He is the happy man, whose life e’en now,Shows somewhat of that happier life to come:Who, doom’d to an obscure but tranquil state,Is pleas’d with it, and, were he free to chooseWould make his fate his choice: whom peace, the fruitOf virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,Prepare for happiness; bespeak him oneContent, indeed, to sojourn while he mustBelow the skies, but having there his home,The world o’erlooks him in her busy searchOf objects more illustrious in her view;And occupied as earnestly as she;Though more sublimely, he o’erlooks the world.She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain.He cannot skim the ground like such rare birdsPursuing gilded flies, and such he deemsHer honors, her emoluments, her joys.Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earthShe makes familiar with a heaven unseen,And shows him glories yet to be reveal’d.
He is the happy man, whose life e’en now,Shows somewhat of that happier life to come:Who, doom’d to an obscure but tranquil state,Is pleas’d with it, and, were he free to chooseWould make his fate his choice: whom peace, the fruitOf virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,Prepare for happiness; bespeak him oneContent, indeed, to sojourn while he mustBelow the skies, but having there his home,The world o’erlooks him in her busy searchOf objects more illustrious in her view;And occupied as earnestly as she;Though more sublimely, he o’erlooks the world.She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain.He cannot skim the ground like such rare birdsPursuing gilded flies, and such he deemsHer honors, her emoluments, her joys.Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earthShe makes familiar with a heaven unseen,And shows him glories yet to be reveal’d.
He is the happy man, whose life e’en now,
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come:
Who, doom’d to an obscure but tranquil state,
Is pleas’d with it, and, were he free to choose
Would make his fate his choice: whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content, indeed, to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home,
The world o’erlooks him in her busy search
Of objects more illustrious in her view;
And occupied as earnestly as she;
Though more sublimely, he o’erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain.
He cannot skim the ground like such rare birds
Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems
Her honors, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heaven unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be reveal’d.
END OF PART I.
Solitude, in its strict and literal acceptation, is equally unfriendly to the happiness, and foreign to the nature of mankind. An inclination to exercise the faculty of speech, to interchange the sentiments of the mind, to indulge the affections of the heart, and to receive themselves, while they bestow on others, a kind assistance and support, drives men, by an ever active, and almost irresistible impulse, from solitude to society: and teaches them that the highest temporal felicity they are capable of enjoying, must be sought for in a suitable union of the sexes, and in a friendly intercourse with their fellow creatures. The profoundest deductions of reason, the highest flights of fancy, the finest sensibilities of the heart, the happiest discoveries of science, and the most valuable productions of art, are feebly felt, and imperfectly enjoyed, in the cold and cheerless regions of solitude. It is not to the senseless rock, or to the passing gale, that we can satisfactorily communicate our pleasures and our pains. The heavy sighs which incessantly transpire from the vacant bosoms of the solitary hermit and the surly misanthropist, indicate the absence of those high delights which ever accompany congenial sentiment and mutual affection. The soul sinks under a situation in which there are no kindred bosoms to participate its joys, and sympathise in its sorrows; and feels, strongly feels, that the beneficent Creator has so framed and moulded the temper of our minds, that society is the earliest impulse and the most powerful inclination of our hearts.
Society, however, although it is thus pointed out to us, as it were by the finger of the Almighty, as the means of reaching our highest possible state of earthly felicity, is so pregnant with dangers, that it depends entirely on ourselves, whether the indulgence of this instinctive propensity shall be productive of happiness or misery.
The pleasures of society, like pleasures of every other kind, must, to be pure and permanent, be temperate and discreet. While passion animates, and sensibility cherishes, reason must direct, and virtue be the object of our course. Those who search for happiness in a vague, desultory, and indiscriminate intercourse with the world; who imagine the palace of pleasure to be surrounded by the gay, unthinking, and volatile part of the species; who conceive that the rays of all human delight beam from places of public festivity and resort;
“Who all their joys in mean profusion waste,Without reflection, management, or taste;Careless of all that virtue gives to please;For thought too active, and too mad for ease;Who give each appetite too loose a rein,Push all enjoyment to the verge of pain;Impetuous follow where the passions call,And live in rapture or not live at all;”
“Who all their joys in mean profusion waste,Without reflection, management, or taste;Careless of all that virtue gives to please;For thought too active, and too mad for ease;Who give each appetite too loose a rein,Push all enjoyment to the verge of pain;Impetuous follow where the passions call,And live in rapture or not live at all;”
“Who all their joys in mean profusion waste,
Without reflection, management, or taste;
Careless of all that virtue gives to please;
For thought too active, and too mad for ease;
Who give each appetite too loose a rein,
Push all enjoyment to the verge of pain;
Impetuous follow where the passions call,
And live in rapture or not live at all;”
will, instead of lasting and satisfactory fruition, meet only with sorrowful disappointment. This mode of seeking society is not a rational indulgence of that natural passion which heaven, in its benevolence to man, has planted in the human heart; but merely a factitious desire, an habitual pruriency, produced by restless leisure, and encouraged by vanity and dissipation. Social happiness, true and essential social happiness, resides only in the bosom of love and in the arms of friendship, and can only be really enjoyed by congenial hearts and kindred minds, in the domestic bowers of privacy and retirement. Affectionate intercourse produces an inexhaustible fund of delight. It is the perennial sunshine of the mind. With what extreme anxiety do we all endeavor to find an amiable being with whom we may form a tender tie and close attachment, who may inspire us with unfading bliss, and receive increase of happiness from our endearments and attention! How greatly do such connexions increase the kind and benevolent dispositions of the heart! and how greatly do such dispositions, while they lead themind to the enjoyment of domestic happiness, awaken all the virtues, and call forth the best and strongest energies of the soul! Deprived of the chaste and endearing sympathies of love and friendship, the species sink into gross sensuality or mute indifference, neglect the improvement of their faculties, and renounce all anxiety to please; but incited by these propensities, the sexes mutually exert their powers, cultivate their talents, call every intellectual energy into action; and, by endeavoring to promote each other’s happiness, mutually secure their own.
