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REFLECTIONS

ON

KNOWLEDGE, VIRTUE, AND HAPPINESS;

CHIEFLY IN REFERENCE TO

A LIFE OF RETIREMENT

IN THE COUNTRY.

By ELY BATES, Esq.

Quid tibi vitandum præcipuè existimes, quæris? turbam.-Ego certè con-
fiteor imbecillitatem meam. Nunquam mores quos extuli, refero. Ali-
quid ex eo quod composui, turbatur; aliquid ex his quæ fugavi, redit.—
Inimica est multorum conversatio.
Senec, Epist. 7.

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Printed by A. Strahan, New-Street Square ;

FOR LONGMAN AND REES, PATER-NOSTER ROW.

1804.

BJ1493
B3.

Andrew Smith Hellides

BJ1493
B3

ADVERTISEMENT.

BOTH the following PREFACE and REFLECTIONS were composed some years ago, during that period of republican frenzy, when the world, in its wild attempts to overthrow two of its greatest and most fundamental blessings, religion and government, seemed in a kind of conspiracy against itself: which is here remarked, in order to account for a few passages which might be thought less applicable at present, when so many hopeful symptoms appear of a return to social order and Christian piety.

Why the publication of this small work was not made at the time above stated, or why it is made now, it is needless to explain; since its merits, whatever they are, depend on those general principles of truth and nature, which ought to regulate human conduct

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at all times, and in all conjunctures: and as to an author's private inducements for presenting himself before the public, the prudent reader will be more disposed to collect them from the tenor of his performance, than from the fairness of his professions, or the solemnity of his protestations.

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THE following pages owe their birth to a treatise on Solitude, written by the late Dr. Zimmermann, and which, a few years ago, was translated into our language, and received with a considerable degree of popular favour. My first design was to have taken a summary view of this work; but, on a nearer inspection, it appeared so little capable of a logical analysis, or reducible to any certain principles, that, except in a single instance, waving the critique intended, I rather chose to pursue the train of my own reflections.

Zimmermann was undoubtedly a writer of singular endowments; he possessed great mental sensibility, and a cast of ima gination which might be thought sublime;

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