enjoyment. He knew that, under the corrosion of guilt, and the tyranny of the passions, we can derive little relief from crystal springs, or silent groves, or daisied meadows, and that recourse must be had to more powerful remedies before we can relish the beauties and taste the composure of still life. All this he knew, and has frequently expressed; and it is to be lamented, that one who seems to have been meant by nature for an amiable philosopher, should have run into the sentimental extravagancies of the citizen of Geneva, and disgracefully listed himself in the number of his unhappy admirers and panegyrists. To exchange the bustle of business, and the gay amusements of society, for fields and woods, silence and solitude, is so far from being alone sufficient to ensure a life of true contentment, that, to most men, after the novelty was past, it would produce such a sense of want and deprivation, as if their former existence had suffered a diminution; or as if, from a region of light and plenitude, they had fallen into a dreary state of darkness and vacuity. This should be a lesson to all who medi tate a retreat from the world, and induce them to cultivate before-hand those qualities and habits, which may add life and interest to the calm prospects and silent exhibitions of rural nature. And if there be any who have sequestered themselves without this due preparation, they ought to suffer patiently the effects of their rashness: at the same time, there is no reason why they should sit down in despondence, since by a proper attention to themselves, and a steady and gentle perseverance, those more delicate powers of perception which are adapted to still life, and which, amidst the tumult of the world, have lain neglected and depressed, may yet gradually be recovered, and called forth into happy activity. Still we must remember, that as age advances, and the senses and imagination S grow languid, the most beautiful scenes of nature will lose their natural attractions; and that it is only the relation in which they stand to their Almighty Creator, and his glory thence reflected, that can render them lasting objects of our delightful con. templation. SECTION II. The Pleasures of a literary Retirement. In the preceding parts of this small work, the same topics have recurred under different aspects. History and Philosophy have been considered in their relation to Knowledge and Virtue; and will now again be viewed, together with Poetry, in the relation they bear to Happiness, or to those pleasures which they are suited to yield to their respective votaries. Lest such a recurrence should strike a less attentive reader as no more than a repetition, it seemed proper to premise this re mark. We now proceed to the subject of the present section, under the threefold distribution here specified. According to a very sagacious observer, the history of mankind is " little else but the history of uncomfortable, dreadful passages; and that a great part of it, however things are palliated and gilded over, is scarcely to be read by a good-natured man without amazement, horror, tears *." And a few pages afterwards he thus speaks: "To one who carefully peruses the story and face of the world, what appears to prevail in it? Is it not corruption, vice, iniquity, folly at least? Are not debauching, getting per fas aut nefas, defaming one another, erecting tyrannies of one kind or other, propagating empty and senseless opinions with bawling and fury, the great business of this world?" This indeed isa sad and melancholy view'; let us therefore endeavour to relieve the gloom, by presenting the history of mankind under some other aspects. |