Adverse circumstances, however, frequently prevent well disposed characters, not only from making the election which their hearts would prompt, and their understandings approve, but force them into alliances which both reason and sensibility reject. It is from the disappointments of love or of ambition that the sexes are generally repelled from society to solitude. The affection, the tenderness, the sensibility of the heart, are but too often torn and outraged by the cruelty and malevolence of an unfeeling world, in which vice bears on its audacious front the mask of virtue, and betrays innocence into the snares of unsuspected guilt. The victims, however, whether of love or of ambition, who retire from society to recruit their depressed spirits, and repair their disordered minds, cannot, without injustice, be stigmatized as misanthropists, or arraigned as anti-social characters. All relish for scenes of social happiness may be lost by an extreme and over ardent passion for the enjoyments of them; but it is only those who seek retirement from an aversion to the company of their fellow creatures, that can be said to have renounced, or be destitute of, the common sympathies of nature.
The present age, however, is not likely to produce many such unnatural characters, for the manners of the whole world, and particularly of Europe, were never, perhaps, more disposed to company. The rage for public entertainments seems to have infected all the classes of society. The pleasures of private life seem to be held in universal detestation and contempt; opprobrious epithets, defame the humble enjoyments of domestic love, and those whose hours are not consumed in unmeaning visits, or unsocial parties, are regarded as censors of the common conduct of the world, or as enemies to their fellow creatures; but although mankind appear so extremely social, they certainlywere never less friendly and affectionate. Neither rank, nor sex, nor age, is free from this pernicious habit. Infants, before they can well lisp the rudiments of speech, are initiated into the idle ceremonies and parade of company: and can scarcely meet their parents or their playmates without being obliged to perform a punctilious salutation. Formal card parties, and petty treats, engross the time that should be devoted to healthful exercise and manly recreation. The manners of the metropolis are imitated with inferior splendor, but with greater absurdity, in the country; every village has its routs and its assemblies, in which the curled darlings of the place blaze forth in feathered lustre and awkward magnificence; and while the charming simplicity of one sex is destroyed by affectation, the honest virtues of the other by dissolute gallantry, and the passions of both inflamed by vicious and indecent mirth, the grave elders of the districts are trying their tempers and impoverishing their purses at sixpenny whist and cassino.
The spirit of dissipation has reached even the vagrant tribe. The Gypsies of Germany suspend their predatory excursions, and on one previously-appointed evening in every week, assemble to enjoy their guilty spoils in the fumes of strong waters and tobacco. The place of rendezvous is generally the vicinity of a mill, the proprietor of which, by affording to these wandering tribes an undisturbed asylum, not only secures his property from their depredations, but, by the idle tales with which they contrive to amuse his ear, respecting the characters and conduct of his neighbors, furnishes himself with new subjects of conversation for his next evening coterie.
Minds that derive all their pleasure from the levity and mirth of promiscuous company, are seldom able to contribute, in any high degree, to their own amusement. Characters like these search every place for entertainment, except their own bosoms and the bosoms of their surrounding families, where by proper cultivation, real happiness, the happiness arising from love and friendship, is alone capable of being found.
The wearied pleasurist, sinking under the weight that preys upon his spirits, flies to scenes of public gayety or private splendor, in fond but vain expectation that they will dispel his discontent, and recreate his mind; but he finds, alas! that the fancied asylum affords him no rest. The ever-craving appetite for pastime growsby what it feeds on; and the worm, which devoured his delight amidst his sylvan scenery of solitude, still accompanies him to crowded halls of elegance and festivity. While he eagerly embraces every object that promises to supply the dreadful vacancy of his mind, he exhausts his remaining strength; enlarges the wound he is so anxiously endeavoring to heal; and by too eagerly grasping at the phantom pleasure, loses, perhaps for ever, the substantial power of being happy.
