I. First, of independence. By this the retired man is secured from many hurries and impertinences of public life. He is not obliged, when exhausted in body or mind, to run to the Exchange, or to wait upon his patron. He is not exposed to the trifling conversation and unseasonable intrusion of the world; his walks by day are free from idle interruption, and his doors by night are undisturbed by importunate visits. He enjoys, in a word, that privilege which, in the general opinion of mankind, gives the chief advantage to an independent retirement, when compared with a life spent in public, namely, the liberty to act without foreign controul, and agreeably to the native sense of his own mind. Whereas, the more any man is engaged in the world, the more he must expect to be thwarted by it, and the more constrained to give up his own will to that of others; which is a submission naturally harsh and unpleasing. The great contest among men is, who shall have his own way; and he who seeks his fortune or happiness

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through the medium of their favour, must often lackey to their opinions and fancies, and sometimes be content to suffer patiently their indignities. Even the honest tradesman must be obsequious to the humours of his customers; and he who would climb at court must prepare himself to encounter the proud man's contumely, the insolence of office, and the spurns of many a base retainer to those in power.

On the other hand, it must be considered that a rural independence, like every other condition of human life, can yield no real satisfaction, except to those who are qualified duly to improve it. To be thus qualified, a man must possess a just command of himself, and an ability to fill up his leisure in a rational manner. He must not carry. his humours and passions along with him into his retreat, which might breed him more disquiet there than he suffered in the world before; as, in such a state of mind, he would probably find it more difficult to please himself, than ever he did to please

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the most capricious and tyrannical of his fellow-citizens. He must also be able to strike out some little business which may engage a portion of his time usefully, or at least innocently; to delight in converse with himself, or with the wise and learned

of

past ages; and to find sufficient entertainment within his own family circle: otherwise, for want of objects to awaken his attention, and to call forth an exertion of his faculties, he will be liable to sink into a state of inaction, and in gaining an exemption from the burden of external affairs, to become a burden to himself; which, of all the loads that bear hard upon our feeble nature, is one of the most intolerable. Without such resources, he will be tempted to look back with regret upon the world he has left behind him, where his thoughts were at least diverted from settling into painful reflections upon his interior state, and where, though he was seldom much pleased, he was often amused, and generally occupied.

II. Agriculture. The pleasures of agri-, culture would stand very high in our account, were we to estimate them by the celebration they have received both from poets and philosophers. The following passages from Virgil and Cicero may serve as a specimen:

Thrice happy, if his happiness he knows,

The country swain, on whom kind heav'n bestows
At home all riches that wise nature needs,

Whom the just earth with easy plenty feeds.
Free from th' alarms of fear, and storms of strife,
Deep in the bosom of sequester'd life,

His years are past, with every blessing crown'd,
And the soft wings of peace cover him round *.

Cicero, in the person of the elder Cato, thus speaks: I come now to discourse of the

* O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,
Agricolas! quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis,
Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus.
Si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbis
Manè salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam,
-At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita,
Non absunt.

VIRG. Georg. lib. 2.

pleasures which accompany the labours of the husbandman, and with which I myself am delighted beyond expression. They are pleasures which meet with no obstruction even from old age, and seem to approach nearest to those of true wisdom*. To the same purpose he again speaks a little afterwards.

These panegyrics, to be just, must be understood with great limitations, and can never be generally extended to that numerous body of men who are employed in the culture of the earth. There is scarce, perhaps, any condition of life which is attended with more anxiety than that of a common farmer: to him a bad year is a

*Venio nunc ad voluptates agricolarum, quibus ego incredibiliter delector; quæ nec ullâ impediuntur senectute, et mihi ad sapientis vitam proximè videntur accedere. Habent enim rationem cum terrâ, quæ nunquam recusat imperium, nec unquam sine usurâ reddit, quod accepit.Quamquam me quidem non fructus modò sed etiam ipsius terræ vis ac natura delectat. Cicero de Senectute, cap. 15.