which invited their perturbed minds, and at length lulled their feelings into calm repose. These characters were betrayed for a time by the circumstances which surrounded their exalted stations into an excess of enjoyment; but they were able to relish the simple occupations, and to enjoy the tranquil amusements of retirement, with as much satisfaction as they had formerly pursued the political intrigues of the cabinet, the hostile glories of the field, or the softer indulgences of peaceful luxury; and were thereby rendered capable of deriving comfort and consolation from that source which seems only to heighten and exasperate the miseries of those whose minds are totally absorbed in the dissipations of life.

The motives, indeed, which lead men either to temporary retirement, or absolute solitude, are innumerably various. Minds delicately susceptible to the impressions of virtue, frequently avoid society, only to avoid the pain they feel in observing the vices and follies of the world. Minds active and vigorous, frequently retire to avoid the clogs and incumbrances by which the tumults and engagements of society distract and impede the free and full enjoyment of their faculties. The basis, indeed, of every inclination to solitude is the love of liberty, either mental or corporeal; a freedom from all constraint and interruption: but the form in which the inclination displays itself, varies according to the character and circumstances of the individual.

Men who are engaged in pursuits foreign to the natural inclination of their minds, sigh continually for retirement, as the only means of recruiting their fatigued spirits, and procuring a comfortable repose. Scenes of tranquillity can alone afford them any idea of enjoyment. A refined sense of duty, indeed, frequently induces noble minds to sacrifice all personal pleasures to the great interests of the public, or the private benefits of their fellow creatures; and they resist every opposing obstacle with courage, and bear every adversity with fortitude, under those cheering sentiments, and proud delights, which result from the pursuits of active charity and benevolence, even though their career be thwarted by those whose advantages they design to promote. The exhilarating idea of being instrumental in affording relief to suffering humanity, reconciles every difficulty, however great: prompts to new exertions, however fruitless; and sustains them in those arduous conflicts, in which all who aspire to promote the interest, and improve the happiness of mankind, must occasionally engage, especially when opposed by the pride and profligacy of the rich and great, and the obstinacy and caprice of the ignorant and unfeeling. But the most virtuous and steady minds cannot always bear up against “a sea of troubles, or by opposing, end them:” and, depressed by temporary adversities, will arraign the cruelty of their condition, and sigh for the shades of peace and tranquillity. How transcendent must be the enjoyment of a great and good minister who, after having anxiously attended to the important business of the state, and disengaged himself from the necessary but irksome occupation of official detail, refreshes his mind in the calm of some delightful retreat, with works of taste, and thoughts of fancy and imagination! A change, indeed, both of scene and sentiment, is absolutely necessary, not only in the serious and important employments, but even in the common occupations and idle amusements of life. Pleasure springs from contrast. The most charming object loses a portion of its power to delight, by being continually beheld. Alternate society and solitude are necessary to the full enjoyment of both the pleasures of the world and the delights of retirement. It is, however, asserted that the celebrated Pascal, whose life was far from being inactive, that quietude is a beam of the original purity of our nature, and that the height of human happiness is in solitude and tranquillity. Tranquillity, indeed, is the wish of all: the good, while pursuing the track of virtue; the great while following the star of glory; and the little, while creeping in the styes of dissipation, sigh for tranquillity and make it the great object which they ultimately hope to attain. How anxiously does the sailor, on the high and giddy mast, when rolling through tempestuous seas, cast his eyes over the foaming billows, and anticipate the calm security he hopes to enjoy when he reaches the wished for shore! Even kings grow weary of their splendid slavery, and nobles sicken under increasing dignities. All, in short, feel less delight in the actual enjoyment of worldly pursuits, however great and honorable they may be, than in the idea of their being able to relinquish them and retire to

“… some calm sequestered spot; The world forgetting, by the world forgot.”

The restless and ambitious Pyrrhus hoped that ease and tranquillity would be the ultimate reward of his enterprising conquests. Frederic the great, discovered, perhaps unintentionally, how pleasing and satisfactory the idea of tranquillity was to his mind, when immediately after he had gained a glorious and important victory, he exclaimed on the field of battle, “Oh that my anxieties may now be ended!” The emperor Joseph also displayed the predominancy of his passion for tranquillity and retirement, when on asking the famous German pedestrian, Baron Grothaus, what countries he next intended to traverse, was told a long number in rapid succession. “And what then?” continued the emperor. “Why then,” replied the baron, “I intend to retire to the place of my nativity, and enjoy myself in rural quietude, and the cultivation of my patrimonial farm.” “Ah, my good friend,” exclaimed the emperor, “if you will trust the voice of sad experience, you had better neglect the walk, and retire before it is too late, to the quietude and tranquillity you propose.”

Publius Scipio, surnamed Africanus, during the time that he was invested with the highest offices of Rome, and immediately engaged in the most important concerns of the empire, withdrew whenever an opportunity occurred, from public observation, to peaceful privacy; and though not devoted, like Tully, to the elegant occupations of literature and philosophy, declared that “he was never less alone than when alone.” He was, says Plutarch, incomparably the first both in virtue and power, of the Romans of his time; but in his highest tide of fortune, he voluntarily abandoned the scene of his glory, and calmly retired to his beautiful villa in the midst of a romantic forest, near Liturnum, where he closed, in philosophic tranquillity, the last years of a long and splendid life.

Cicero, in the plenitude of his power, at a time when his influence over the minds of his fellow citizens was at its height, retired, with the retiring liberties of his country, to his Tusculum villa, to deplore the approaching fate of his beloved city, and to ease, in soothing solitude, the anguish of his heart.

Horace, also, the gay and elegant favorite of the great Augustus, even in the meridian rays of royal favor, renounced the smiles of greatness, and all the seductive blandishments of an imperial court, to enjoy his happy muse among the romantic wilds of his sequestered villa of Tibur, near the lake Albunea.