Men whose minds are capable of higher enjoyments always feel these perturbed sensations, when deluded into a fashionable party, they find nothing to excite curiosity, or interest their feelings! and where they are pestered by the frivolous importunities of those for whom they cannot entertain either friendship or esteem. How, indeed, is it possible for a sensible mind to feel the slightest approbation, when a coxcomb enamored of his own eloquence, and swoln with the pride of self-conceited merit, tires by his loquacious nonsense, all around him?
The great Leibnitz was observed by his servant frequently to take notes while he sat at church; and the domestic very rationally conceived that he was making observations on the subject of the sermon: but it is more consistent with the character of this philosopher to conclude, that he was indulging the powers of his own capacious and excursive mind, when those of the preacher ceased to interest him. Thus it happens, that while the multitude are driven from solitude to society, by being tired of themselves, there are some, and those not a few, who seek refuge in rational retirement from the frivolous dissipation of company.
An indolent mind is as irksome to itself as it is intolerable to others; but an active mind feels inexhaustible resources in its own power. The first is forced to fly from itself for enjoyment, while the other calmly resigns itself to its own suggestions, and always meets with the happiness it has vainly sought for in its communion with the world.
To rouse the soul from that lethargy into which its powers are so apt to drop from the tediousness of life, it is necessary to apply a stimulus both to the head and to the heart. Something must be contrived to strike the senses and interest the mind. But it is much more difficult to convey pleasure to others, than to receive it ourselves; and while the many wait in anxious hope of being entertained, they find but few who are capableof entertaining. Disappointment increases the eagerness of desire; and the uneasy multitude rush to places of public resort, endeavoring, by noise and bustle, festive gratification, elegant decoration, rich dresses, splendid illuminations, sportive dances, and sprightly music, to awaken the dormant faculties, and agitate the stagnant sensibilities of the soul. These scenes may be considered the machineries of pleasure; they produce a temporary effect, without requiring much effort or co-operation to obtain it; while those higher delights, of which retirement is capable, cannot be truly enjoyed without a certain degree of intellectual exertion. There are, indeed, many minds so totally corrupted by the unceasing pursuits of these vain and empty pleasures, that they are utterly incapable of relishing intellectual delight; which, as it affords an enjoyment totally unconnected with, and independent of, common society, requires a disposition and capacity which common company can never bestow. Retirement, therefore, and its attendant enjoyments, are of a nature too refined for the gross and vulgar capacities of the multitude, who are more disposed to gratify their intellectual indolence, by receiving a species of entertainment which does not require from them the exertion of thought, than to enjoy pleasures of a nobler kind, which can only be procured by a rational restraint of the passions, and a proper exercise of the powers of the mind. Violent and tumultuous impressions can alone gratify such characters, whose pleasures like those of the slothful Sybarites, only indicate the pain they undergo in striving to be happy.
Men, eager for the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, seldom attain the object they pursue. Dissatisfied with the enjoyments of the moment, they long for absent delight, which seems to promise a more poignant gratification. Their joys are like those of Tantalus, always in view, but never within reach. The activity of such characters lead to no beneficial end; they are perpetually in motion, without making any progress: they spur on “the lazy foot of time,” and then complain of the rapidity of its flight, only because they have made no good use of its presence: they “take no note of time but by its loss;” and year follows year, only to increase their uneasiness. If the bright beam of Aurora wake them from their perturbed repose, it is only to create new anxiety how they are to drag through the passing day. The change of season produces no change in theirwearied dispositions; and every hour comes and goes with equal indifference and discontent.
The pleasures of society, however, although they are attended with such unhappy effects, and pernicious consequences, to men of weak heads and corrupted hearts, who only follow them for the purpose of indulging the follies, and gratifying the vices, to which they have given birth, are yet capable of affording to the wise and the virtuous, a high, rational, sublime, and satisfactory enjoyment. The world is the only theatre upon which great and noble actions can be performed, or the heights of moral and intellectual excellence usefully attained. The society of the wise and good, exclusive of the pleasing relaxation it affords from the anxieties of business, and the cares of life, conveys valuable information to the mind, and virtuous feelings to the breast. There experience imparts its wisdom in a manner equally engaging and impressive; the faculties are improved, and knowledge increased. Youth and age reciprocally contribute to the happiness of each other. Such a society, while it adds firmness to the character, gives fashion to the manners; and opens immediately to the view the delightful models of wisdom and integrity. It is only in such society that man can rationally hope to exercise, with any prospect of success, the latent principle, which continually prompts him to pursue the high felicity of which he feels his nature capable, and of which the Creator has permitted him to form a faint idea.
