membrance of a passage in Cowley's preface to his poems, where, however exalted by genius and enlarged by study, he informs us of a scheme of happiness to which the imagination of a girl, upon the loss of her first lover, could have scarcely given way; but which he seems to have indulged till he had totally forgotten its absurdity, and would probably have put in execution had he been hindered only by his

reason.

"My desire," says he, "has been for some years past, though the execution has been accidentally di verted, and does still vehemently continue, to retire myself to some of our American plantations, not to seek for gold or enrich myself with the traffic of those parts, which is the end of most men that trav el thither, but to forsake this world for ever, with all the vanities and vexations of it, and to bury myself there in some obscure retreat, but not without the consolation of letters and philosophy."

Such was the chimerical provision which Cowley had made in his own mind for the quiet of his re maining life, which he seems to recommend to pos terity, since there is no other reason for disclosing it. Surely no stronger instance can be given of a persuasion that content was the inhabitant of partic ular regions, and that a man might set sail with a fair wind, and leave behind him all his cares, encumbrances, and calamities.

If he travelled so far with no other purpose than to bury himself in some obscure retreat, he might have found in his own country innumerable coverts sufficiently dark to have concealed the genius of Cowley; for, whatever might be his opinion of the importunity with which he might be summoned back into public life, a short experience would have convinced him that privation is easier than acquisition, and that it would require little continuance to free himself from the intrusion of the world. There is pride enough in the human heart to prevent much

desire of acquaintance with a man by whom we are sure to be neglected, however his reputation for science or virtue may excite our curiosity or esteem; so that the lover of retirement needs not be afraid lest the respect of strangers should overwhelm him 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 no 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 imbittered 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 satisfaction. He forgot, in the vehemence of desire, that solitude and quiet owe their pleasures to those miseries which he was so studiVOL. I.-K

ous 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 anything but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.

*

* See Dr. Johnson's Life of Cowley, vol. ix., p. 10-16.

RELIGIOUS ADVANTAGES OF SOLITUDE.

"Oh thou whose power o'er moving worlds presides,
Whose voice created and whose wisdom guides,

On darkling man in pure effulgence shine,

And cheer the clouded mind with light divine.
"Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast
With silent.confidence and holy rest:

From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

BOETHIUS.

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 everything 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 everything 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 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 himself 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 dependance 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 inspired 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.