But there are few characters who have passed the concluding scenes of life with more real dignity than the emperor Dioclesian. In the twenty-first year of his reign, though he had never practised the lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or the use of supreme power, and although his reign had flowed with a tide of uninterrupted success, he executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire, and gave the world the first example of a resignation which has not been very frequently imitated by succeeding monarchs. Dioclesian was at this period only fifty-nine years of age, and in the full possession of his mental faculties; but he had vanquished all his enemies, and executed all his designs; and his active life, his wars, his journeys, the cares of royalty, and his application to business having impaired his constitution, and brought on the infirmities of a premature old age, he resolved to pass the remainder of his days in honorable repose; to place his glory beyond the reach of fortune, and to relinquish the theatre of the world to his younger and more active associates. The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain, about three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty throne, and, in a speech full of reason and dignity, declared his intention both to the people and to the soldiers, who were assembled on this extraordinary occasion. As soon as he had divested himself of the purple, he withdrew from the gazing multitude; and traversing the city in a covered chariot, proceeded without delay to the favorite retirement which he had chosen in his native country of Dalmatia. The emperor, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the throne, passed the last nine years of his life in a private condition at Salona. Reason had dictated, and content seems to have accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed for a long time the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the possession of the world. It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power, they principally regret the want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion, which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of fixing the attention of Dioclesian: but he had preserved, or, at least, he soon recovered, a taste for the most innocent as well as natural pleasures; and his leisure hours were sufficiently employed in building, planting, and gardening. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to resume the reins of government and the imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian the cabbages he had planted at Salona, he should be no longer urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power. In his conversations with his friends he frequently acknowledged, that of all the arts the most difficult was that of reigning; and he expressed himself on that favorite topic with a degree of warmth which could be the result only of experience. “How often,” was he accustomed to say, “is it the interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive the sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity, the truth is concealed from his knowledge: he can only see with their eyes; he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects; and by such infamous acts the best and wisest princes are sold to the venal corruption of their courtiers.” A just estimate of greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame, improve our relish for the pleasures of retirement.

Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and the east; a female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia, the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex, who spread the terror of her arms over Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, and kept even the legions of the Roman empire in awe, was, after the two great battles of Antioch and Emesa, at length subdued, and made the illustrious captive of the emperor Aurelian; but the conqueror, respecting the sex, the beauty, the courage and endowments of the Syrian queen, not only preserved her life, but presented her with an elegant villa at Tibur or Tivoli, about twenty miles from Rome; where, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation; and learnt that the anxieties attendant on ambition are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease and the comforts of philosophy.

Charles V. resigned the government of the empire to his brother the king of the Romans; and transferred all claims of obedience and allegiance to him from the Germanic body, in order that he might no longer be detained from that retreat for which he long had languished. In passing, some years before, from Valladolid to Placentia, in the Province of Estremadura, he was struck with the delightful situation of the monastery of St. Justus, belonging to the order of St. Jerome, not many miles distant from the town; and observed to some of his attendants, that this was a spot to which Dioclesian might have retired with pleasure. The impression remained upon his mind, and he determined to make it the place of his own retreat. It was seated in a vale of no great extent, watered by a small brook, and surrounded by rising grounds covered with lofty trees; and from the nature of the soil, as well as the temperature of the climate, was esteemed the most healthful and delicious situation in Spain. Some months before his resignation, he had sent an architect thither to add a new apartment to the monastery for his accommodation; but he gave strict orders that the style of the building should be such as suited his present station rather than his former dignity. It consisted only of six rooms; four of them in the form of friar’s cells, with naked walls; the other two, each twenty feet square, were hung with brown cloth, and furnished in the most simple manner; they were all on a level with the ground, with a door on one side into a garden of which Charles himself had given the plan, and had filled it with various plants, which he intended to cultivate with his own hands. On the other side they communicated with the chapel of the monastery, in which he was to perform his devotions. In this humble retreat, hardly sufficient for the comfortable accommodation of a private gentleman, did Charles enter with twelve domestics only, and buried in solitude and silence his grandeur, his ambition, and all those vast projects which, during almost half a century, had alarmed and agitated Europe; filling every kingdom in it by turns with the terror of his arms, and the dread of being subdued by his power.

These instances of resignation and retirement, to which many others might have been added, sufficiently prove that a desire to live in free leisure, independent of the restraints of society, is one of the most powerful affections of the human mind; and that solitude, judiciously and rationally employed, amply compensates all that is sacrificed for the purpose of enjoying it.

But there are many other resources from whence an anti-social disposition may arise, which merits consideration. That terrible malady, the hypocondria, frequently renders the unhappy sufferer not only averse to society in general, but even fearful of meeting a human being; and the still more dreadful malady a wounded heart, increases our antipathy to mankind. The fear of unfounded calumny also sometimes drives weak and dejected minds into the imaginary shelter of obscurity; and even strong and honest characters, prone to disclose their real sentiments, are disgusted at the world from a consciousness of its being unable to listen temperately to the voice of truth. The obstinacy with which mankind persist in habitual errors, and the violence with which they indulge inveterate passions, a deep regret for their follies, and the horror which their vices create, drives us frequently from their presence. The love of science, a fondness for the arts, and an attachment to the immortal works of genius, induce, I trust, not a few to neglect all anxiety to learn the common news of the day, and keep them in some calm, sequestered retreat far from the unmeaning manners of the noisy world, improving the genuine feelings of their hearts, and storing their minds with the principles of true philosophy. There are others, though I fear they are few, who, impressed by a strong sense of the duties of religion, and feeling how incompatible with their practice are most, if not all, the factitious joys of social life, retire from the corrupted scene, to contemplate, in sacred privacy, the attributes of a Being unalterably pure, and infinitely good; to impress upon their minds so strong a sense of the importance of obedience to the divine will, of the value of the reward promised to virtue, and the terrors of the punishment denounced against crimes, as may overbear all temptations which temporal hope or fear can bring in their way, and enable them to bid equal defiance to joy and sorrow; to turn away at one time from the allurements of ambition, and press forward at another against the threats of calamity.