“In every human heart there lies reclinedSome atom pregnant with ethereal mind;Some plastic power, some intellectual ray,Some genial sunbeam from the source of day;Something that warms, and restless to aspire,Wakes the young heart, and sets the soul on fire;And bids us all our inborn powers employTo catch the phantom of ideal joy.”
“In every human heart there lies reclinedSome atom pregnant with ethereal mind;Some plastic power, some intellectual ray,Some genial sunbeam from the source of day;Something that warms, and restless to aspire,Wakes the young heart, and sets the soul on fire;And bids us all our inborn powers employTo catch the phantom of ideal joy.”
“In every human heart there lies reclined
Some atom pregnant with ethereal mind;
Some plastic power, some intellectual ray,
Some genial sunbeam from the source of day;
Something that warms, and restless to aspire,
Wakes the young heart, and sets the soul on fire;
And bids us all our inborn powers employ
To catch the phantom of ideal joy.”
Sorrow frequently drives its unhappy victims from solitude into the vortex of society as a means of relief; for solitude is terrible to those whose minds are torn with anguish for the loss of some dear friend, whom death has, perhaps, taken untimely from their arms; and who would willingly renounce all worldly joys to hear one accent of that beloved voice, which used, in calm retirement, to fill his ear with harmony, and his heart with rapture.
Solitude also is terrible to those whose felicity is founded on popular applause; who have acquired a degree of fame by intrigue, and actions of counterfeited virtue; and who suffer the most excruciating anxiety to preserve their spurious fame. Conscious of the fraudulent means by which they acquire possession of it, and of the weak foundation on which it is built, it appears continually to totter, and always ready to overwhelm them in its ruins. Their attention is sedulously called to every quarter; and, in order to prop up the unsubstantial fabric, they bend with mean submission to the pride of power; flatter the vanity, and accommodate themselves to the vices of the great; censure the genius that provokes their jealousy; ridicule the virtue that shames the conduct of their patrons; submit to all the follies of the age; take advantage of its errors; cherish its prejudices; applaud its superstition, and defend its vices. The fashionable circles may, perhaps, welcome such characters as their best supporters and highest ornaments; but to them the calm and tranquil pleasures of retirement are dreary and disgusting.
To all those, indeed, whom vice has betrayed into guilt, and whose bosoms are stung by the adders of remorse, solitude is doubly terrible; and they fly from its shades to scenes of worldly pleasure, in the hope of being able to silence the keen reproaches of violated conscience in the tumults of society. Vain attempt!
Solitude, indeed, as well as religion, has been represented in such dismal, disagreeable colors, by those who were incapable of tasting its sweets, and enjoying its advantages, that many dismiss it totally from all their schemes of happiness, and fly to it only to alleviate the bitterness of some momentary passion, or temporary adversity, or to hide the blushes of approaching shame. But there are advantages to be derived from solitude, even under such circumstances, by those who are otherwise incapable of enjoying them. Those who know the most delightful comforts, and satisfactory enjoyments, of which a well regulated solitude is productive, like those who are acquainted with the solid benefits to be derived from religion, will seek retirement, in the hours of prosperity and content, as the only means by which they can be enjoyed in true perfection. The tranquillity of its shades will give richness to their joys; its uninterrupted quietude will enable them to expatiate on the fullness of their felicity; and they will turn their eyes with soft compassion on themiseries of the world, when compared with the blessings they enjoy.
Strongly, therefore, as the social principle operates in our breast; and necessary as it is, when properly regulated, to the improvement of our minds, the refinement of our manners, and the melioration of our hearts; yet some portion of our time ought to be devoted to rational retirement: and we must not conclude that those who occasionally abstain from the tumultuous pleasures, and promiscuous enjoyments of the world, are morose characters, or of peevish dispositions; nor stigmatize those who appear to prefer the calm delights of solitude to the tumultuous pleasures of the world, as unnatural and anti-social.
“Whoever thinks, must see that man was madeTo face the storm, not languish in the shade:Action’s his sphere, and for that sphere design’d,Eternal pleasures open on his mind.For this fair hope leads on th’ impassion’d soulThrough life’s wild lab’rinths to her distant goal,Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame;Or fondly gives reflection’s cooler eyeIn solitude, an image of a future sky.”
“Whoever thinks, must see that man was madeTo face the storm, not languish in the shade:Action’s his sphere, and for that sphere design’d,Eternal pleasures open on his mind.For this fair hope leads on th’ impassion’d soulThrough life’s wild lab’rinths to her distant goal,Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame;Or fondly gives reflection’s cooler eyeIn solitude, an image of a future sky.”
“Whoever thinks, must see that man was made
To face the storm, not languish in the shade:
Action’s his sphere, and for that sphere design’d,
Eternal pleasures open on his mind.
For this fair hope leads on th’ impassion’d soul
Through life’s wild lab’rinths to her distant goal,
Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,
The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame;
Or fondly gives reflection’s cooler eye
In solitude, an image of a future sky.”
