a no with visits. Even those to whom he has formerly been known will very patiently support his absence when they have tried a little to live without him, and found new diversions for those moments which his company contributed to exhilarate. It was, perhaps, ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing over one another, that individual should be of such importance as to cause, by his retirement or death, any chasm in the world. And Cowley had conversed to little purpose with mankind, if he had never remarked how soon the useful friend, the gay companion, and the favoured lover, when once they are removed from before the sight, give way to the succession of new objects. The privacy, therefore, of his hermitage might have been safe enough from violation, though he had chosen it within the limits of his native island; he might have found here preservatives against the vanities and vexations of the world, not less efficacious than those which the woods or fields of America could afford him: but having once his mind embittered with disgust, he conceived it impossible to be far enough from the cause of his uneasiness: and was posting away with the expedition of a coward, who for want of venturing to look behind him, thinks the enemy perpetually at his heels. When he was interrupted by company, or fatigued with business, he so strongly imaged to himself the happiness of leisure and retreat, that he determined to enjoy them for the future without interruption, and to exclude for ever all that could deprive him of his darling satisfactions. He forgot in the vehemence of desire, that solitude and quiet owe their pleasures to those miseries which he was so very desirous to obviate ; for such are the vicissitudes of the world, through all its parts, that day and night, labour and rest, hurry and retirement, endear each other; such are the changes that keep the mind in action; we desire, we pursue, we obtain, we are satiated: we desire something else, and begin a new pursuit. If he had proceeded in his project, and fixed his habitation in the most delightful part of the new world, it may be doubted, whether his distance from the vanities of life would have enabled him to keep away the vexations. It is common for a man who feels pain to fancy that he could bear it better in any other part. Cowley, having known the troubles and perplexities of a particular condition, readily persuaded himself that nothing worse was to be found, and that every alteration would bring some improvement; he never suspected that the cause of his unhappiness was within, that his own passions were not sufficiently regulated, and that he was harassed by his own impatience, which could never be without something to awaken it, would accompany him over the sea, and find its way to his American Elysium. He would, upon the trial, have been soon convinced that the fountain of content must spring up in the mind; and that he, who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove. O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas, ✓ The love of Retirement has, in all ages, adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed every thing generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy. Though they possessed both power and riches, and were, therefore, surrounded by men who considered it as their chief interest to remove from them every thing that might offend their ease or interrupt their pleasure, they have soon felt the languors of satiety, and found themselves unable to pursue the race of life without frequent respirations of intermediate solitude. To produce this disposition, nothing appears requisite but quick sensibility and active imagination; for, though not devoted to virtue or science, the man whose faculties enable him to make ready comparisons of the present with the past, will find such a constant recurrence of the same pleasures and troubles, the same expectations and disappointments, that he will gladly snatch an hour of retreat, to let a his thoughts expatiate at large, and seek for that variety in his own ideas which the objects of sense cannot afford him. Nor will greatness or abundance exempt him from the importunities of this desire, since, if he is born to think, he cannot restrain bimself from a thousand inquiries and speculations, which he must pursue by his own reason, and which the splendour of his condition can only hinder; for those who are most exalted above dependence or control are yet condemned to pay so large a tribute of their time to custom, ceremony, and popularity, that, according to the Greek proverb, no man in the house is more a slave than the master, When a king asked Euclid, the mathematician, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner? he was answered, that there was no royal way to geometry. Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement. These are some of the motives which have had power to sequester kings and heroes from the crowds that soothed them with flatteries or inspirited them with acclamations; but their efficacy seems confined to the higher mind, and to operate little upon the common classes of mankind, to whose conceptions the present assemblage of things is adequate, and who seldom range beyond those entertainments and vexations which solicit their attention by pressing on their senses. But there is a universal reason for some stated intervals of solitude, which the institutions of the church call upon me, now especially, to mention; a reason which extends as wide as moral duty, or the hopes of divine favour in a future state; and which ought to influence all ranks of life, and all degrees of intellect; since none can imagine themselves not comprehended in its obligation, but such as determine to set their Maker at defiance by obstinate wickedness, or whose enthusiastic security of his approbation places them above external ordinances, and all human means of improvement. The great task of him who conduets his life by the precepts of religion is to make the future predominate over the present, to impress upon his mind 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 the temptations which temporal hope or fear can bring in its way, and enable him to bid equal defiance to joy and sorrow, to turn away at one time from the allurements of ambition, and push forward at another against the threats of calamity. It is not without reason that the apostle represents our passage through this stage of our existence by images drawn from the alarms and solicitude of a military life; for we are placed in such a state, that almost every thing about us conspires against our chief interest. We are in danger from whatever can get possession of our thoughts; all that can excite in us either pain or pleasure has a tendency to obstruct the way that leads to happiness, and either to turn us aside, or retard our progress. Our senses, our appetites, and our passions are our lawful, and faithful guides in most things that relate solely to this life; and, therefore, by the hourly necessity of consulting them we gradually sink into an implicit submission, and habitual contidence. Every act of compliance with their motions facilitates a second compliance, every new step towards depravity is made with less reluctance than the former, and thus the descent to life merely sensual is perpetually accelerated. |