The dejection occasioned by the hypochondria renders the mind not only averse from, but wholly incapable of, any pleasure, and induces the unhappy sufferer to seek a solitude by which it is increased. The influence of this dreadful malady is so powerful, that it destroys all hope of remedy, and prevents those exertions, by which alone, we are told it can be cured.

To cure the mind’s wrong bias--spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green; Some, hilly walks; all, exercise; Fling but a stone, the giant dies; Laugh, and be well. Monkies have been Extreme good doctors for the spleen; And kittens, if the humor hit, Have harlequined away the fit.

But, alas! the heart shuts itself against every pleasing sensation, and the mind dismisses every cheering sentiment. Joy opens in vain its festal arms to receive him; and he shuns embraces, whose light and mirthful air would only serve to increase the melancholy of his dreary and distempered mind. Even the tender, affectionate offices of friendship, in endeavoring to sooth and divert his mind by lively conversation and social intercourse, appear officious and ill-timed. His spirits are quite dejected; his faculties become torpid; and his sense of enjoyment is annihilated. The charming air which breathes to us the sweetest fragrance, and most invigorating delights, feels to him like a pestilent congregation of vapors.

His pensive spirit takes the lonely grove Nightly he visits all the sylvan scenes, Where, far remote, a melancholy moon Raising her head, serene and shorn of beams, Throws here and there the glimmerings through the trees, To make more awful darkness.

Conscious that his frame is totally unstrung, and that his pulse is incapable of beating in any pleasant unison with the feelings of his healthful friends, he withers into sorrowful decay. Every object around him appears to be at enmity with his feelings, and comes shapeless and discolored to his disordered eyes. The gentle voice of pity grates his ears with harsh and hollow sounds, and seems to reproach him with insulting tones. Stricken by his dreadful malady, the lamentable effects of which a cruel and unfeeling world so often ridicule and despise, and constantly tearing open the wound it has occasioned, the afflicted spirit flies from every scene of social joy and animating pleasure, seeks as a sole resource, to hide its sorrows in solitary seclusion, and awaits, in lingering sufferance, the stroke of death.

The erroneous opinions, perverse dispositions, and inveterate prejudices of the world, are sometimes the causes which induce men to retire from society, and seek in solitude the enjoyments of innocence and truth. Careless of a commerce with those for whom they can entertain no esteem, their minds naturally incline toward those scenes in which their fancy paints the fairest form of felicity. He, indeed, whose free and independent spirit is resolved to permit his mind to think for itself; who disdains to form his feelings, and to fashion his opinions, upon the capricious notions of the world; who is too candid to expect that others should be guided by his notions, and sufficiently firm not to obey implicitly the hasty notions of others; who seeks to cultivate the just and manly feelings of the heart, and to pursue truth in the paths of science, must detach himself from the degenerate crowd, and seek his enjoyments in retirement. For to those who love to consult their own ideas, to form opinions upon their own reasonings and discernment, and to express only such sentiments as they really feel, a society whose judgments are borrowed, whose literature is only specious, and whose principles are unfounded, must not only be irksomely insipid, but morally dangerous. The firm and noble minded disdain to bow their necks to the slavish yoke of vulgar prejudice, and appeal, in support of their opinions, to the higher tribunal of sense and reason, from the partial and ill-formed sentences of conceited critics, who, destitute themselves of any sterling merit, endeavor to depreciate the value of that coin whose weight and purity render it current, and to substitute their own base and varnished compositions in its stead. Those self-created who proudly place themselves in the professor’s chair, look with an envious and malignant eye on all the works of genius, taste, and sense; and as their interests are intimately blended with the destruction of every sublime and elegant production, their cries are raised against them the moment they appear. To blast the fame of merit is their chief object and their highest joy: and their lives are industriously employed to stifle the discoveries, to impede the advancement, to condemn the excellency, and to pervert the meaning of their more ingenious contemporaries. Like loathsome toads, they grovel on the ground, and, as they move along, emit a nasty slime, or frothy venom, on the sweetest shrubs and fairest flowers of the fields.

From the society of such characters, who seem to consider the noble productions of superior intellect, the fine and vigorous flights of fancy, the brilliant effusions of a sublime imagination, and the refined feelings of the heart, as fancied conceits or wild deliriums, those who examine them by a better standard than that of fashion or common taste, fly with delight.

The reign of envy, however, although it is perpetual as to the existence of the passion, is only transitory as to the objects of its tyranny; and the merit which has fallen the victim of its rage, is frequently raised by the hand of truth, and placed on the throne of public applause. A production of genius, however the ears of its author were deafened, during his life, by the clamors of calumny, and hisses of ignorance, is reviewed with impartiality when he dies, and revived by the acclamations of ingenuous applause. The reproach which the life of a great and good man is continually casting on his mean and degenerate contemporaries, is silenced by his death. He is remembered only in the character of his works; and his fame increases with the successive generations, which his sentiments and opinions contribute to enlighten and adorn.

The history of the celebrated English philosopher, David Hume, affords, perhaps, a stronger instance of the dangers to which wit and learning are exposed from the malicious shafts of envy, ignorance, and intolerance, than that of any other author. The tax indeed, is common to authors of every description, but it frequently falls the heaviest on the highest heads. This profound philosopher and elegant historian, possessed a mild temper; a lively, social disposition; a high sense of friendship, and incorruptible integrity. His manners, indeed, appeared, at first sight, cold and repulsive; for he had sacrificed little to the graces: but his mind was invariably cheerful, and his affections uncommonly warm and generous: and neither his ardent desire of fame, nor the gross and unfounded calumnies of his enemies, were capable of disturbing the happy tranquillity of his heart. His life was passed in the constant exercise of humanity and benevolence; and even those who had been seduced, by the jealous and vindictive artifices of others, wantonly to attack his fame and character with obloquy and reproach, experienced his kindness, and acknowledged his virtues. He would never indeed confess that his friends had ever had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of his character or conduct, or that he had ever been attacked either by the baleful tooth of envy, or the rage of civil or religious faction. His company, indeed, was equally agreeable to all classes of society; and young and old, rich and poor, listened with pleasure to his conversation, and quitted his company with regret; for although he was deeply learned, and his discourses replete with sagacity and science, he had the happy art of delivering his sentiments upon all subjects without the appearance of ostentation, or in any way offending the feelings of his hearers.