The motives which induce men to exchange the tumultuous joys of society, for the calm and temperate pleasures of solitude, are various and accidental; but whatever may be the final cause of such an exchange, it is generally founded on an inclination to escape from some present or impending constraint; to shake off the shackles of the world; to taste the sweets of soft repose; to enjoy the free and undisturbed exertion of the intellectual faculties; or to perform, beyond the reach of ridicule, the important duties of religion. But the busy pursuits of worldly minded men prevent the greater part of the species from feeling these motives, and, of course, from tasting the sweets of unmolested existence. Their pleasures are pursued in paths which lead to very different goals: and the real, constant, and unaffected lover of retirement is a character so rarely found, that it seems to prove the truth of lord Verulam’sobservation, that he who is really attached to solitude, must be either more or less than man; and certain it is, that while the wise and virtuous discover in retirement an uncommon and transcending brightness of character, the vicious and the ignorant are buried under its weight, and sink even beneath their ordinary level. Retirement gives additional firmness to the principles of those who seek it from a noble love of independence, but loosens the feeble consistency of those who only seek it from novelty and caprice.
To render solitude serviceable, the powers of the mind, and the sensibilities of the heart, must be co-equal, and reciprocally regulate each other; weakness of intellect, when joined with quick feelings, hurries its possessor into all the tumult of worldly pleasure; and when mingled with torpid insensibility, impels him to the cloister. Extremes, both in solitude and in society, are equally baneful.
A strong sense of shame, the keen compunctions of conscience, a deep regret for past follies, the mortification arising from disappointed hopes, and the dejection which accompanies disordered health, sometimes so affect the spirits, and destroy the energies of the mind, that the soul shrinks back upon itself at the very approach of company, and withdraws to the shades of solitude, only to brood and languish in obscurity. The inclination to retire, in cases of this description, arises from a fear of meeting the reproaches or disregard of an unpitying and unreflecting world, and not from that erect spirit which disposes the mind to self enjoyment.
The disgust arising from satiety of worldly pleasures, frequently induces a temporary desire for solitude. The dark and gloomy nature, indeed, of this disposition, is such as neither the splendors of a throne, nor the light of philosophy, are able to irradiate and dispel. The austere and petulant Heraclitus abandoned all the pleasures and comforts of society, in the vain hope of being able to gratify his discontented mind, by indulging an antipathy against his fellow creatures; flying from their presence he retired, like his predecessor Timon, to a high mountain, where he lived for many years among the beasts of the desert, on the rude produce of the earth, regardless of all the comforts a civilized society is capable of bestowing. Such a temper of mind proceeds from a sickened intellect and disordered sensibility, and indicates the loss of that fine, but firm sense of pleasure, from which alone all real enjoymentmust spring. He who having tasted all that can delight the senses, warm the heart, and satisfy the mind, secretly sighs over the vanity of his enjoyments, and beholds all the cheering objects of life with indifference, is, indeed, a melancholy example of the sad effects which result from an intemperate pursuit of worldly pleasures. Such a man may, perhaps, abandon society, for it is no longer capable of affording him delight; but he will be debarred from all rational solitude, because he is incapable of enjoying it, and a refuge to the brute creation seems his only resource. I have, indeed, observed even noblemen and princes in the midst of abundance, and surrounded by all the splendor that successful ambition, high state, vast riches, and varying pleasures can confer, sinking the sad victims of satiety; disgusted with their glories; and dissatisfied with all those enjoyments which are supposed to give a higher relish to the soul; but they had happily enriched their minds with notions far superior to all those which flow from the corrupted scenes of vitiated pleasures; and they found, in solitude, a soft and tranquil pillow, which invited their perturbed minds, and at length lulled their feelings into calm repose. These characters were betrayed for a time by the circumstances which surrounded their exalted stations into an excess of enjoyment; but they were able to relish the simple occupations, and to enjoy the tranquil amusements of retirement, with as much satisfaction as they had formerly pursued the political intrigues of the cabinet, the hostile glories of the field, or the softer indulgences of peaceful luxury; and were thereby rendered capable of deriving comfort and consolation from that source which seems only to heighten and exasperate the miseries of those whose minds are totally absorbed in the dissipations of life.
The motives, indeed, which lead men either to temporary retirement, or absolute solitude, are innumerably various. Minds delicately susceptible to the impressions of virtue, frequently avoid society, only to avoid the pain they feel in observing the vices and follies of the world. Minds active and vigorous, frequently retire to avoid the clogs and incumbrances by which the tumults and engagements of society distract and impede the free and full enjoyment of their faculties. The basis, indeed, of every inclination to solitude is the love of liberty, either mental or corporeal; a freedom from all constraint and interruption: but the formin which the inclination displays itself, varies according to the character and circumstances of the individual.
Men who are engaged in pursuits foreign to the natural inclination of their minds, sigh continually for retirement, as the only means of recruiting their fatigued spirits, and procuring a comfortable repose. Scenes of tranquillity can alone afford them any idea of enjoyment. A refined sense of duty, indeed, frequently induces noble minds to sacrifice all personal pleasures to the great interests of the public, or the private benefits of their fellow creatures; and they resist every opposing obstacle with courage, and bear every adversity with fortitude, under those cheering sentiments, and proud delights, which result from the pursuits of active charity and benevolence, even though their career be thwarted by those whose advantages they design to promote. The exhilarating idea of being instrumental in affording relief to suffering humanity, reconciles every difficulty, however great: prompts to new exertions, however fruitless; and sustains them in those arduous conflicts, in which all who aspire to promote the interest, and improve the happiness of mankind, must occasionally engage, especially when opposed by the pride and profligacy of the rich and great, and the obstinacy and caprice of the ignorant and unfeeling. But the most virtuous and steady minds cannot always bear up against “a sea of troubles, or by opposing, end them:” and, depressed by temporary adversities, will arraign the cruelty of their condition, and sigh for the shades of peace and tranquillity. How transcendent must be the enjoyment of a great and good minister who, after having anxiously attended to the important business of the state, and disengaged himself from the necessary but irksome occupation of official detail, refreshes his mind in the calm of some delightful retreat, with works of taste, and thoughts of fancy and imagination! A change, indeed, both of scene and sentiment, is absolutely necessary, not only in the serious and important employments, but even in the common occupations and idle amusements of life. Pleasure springs from contrast. The most charming object loses a portion of its power to delight, by being continually beheld. Alternate society and solitude are necessary to the full enjoyment of both the pleasures of the world and the delights of retirement. It is, however, asserted that the celebrated Pascal,whose life was far from being inactive, that quietude is a beam of the original purity of our nature, and that the height of human happiness is in solitude and tranquillity. Tranquillity, indeed, is the wish of all: the good, while pursuing the track of virtue; the great while following the star of glory; and the little, while creeping in the styes of dissipation, sigh for tranquillity and make it the great object which they ultimately hope to attain. How anxiously does the sailor, on the high and giddy mast, when rolling through tempestuous seas, cast his eyes over the foaming billows, and anticipate the calm security he hopes to enjoy when he reaches the wished for shore! Even kings grow weary of their splendid slavery, and nobles sicken under increasing dignities. All, in short, feel less delight in the actual enjoyment of worldly pursuits, however great and honorable they may be, than in the idea of their being able to relinquish them and retire to
“… some calm sequestered spot;The world forgetting, by the world forgot.”
“… some calm sequestered spot;The world forgetting, by the world forgot.”
“… some calm sequestered spot;
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.”
The restless and ambitious Pyrrhus hoped that ease and tranquillity would be the ultimate reward of his enterprising conquests. Frederic the great, discovered, perhaps unintentionally, how pleasing and satisfactory the idea of tranquillity was to his mind, when immediately after he had gained a glorious and important victory, he exclaimed on the field of battle, “Oh that my anxieties may now be ended!” The emperor Joseph also displayed the predominancy of his passion for tranquillity and retirement, when on asking the famous German pedestrian, Baron Grothaus, what countries he next intended to traverse, was told a long number in rapid succession. “And what then?” continued the emperor. “Why then,” replied the baron, “I intend to retire to the place of my nativity, and enjoy myself in rural quietude, and the cultivation of my patrimonial farm.” “Ah, my good friend,” exclaimed the emperor, “if you will trust the voice of sad experience, you had better neglect the walk, and retire before it is too late, to the quietude and tranquillity you propose.”
Publius Scipio, surnamed Africanus, during the time that he was invested with the highest offices of Rome, and immediately engaged in the most important concerns of the empire, withdrew whenever an opportunity occurred, from public observation, to peaceful privacy;and though not devoted, like Tully, to the elegant occupations of literature and philosophy, declared that “he was never less alone than when alone.” He was, says Plutarch, incomparably the first both in virtue and power, of the Romans of his time; but in his highest tide of fortune, he voluntarily abandoned the scene of his glory, and calmly retired to his beautiful villa in the midst of a romantic forest, near Liturnum, where he closed, in philosophic tranquillity, the last years of a long and splendid life.
Cicero, in the plenitude of his power, at a time when his influence over the minds of his fellow citizens was at its height, retired, with the retiring liberties of his country, to his Tusculum villa, to deplore the approaching fate of his beloved city, and to ease, in soothing solitude, the anguish of his heart.
Horace, also, the gay and elegant favorite of the great Augustus, even in the meridian rays of royal favor, renounced the smiles of greatness, and all the seductive blandishments of an imperial court, to enjoy his happy muse among the romantic wilds of his sequestered villa of Tibur, near the lake Albunea.