The interests of religion are said to have suffered by the abuse of his talents; but the precepts of Christianity were never more powerfully recommended, than by the integrity of his morals, and the purity of his life. His benign and gentle spirit, attached to virtue, and averse from every species of vice, essentially promoted the practice of piety, and the duties of a religious mind; and did not, as is always the case with the zeal of persecution and martyrdom, tear away the very foundation of that fabric which it pretends to support. The excellency, indeed, both of the head and the heart of this great and good man, enabled him not only to enjoy himself with perfect felicity, but to contribute to the improvement, and increase the happiness of mankind. This is the opinion now generally entertained of the character of Hume; but far different were the sentiments of his contemporaries upon this subject. It was neither in a barbarous country, or in an unenlightened age, that he lived; but although the land was free, the people philosophical, and the spirit of the times provoked the minds of learned men to metaphysical inquiry, the fame of Hume was wrecked upon his moral and religious writings. He was charged with being a sceptic; but from the propagation of certain doctrines, and the freedom of inquiry which had then gone forth, it is impossible to attribute his disappointments to this cause. A kind of natural prejudice, indeed, prevailed in England at this period against the Scots; but as he did not experience much favor from his own countrymen, no conclusion can be fairly drawn from this circumstance; and the extraordinary History of his Literary Transactions, a work written by himself, cannot be perused without an equal degree of surprise and concern. The contemptuous repulses which his several compositions received from the public, appear incredible; but the facts he relates are undoubtedly authentic; and while they raise a sorrowful regret for the fate of Hume in particular, they most unhappily tend to diminish the ardor of the student, who contemplates the various dangers to which his desire of fame may be exposed, and may, perhaps, induce him to quit the pursuit of an object “so hard to gain, so easy to be lost.”

The melancholy history of the literary career of the celebrated Hume, as appears from the short sketch he made of _his own life_, while he calmly waited, under an incurable disorder, the moment of approaching dissolution; a work which proclaims the mildness, the modesty, and the resignation of his temper, as clearly as his other works demonstrate the power and extent of his mind. The history, indeed, of every man who attempts to destroy the reigning prejudices, or correct the prevailing errors, of his age and country, is nearly the same. He who has the happiness to see objects of any description with greater perspicuity than his contemporaries, and presumes to disseminate his superior knowledge, by the unreserved publication of his opinions, sets himself up as a common mark for the shafts of envy and resentment to pierce, and seldom escapes from being charged with wicked designs against the interests of mankind. A writer, whatever his character, station, or talents may be, will find that he has a host of malevolent inferiors ready to seize every opportunity of gratifying their humbled pride, by attempting to level his superior merits, and subdue his rising fame. Even the compassionate few, who are ever ready to furnish food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and consolation to the afflicted, seldom feel any other sensation than that of jealousy on beholding the wreath of merit placed on the brow of a deserving rival. The Ephesians, with republican pride, being unable to endure the reproach which they felt from the pre-eminency of any individual, banished to some other state, the citizen who presumed to excel the generality of his countrymen. It would be, in some measure, adopting this egregious and tyrannical folly, were I to exhort the man whose merits transcend those who are his equals in rank, or station, to break off all intercourse and connexion with them; but I am certain that he might, by an occasional retirement, elude the effects of their envy, and avoid those provocations to which, by his superiority, he will otherwise be continually exposed.

To treat the frailties of our fellow creatures with tenderness, to correct their errors with kindness, to view even their vices with pity, and to induce, by every friendly attention, a mutual complacency and good will, is not only an important moral duty, but a means of increasing the sum of earthly happiness. It is, indeed, difficult to prevent an honest mind from bursting forth with generous indignation against those artful hypocrites who, by specious and plausible practices, obtain the false character of being wise and good, and obtrude their flimsy and heterodox opinions upon the unthinking world, as the fair and genuine sentiments of truth and virtue. The anger which arises in a generous and ardent mind, on hearing a noble action calumniated, or a useful work illiberally attacked, is not easily restrained; but such feelings should be checked and regulated with a greater degree of caution than even if they were less virtuous and praiseworthy; for, if they are indulged with frequency, their natural violence may weaken the common charities of the mind, and convert its very goodness and love of virtue into a mournful misanthropy, or virulent detestation of mankind.

Let not the man, whose exalted mind, improved by study and observation, surveys with a discriminating eye the moral depravities and mental weaknesses of human nature, submit to treat his envious inferiors with inveterate anger, and undistinguishing revenge. Their envy as a tribute of approbation to his greatness. Let him look with the gentle eye of pity upon those who err rather from the wicked suggestions of others, than from the malevolence of their own hearts: let him not confound the weak and innocent reptile with the scorpion and the viper; let him listen, without emotion, to the malignant barking and envious hissings that everywhere attend the footsteps of transcendent merit; let him disregard, with philosophic dignity, the senseless clamors of those noisy adversaries who are blinded by prejudice, and deaf to the arguments of sense and reason: let him rather, by a mild and forbearing temper, endeavor to make some impression on their hearts; and if he should find their bosoms susceptible, he may hope in time to convince them of their errors, and, without violence or compulsion, bring back their deluded understandings to a sense of truth, and the practice of virtue; but, if experience convince him that every endeavor to reform them is fruitless and vain, let him--

Neglect the grumblers of an envious age, Vapid in spleen, or brisk in frothy rage; Critics, who, ere they understand, defame; And seeming friends who only do not blame, And puppet prattlers, whose unconscious throat Transmits what the pert witling prompts by rote: Let him neglect this blind and babbling crowd, To enjoy the favor of the wise and good.