But there are few characters who have passed the concluding scenes of life with more real dignity than the emperor Dioclesian. In the twenty-first year of his reign, though he had never practised the lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or the use of supreme power, and although his reign had flowed with a tide of uninterrupted success, he executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire, and gave the world the first example of a resignation which has not been very frequently imitated by succeeding monarchs. Dioclesian was at this period only fifty-nine years of age, and in the full possession of his mental faculties; but he had vanquished all his enemies, and executed all his designs; and his active life, his wars, his journeys, the cares of royalty, and his application to business having impaired his constitution, and brought on the infirmities of a premature old age, he resolved to pass the remainder of his days in honorable repose; to place his glory beyond the reach of fortune, and to relinquish the theatre of the world to his younger and more active associates. The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain, about three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty throne, and, in a speech full of reason and dignity, declared his intention both to the people and to the soldiers,who were assembled on this extraordinary occasion. As soon as he had divested himself of the purple, he withdrew from the gazing multitude; and traversing the city in a covered chariot, proceeded without delay to the favorite retirement which he had chosen in his native country of Dalmatia. The emperor, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the throne, passed the last nine years of his life in a private condition at Salona. Reason had dictated, and content seems to have accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed for a long time the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the possession of the world. It is seldom that minds long exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with themselves, and in the loss of power, they principally regret the want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion, which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of fixing the attention of Dioclesian: but he had preserved, or, at least, he soon recovered, a taste for the most innocent as well as natural pleasures; and his leisure hours were sufficiently employed in building, planting, and gardening. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to resume the reins of government and the imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian the cabbages he had planted at Salona, he should be no longer urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power. In his conversations with his friends he frequently acknowledged, that of all the arts the most difficult was that of reigning; and he expressed himself on that favorite topic with a degree of warmth which could be the result only of experience. “How often,” was he accustomed to say, “is it the interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive the sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity, the truth is concealed from his knowledge: he can only see with their eyes; he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects; and by such infamous acts the best and wisest princes are sold to the venal corruption of their courtiers.” A just estimate of greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame, improve our relish for the pleasures of retirement.
Zenobia, the celebrated queen of Palmyra and theeast; a female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia, the most lovely as well as the most heroic of her sex, who spread the terror of her arms over Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, and kept even the legions of the Roman empire in awe, was, after the two great battles of Antioch and Emesa, at length subdued, and made the illustrious captive of the emperor Aurelian; but the conqueror, respecting the sex, the beauty, the courage and endowments of the Syrian queen, not only preserved her life, but presented her with an elegant villa at Tibur or Tivoli, about twenty miles from Rome; where, in happy tranquillity, she fed the greatness of her soul with the noble images of Homer, and the exalted precepts of Plato; supported the adversity of her fortunes with fortitude and resignation; and learnt that the anxieties attendant on ambition are happily exchanged for the enjoyments of ease and the comforts of philosophy.
Charles V. resigned the government of the empire to his brother the king of the Romans; and transferred all claims of obedience and allegiance to him from the Germanic body, in order that he might no longer be detained from that retreat for which he long had languished. In passing, some years before, from Valladolid to Placentia, in the Province of Estremadura, he was struck with the delightful situation of the monastery of St. Justus, belonging to the order of St. Jerome, not many miles distant from the town; and observed to some of his attendants, that this was a spot to which Dioclesian might have retired with pleasure. The impression remained upon his mind, and he determined to make it the place of his own retreat. It was seated in a vale of no great extent, watered by a small brook, and surrounded by rising grounds covered with lofty trees; and from the nature of the soil, as well as the temperature of the climate, was esteemed the most healthful and delicious situation in Spain. Some months before his resignation, he had sent an architect thither to add a new apartment to the monastery for his accommodation; but he gave strict orders that the style of the building should be such as suited his present station rather than his former dignity. It consisted only of six rooms; four of them in the form of friar’s cells, with naked walls; the other two, each twenty feet square, were hung with brown cloth, and furnished in the most simple manner; they were all ona level with the ground, with a door on one side into a garden of which Charles himself had given the plan, and had filled it with various plants, which he intended to cultivate with his own hands. On the other side they communicated with the chapel of the monastery, in which he was to perform his devotions. In this humble retreat, hardly sufficient for the comfortable accommodation of a private gentleman, did Charles enter with twelve domestics only, and buried in solitude and silence his grandeur, his ambition, and all those vast projects which, during almost half a century, had alarmed and agitated Europe; filling every kingdom in it by turns with the terror of his arms, and the dread of being subdued by his power.
These instances of resignation and retirement, to which many others might have been added, sufficiently prove that a desire to live in free leisure, independent of the restraints of society, is one of the most powerful affections of the human mind; and that solitude, judiciously and rationally employed, amply compensates all that is sacrificed for the purpose of enjoying it.