Slander, however, by fixing her talons on the most virtuous characters, generally defeats her own malice, and proclaims their merit. It may, indeed, tend to diminish their inclination for general society, and to render them, in some degree, apprehensive of the danger of even well deserved fame. “Durable fame,” says Petrarch, “is only to be derived from the practice of virtue, and from such works as are worthy of descending from generation to generation. As to praters, gowned gentlemen, that walk in their silks, glitter in their jewels, and are pointed at by the people, all their bravery and pomp, their show of knowledge, and their thundering speeches, last only with their lungs, and then vanish into thin smoke; for the acquisition of wealth, and the desires of ambition, are no witnesses of true desert. I think I shall have fame after my death; and that is a fame from which no profit is derived; but, on the contrary, frequently injures, while alive, the person who is to enjoy it when dead. What procured the destruction of Cicero, Demosthenes, and Zeno, but foul and haggard envy of their fame? What brought the chosen men of the great ship Argos to Colchis, but the fame of that king’s riches? For what else was signified by the Golden Fleece, but the riches seized by these marauders, destitute of true riches, and who were clad with fleeces not their own?” Many, indeed, whose merits have cast a radiance around their characters, have hidden its splendors with the shades of retirement to avoid giving uneasiness to envy; and, by being deprived of that warm and aspiring tribute of applause which they had gloriously and justly earned, have, in some instances at least, indulged too keen a sense of the depravity of mankind. Solon, after having in vain exhorted the Athenians to resist the tyranny of Pisistratus, and save the liberties of that country, on which he had conferred such distinguished services, returned to his own house, and placing his weapons at the street door, exclaimed, as a last effort, “_I have done all in my power to save my country and defend its laws!_” and then retired from the tumults of public life, to weep in silence over the servility of the Athenians, and the fate of Athens. History affords many illustrious instances, both ancient and modern, of the like kind: for there never was a statesman, who possessed a great mind and manly feelings, that did not, even during the plentitude of his power, occasionally wish to escape from the incorrigible vices which prevail in courts, to the enjoyment of the more innocent pleasures and humble virtues which surround the cottage. Such exalted characters cannot observe, without the highest disgust, and keenest indignation, the virtues of the best, and the services of the bravest men of the nation, blasted by the envious breath of brainless placemen, or the insidious insinuations of female favorites, whose whole time is employed in caressing their monkies and paroquets, or in aspersing the merits of those who boldly seek their fortune by the open and manly road of true desert, and not by the deep, dark, and crooked paths of flattery and intrigue. Can such a man behold the double dealing and deceitful artifices by which the excellency of princes is corrupted, their imaginations dazzled, their discernment blinded, and their minds led astray without feeling uncommon indignation? Certainly not. But however acutely his bosom may feel, or tongue express his sense of such prevailing practices, he must still be forced to see, with even a more contemptuous and painful sensation, that envious rage and jealous asperity, which burst from the cringing crowd of mean and abject courtiers, on hearing the monarch, in the grateful feelings of his heart, applaud the eminent and faithful services of some gallant officer. Dion was the principal statesman at the court of Dionysius, and the deliverer of Sicily. When the younger Dionysius succeeded to the throne of his father, Dion, in the first council that he held, spoke with so much propriety on the existing state of affairs, and on the measures which ought to be taken, that the surrounding courtiers appeared to be mere children in comparison. By the freedom of his counsels he exposed, in a strong light, the slavish principles of those who, through a timorous disingenuity, advised such measures as they thought would please their prince, rather than such as might advance his interest. But what alarmed them most, were the steps he proposed to take with regard to the impending war with Carthage; for he offered either to go in person to Carthage, and settle an honorable peace with the Carthagenians, or, if war should be inevitable, to fit out and maintain fifty gallies at his own expense. Dionysius was pleased with the magnificence of his spirit; but his courtiers felt that it made them appear little; and agreeing that, at all events, Dion was to be crushed, they spared for that purpose no calumny that malice could suggest. They represented to the king that this favorite certainly meant to make himself master by sea, and by that means to obtain the kingdom for his sister’s children. There was, moreover, another and obvious cause of their hatred to him, in the reserve of his manners, and the sobriety of his life. They led the young and ill-educated king through every species of debauchery, and were the shameless panders of his wrong directed passions. Their enmity to Dion, who had no taste for luxurious enjoyments, was a thing of course; and as he refused to partake with them in their vices, they resolved to strip him of his virtues; to which they gave the name of such vices as are supposed to resemble them. His gravity of manners they called pride; his freedom of speech, insolence; his declining to join in their licentiousness, contempt. It is true, there was a natural haughtiness in his deportment and an asperity that was unsociable, and difficult of access; so that it was not to be wondered at if he found no ready admission to the ears of a young king, already spoiled by flattery. Willing to impute the irregularities of Dionysius to ignorance and bad education, Dion endeavored to engage him in a course of liberal studies, and to give him a taste for those sciences which have a tendency to moral improvement. But in this wise and virtuous resolution he was opposed by all the artifices of court intrigue.

Men, in proportion as their minds are dignified with noble sentiments, and their hearts susceptible of refined sensibility, feel a justifiable aversion to the society of such characters, and shrink from the scenes they frequent; but they should cautiously guard against the intrusions of that austerity and moroseness with which such a conduct is but too apt to inspire the most benevolent minds. Disgusted by the vices and follies of the age, the mind becomes insensibly impressed with a hatred toward the species, and loses, by degrees, that mild and humane temper which is so indispensably necessary to the enjoyment of social happiness. Even he who merely observes the weak or vicious frailties of his fellow creatures with an intention to study philosophically the nature and disposition of man, cannot avoid remembering their defects with severity, and viewing the character he contemplates with contempt, especially if he happens to be the object of their artifices, and the dupe of their villanies. Contempt is closely allied with hatred; and hatred of mankind will corrupt, in time, the fairest mind: it tinges, by degrees, every object with the bile of misanthropy; perverts the judgment; and at length looks indiscriminately with an evil eye on the good and bad, engenders suspicion, fear, jealousy, revenge, and all the black catalogue of unworthy and malignant passions: and when these dreadful enemies have extirpated every generous sentiment from the breast, the unhappy victim abhors society, disclaims his species, sighs, like St. Hyacinth, for some distant and secluded island, and with savage barbarity, defends the inviolability of its boundaries by the cruel repulsion, and, perhaps, the death of those unhappy mortals whom misfortune may drive, hapless and unpitied, to its inhospitable shores.

But if misanthropy be capable of producing such direful effects on well disposed minds, how shocking must be the character whose disposition, naturally rancorous, is heightened and inflamed by an habitual hatred and malignancy toward his fellow creatures! In Swisserland, I once beheld a monster of this description; I was compelled to visit him by the duties of my profession; but I shudder while I recollect the enormity of his character. His body was almost as deformed as his mind. Enmity was seated on his distorted brow. Scales of livid incrustation, the joint produce of his corrupted body and distempered mind, covered his face. His horrid figure made me fancy that I saw Medusa’s serpents wreathing their baleful folds among the black and matted locks of his dishevelled hair; while his red and fiery eyes glared like malignant meteors through the obscurity of his impending eyebrows. Mischief was his sole delight, his greatest luxury, and his highest joy. To sow discord among his neighbors, and to tear open the closing wounds of misery, was his only occupation. His residence was the resort of the disorderly, the receptacle of the vicious, and the asylum of the guilty. Collecting around him the turbulent and discontented of every description, he became the patron of injustice, the protector of villany, the perpetrator of malice, the inventer of fraud, the propagator of calumny, and the zealous champion of cruelty and revenge; directing, with malignant aim, the barbed shafts of his adherents equally against the comforts of private peace and the blessings of public tranquillity. The bent and inclination of his nature had been so aggravated and confirmed by the “multiplying villanies of his life,” that it was impossible for him to refrain one moment from the practice of them, without feeling uneasiness and discontent; and he never appeared perfectly happy, but when new opportunities occurred to glut his infernal soul with the spectacle of human miseries.

The Timon of Lucian was in some measure excusable for his excessive hatred to mankind, by the unparallelled wrongs they had heaped upon him. The inexorable antipathy he entertained against the species had been provoked by injuries almost too great for the common fortitude of humanity to endure. His probity humanity, and charity to the poor, had been the ruin of him; or rather his own folly, easiness of disposition, and want of judgment in his choice of friends. He never discovered that he was giving away his all to wolves and ravens. Whilst these vultures were preying on his liver, he thought them his best friends, and that they fed upon him out of pure love and affection. After they had gnawed him all round, ate his bones bare, and whilst there was any marrow in them, sucked it carefully out, they left him cut down to the roots and withered; and so far from relieving him, or assisting him in their turns, would not so much as know or look upon him. This made him turn a common laborer; and, dressed in his skin garment, he tilled the earth for hire; ashamed to show himself in the city, and venting his rage against the ingratitude of those who, enriched, as they had been by him now proudly passed along without noticing him. But although such a character is not to be despised or neglected, no provocation, however great can justify the violent and excessive invectives which he profanely bellowed forth from the bottom of Hymettus; “this spot of earth shall be my only habitation while I live; and when I am dead, my sepulchre. From this time forth, it is my fixed resolution to have no commerce or connexion with mankind; but to despise them, and avoid it. I will pay no regard to acquaintance, friendship, pity or compassion. To pity the distressed, or to relieve the indigent, I shall consider as a weakness, nay, as a crime; my life, like that of the beasts of the field, shall be spent in solitude; and Timon alone shall be Timon’s friend. I will treat all beside as enemies and betrayers. To converse with them were profanation! to herd with them impiety. Accursed be the day that brings them to my sight! I will look upon men, in short, as no more than so many statues of brass or stone; will make no truce, have no connexion with them. My retreat shall be the boundary to separate us for ever. Relations, friends, and country, are empty names, respected by fools alone. Let Timon only be rich and despise all the world beside. Abhorring idle praise, and odious flattery, he shall be delighted with himself alone. Alone shall he sacrifice to the gods, feast alone, be his own neighbor, and his own companion. I am determined to be alone for life; and when I die, to place the crown upon my own head. The fairest name I would be distinguished by is that of a misanthrope. I would be known and marked out by my asperity of manners; by moroseness, cruelty, anger, and inhumanity. Were I to see a man perishing in the flames, and imploring me to extinguish them, I would throw pitch or oil into the fire to increase it; or, if the winter flood should overwhelm another, who, with out-stretched hands should beg me to assist him, I would plunge him still deeper in the stream, that he might never rise again. Thus shall I be revenged of mankind. This is Timon’s law, and this hath Timon ratified. I should be glad, however, that all might know how I abound in riches, because that I know will make them miserable.”

The moral to be drawn from this dialogue of the celebrated Grecian philosopher, is the extreme danger to which the best and most benevolent characters may be exposed, by an indiscreet and unchecked indulgence of those painful feelings with which the baseness and ingratitude of the world are apt to wound the heart. There are, however, those who, without having received ill treatment from the world, foster in their bosoms a splenetic animosity against society, and secretly exult in the miseries and misfortunes of their fellow creatures. Indulging themselves in the indolent habits of vice and vanity, and feeling a mortification in being disappointed of those rewards which virtuous industry can alone bestow, they seek a gloomy solitude to hide them from those lights which equally discover the errors of vice and the rectitude of virtue. Unable to attain glory for themselves, and incapable of enduring the lustre of it in others, they creep into discontented retirement, from which they only emerge to envy the satisfaction which accompanies real merit, to calumniate the character to which it belongs; and, like satan, on the view of paradise, to “see undelighted all delight.”

There are, however, a class of a very different description, who, unoppressed by moody melancholy, untinctured by petulance or spleen, free from resentment, and replete with every generous thought and manly sentiment, calmly and contentedly retire from society, to enjoy, uninterruptedly, a happy communion with those high and enlightened minds, who have adorned by their actions the page of history, enlarged by their talents the powers of the human mind, and increased by their virtues the happiness of mankind.

Retirement, however solitary it may be, when entered into with such a temper of mind, instead of creating or encouraging any hatred toward the species, raises our ideas of the possible dignity of human nature; disposes our hearts to feel, and our hands to relieve, the misfortunes and necessities of our fellow creatures; calls to our minds what high capacious powers lie folded up in man; and giving to every part of creation its finest forms, and richest colors, exhibits to our admiration its brightest glories and highest perfections, and induces us to transplant the charm which exists in our own bosoms into the bosoms of others.

… The spacious west, And all the teeming regions of the south, Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight Of knowledge, half so tempting, or so fair, As man to man: nor only where the smiles Of love invite; nor only where the applause Of cordial honor turns the attentive eye On virtue’s graceful deeds; for since the course Of things external acts in different ways On human apprehension, as the hand Of nature tempered to a different frame Peculiar minds, so haply where the powers Of fancy neither lessen nor enlarge The images of things, but paint, in all Their genuine hues, the features which they wear In nature, there opinions will be true, And action right.…

A rational solitude, while it corrects the passions, improves the benevolent dispositions of the heart, increases the energies of the mind, and draws forth its latent powers. The Athenian orator, Callistratus, was to plead in the cause which the city of Oropus had depending; and the expectation of the public was greatly raised, both by the powers of the orator, which were then in the highest repute, and the importance of the trial. Demosthenes, hearing the governors and tutors agree among themselves to attend the trial, with much importunity prevailed on his master to take him to hear the pleaders. The master having some acquaintance with the officer who opened the court, got his young pupil a seat where he could hear the orators without being seen. Callistratus had great success, and his abilities were extremely admired. Demosthenes was fired with the spirit of emulation. When he saw with what distinction the orator was conducted home, and complimented by the people, he was struck still more with the power of that commanding eloquence which would carry all before it. From this time, therefore, he bade adieu to the other studies and exercises in which boys are engaged, and applied himself with great assiduity to declaiming, in hope of being one day numbered among the orators. Satyrus, the player who was an acquaintance of his, and to whom he lamented, after having been for some time called to the bar, “that though he had almost sacrificed his health to his studies, he could gain no favor with the people,” promised to provide him with a remedy, if he would repeat some speech in Euripides or Sophocles. When Demosthenes had finished his recitation, Satyrus pronounced the same speech; and he did it with such propriety of action, and so much in character, that it appeared to the orator quite a different passage; and Demosthenes now understanding how much grace and dignity of action adds to the best oration, quitted the practice of composition, and, building a subterraneous study repaired thither, for two or three months together, to form his action, and exercise his voice; and, by this means formed that strong, impassioned, and irresistible eloquence, which rendered him the glory of Athens, and the admiration of the world. Most of the exalted heroes, both of Greece and Rome, who devoted their attention to arts and to arms, acquired their chief excellency in their respective pursuits, by retiring from public observation, and cultivating their talents in the silence of solitude. St. Jerome, the most learned of all the Latin fathers, and son of the celebrated Eusebius, retired from the persecution of religious fury into an obscure and dreary desert in Syria, where he attained that rich, animated, and sublime style of eloquence, which afterward so essentially contributed to support the rising church, and to enlighten while it dazzled the Christian world. The Druids, or ministers of religion among the ancient Gauls, Britons, and Germans, retired, in the intervals of their sacred functions, into awful forests and consecrated groves, where they passed their time in useful study and pious prayers; and while they acquired a complete knowledge of astrology, geometry, natural philosophy, politics, geography, morals, and religion, rendered themselves happy and revered, and produced, by the wise instruction they were capable of affording to others, but particularly to youth, whose education they superintended, a bright succession of priests, legislators, counsellors, judges, physicians, philosophers, and tutors, to the respective nations in which they resided.

The modern Julian, the justly celebrated Frederic, king of Prussia, derives the highest advantages from his disguised retirement at Sans Souci, where he contrives the means of hurling inevitable destruction against the enemies of his country; listens to and relieves with all the anxiety of a tender parent, the complaints and injuries of his meanest subjects; and recreates his excursive mind, by revising and correcting his immortal works for the admiration of posterity. Philosophy, poetry, and politics, are the successive objects of his attention; and while he extends his views, and strengthens his understanding, by the study of ancient wisdom, he meliorates his heart by the delightful offerings of the muses, and increases the public strength by the wise and economical management of his resources. An awful silence, interrupted only by gentle airs with which it is refreshed, pervades this delightful retreat. It was during the twilight of an autumnal evening that I visited this solemn scene. As I approached the apartment of this philosophic hero, I discovered him sitting, “nobly pensive,” near a small table, from which shone the feeble rays of a common taper. No jealous sentinels, or ceremonious chamberlain, impeded my progress by scrutinizing inquiries of suspicion and mistrust; and I walked free and unchecked, except by respect and veneration, through the humble unostentatious retreat of this extraordinary man. All characters, however high and illustrious they may be, who wish to attain a comprehensive view of things, and to shine in the highest spheres of virtue, must learn the rudiments of glory under the discipline of occasional retirement.

Solitude is frequently sought from an inclination to extend the knowledge of our talents and characters to those with whom we have no opportunity of being immediately acquainted; by preparing with greater care, and closer application, for the inspection of our contemporaries, works worthy of the fame we are so anxious to acquire: but it seldom happens, alas! that those whose labors are most pregnant with instruction and delight, have received, from the age or country in which they lived, or even from the companions with whom they associated, the tribute of kindness or applause that is justly due to their merits. The work which is stigmatized and traduced by the envy, ignorance, or local prejudices of a country, for whose delight and instruction it was particularly intended, frequently receives from the generous suffrages of impartial and unprejudiced strangers, the highest tribute of applause. Even those pretended friends, under whose auspices it was at first undertaken, upon whose advice it proceeded, and upon whose judgment it was at length published, no sooner hear its praises resounded from distant quarters, than they permit the poisoned shafts of calumny to fly unaverted around the unsuspecting author, and warrant, by their silence, or assist, by their sneers, every insidious insinuation against his motives or his principles. This species of malevolence has been feelingly painted by the celebrated Petrarch. “No sooner had my fame,” says he, “risen above the level of that which my contemporaries had acquired, than every tongue babbled, and every pen was brandished against me: those who had before appeared to be my dearest friends, instantly became my deadliest enemies: the shafts of envy were industriously directed against me from every quarter: the critics, to whom my poetry had before been much more familiar than their psalms or their prayers, seized, with malignant delight, every opportunity of traducing my morals; and those with whom I had been most intimate, were the most eager to injure my character, and destroy my fame.” The student, however, ought not to be discouraged by this instance of envy and ingratitude. He who, conscious of his merit, learns to depend only on himself for support, will forget the injustice of the world, and draw his comfort and satisfaction from more infallible sources: like the truly benevolent and great, he will confer his favors on the public without the expectation of a return; and look with perfect indifference upon all the efforts his treacherous friends, or open enemies, are capable of using. He will, like Petrarch, appeal to posterity for his reward; and the justice and generosity of future ages will preserve his fame to succeeding generations, heightened and adorned in proportion as it has been contemporaneously mutilated and depressed.

The genius of many noble minded authors, particularly in Germany, are obscured and blighted by the thick and baneful fogs with which ignorance and envy overwhelm their works. Unable to withstand the incessant opposition they meet with, the powers of the mind grow feeble and relaxed; and many a fair design and virtuous pursuit is quitted in despair. How frequently does the desponding mind exclaim, “I feel my powers influenced by the affections of the heart. I am certainly incapable of doing to any individual an intentional injury, and I seek with anxiety every opportunity of doing good; but, alas! my motives are perverted, my designs misrepresented, my endeavors counteracted, my very person ridiculed, and my character defamed.” There are, indeed, those whose courage and fortitude no opposition can damp, and no adversity subdue; whose firm and steady minds proceed with determined resolution to accomplish their designs in defiance of all resistance; and whose bright talents drive away the clouds of surrounding dulness, like fogs before the sun. Wieland, the happy Wieland, the adopted child of every muse, the favorite pupil of the graces, formed the powers of his extraordinary mind in a lonely and obscure retreat, the little village of Biberach, in the circle of Suabia, and thereby laid the foundation for that indisputable glory he has since attained. In solitude and silence he enriched his mind with all the stores that art and science could produce, and enabled himself to delight and instruct mankind, by adorning the sober mien of philosophy, and the lively smiles of wit, with the true spirit and irresistible charms of poetry. Retirement is the true parent of the great and good, and the kind nurse of nature’s powers. It is to occasional retirement that politics owe the ablest statesmen, and philosophy the most celebrated sages. Did Aristotle, the peripatetic chief, compose his profound systems in the tumultuous court of Philip, or were the sublime theories of his master conceived among the noisy feasts of the tyrant Dionysius? No. The celebrated groves of the Academy, and the shades of Atarnya, bear witness of the important advantages which, in the opinion of both Plato and Aristotle, learning may derive from a rational retirement. These great men, like all others who preceded or have followed them, found in the ease and quietude of retirement the best means of forming their minds and extending their discoveries. The celebrated Leibnitz, to whom the world is deeply indebted, passed a great part of every year at an humble, quiet, retired, and beautiful villa which he possessed in the vicinity of Hanover.

To this catalogue of causes, conducing to a love of solitude, or hatred of society, we may add religion and fanaticism. The benign genius of religion leads the mind to a love of retirement from motives the highest, the most noble, and most really interesting, that can possibly be conceived, and produces the most perfect state of human happiness, by instilling into the heart the most virtuous propensities, and inspiring the mind with its finest energies: but fanaticism must ever be unhappy: for it proceeds from a subversion of nature itself, is formed on a perversion of reason, and a violation of truth; it is the vice of low and little understandings, is produced by an ignorance of human nature, a misapprehension of the Deity, and cannot be practised without renunciation of real virtue. The passion of retirement, which a sense of religion enforces, rises in proportion as the heart is pure, and the mind correct; but the disposition to solitude, which fanaticism creates, arises from a wild enthusiastic notion of inspiration, and increases in proportion as the heart is corrupt, and the mind deranged. Religion is the offspring of truth and love, and the parent of benevolence, hope, and joy: but the monster fanaticism is the child of discontent, and her followers are fear and sorrow. Religion is not confined to cells and closets, nor restrained to sullen retirement; these are the gloomy retreats of fanaticism, by which she endeavors to break those chains of benevolence and social affection that link the welfare of every individual with that of the whole. The greatest honor we can pay to the Author of our being, is such a cheerful behavior as discovers a mind satisfied with his dispensations. But this temper of mind is most likely to be attained by a rational retirement from the cares and pleasures of the world.

The disposition to solitude, however, of whatever kind or complexion it may be, is greatly influenced 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 operations 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 researches to those final or immediate causes which produce this disposition to enjoy the benefits of rational retirement, or encounter the mischiefs of irrational solitude, we shall proceed to show 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 shown may be derived from the other.