But there are many other resources from whence an anti-social disposition may arise, which merits consideration. That terrible malady, the hypocondria, frequently renders the unhappy sufferer not only averse to society in general, but even fearful of meeting a human being; and the still more dreadful malady a wounded heart, increases our antipathy to mankind. The fear of unfounded calumny also sometimes drives weak and dejected minds into the imaginary shelter of obscurity; and even strong and honest characters, prone to disclose their real sentiments, are disgusted at the world from a consciousness of its being unable to listen temperately to the voice of truth. The obstinacy with which mankind persist in habitual errors, and the violence with which they indulge inveterate passions, a deep regret for their follies, and the horror which their vices create, drives us frequently from their presence. The love of science, a fondness for the arts, and an attachment to the immortal works of genius, induce, I trust, not a few to neglect all anxiety to learn the common news of the day, and keep them in some calm, sequestered retreat far from the unmeaning manners of the noisy world, improving the genuine feelings of their hearts, and storing their minds with the principles of true philosophy. There are others, though I fear theyare few, who, impressed by a strong sense of the duties of religion, and feeling how incompatible with their practice are most, if not all, the factitious joys of social life, retire from the corrupted scene, to contemplate, in sacred privacy, the attributes of a Being unalterably pure, and infinitely good; to impress upon their minds 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 temptations which temporal hope or fear can bring in their way, and enable them to bid equal defiance to joy and sorrow; to turn away at one time from the allurements of ambition, and press forward at another against the threats of calamity.
The dejection occasioned by the hypochondria renders the mind not only averse from, but wholly incapable of, any pleasure, and induces the unhappy sufferer to seek a solitude by which it is increased. The influence of this dreadful malady is so powerful, that it destroys all hope of remedy, and prevents those exertions, by which alone, we are told it can be cured.
To cure the mind’s wrong bias—spleen,Some recommend the bowling-green;Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;Fling but a stone, the giant dies;Laugh, and be well. Monkies have beenExtreme good doctors for the spleen;And kittens, if the humor hit,Have harlequined away the fit.
To cure the mind’s wrong bias—spleen,Some recommend the bowling-green;Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;Fling but a stone, the giant dies;Laugh, and be well. Monkies have beenExtreme good doctors for the spleen;And kittens, if the humor hit,Have harlequined away the fit.
To cure the mind’s wrong bias—spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green;
Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies;
Laugh, and be well. Monkies have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kittens, if the humor hit,
Have harlequined away the fit.
But, alas! the heart shuts itself against every pleasing sensation, and the mind dismisses every cheering sentiment. Joy opens in vain its festal arms to receive him; and he shuns embraces, whose light and mirthful air would only serve to increase the melancholy of his dreary and distempered mind. Even the tender, affectionate offices of friendship, in endeavoring to sooth and divert his mind by lively conversation and social intercourse, appear officious and ill-timed. His spirits are quite dejected; his faculties become torpid; and his sense of enjoyment is annihilated. The charming air which breathes to us the sweetest fragrance, and most invigorating delights, feels to him like a pestilent congregation of vapors.
His pensive spirit takes the lonely groveNightly he visits all the sylvan scenes,Where, far remote, a melancholy moonRaising her head, serene and shorn of beams,Throws here and there the glimmerings through the trees,To make more awful darkness.
His pensive spirit takes the lonely groveNightly he visits all the sylvan scenes,Where, far remote, a melancholy moonRaising her head, serene and shorn of beams,Throws here and there the glimmerings through the trees,To make more awful darkness.
His pensive spirit takes the lonely grove
Nightly he visits all the sylvan scenes,
Where, far remote, a melancholy moon
Raising her head, serene and shorn of beams,
Throws here and there the glimmerings through the trees,
To make more awful darkness.
Conscious that his frame is totally unstrung, and that his pulse is incapable of beating in any pleasant unison with the feelings of his healthful friends, he withers into sorrowful decay. Every object around him appears to be at enmity with his feelings, and comes shapeless and discolored to his disordered eyes. The gentle voice of pity grates his ears with harsh and hollow sounds, and seems to reproach him with insulting tones. Stricken by his dreadful malady, the lamentable effects of which a cruel and unfeeling world so often ridicule and despise, and constantly tearing open the wound it has occasioned, the afflicted spirit flies from every scene of social joy and animating pleasure, seeks as a sole resource, to hide its sorrows in solitary seclusion, and awaits, in lingering sufferance, the stroke of death.
The erroneous opinions, perverse dispositions, and inveterate prejudices of the world, are sometimes the causes which induce men to retire from society, and seek in solitude the enjoyments of innocence and truth. Careless of a commerce with those for whom they can entertain no esteem, their minds naturally incline toward those scenes in which their fancy paints the fairest form of felicity. He, indeed, whose free and independent spirit is resolved to permit his mind to think for itself; who disdains to form his feelings, and to fashion his opinions, upon the capricious notions of the world; who is too candid to expect that others should be guided by his notions, and sufficiently firm not to obey implicitly the hasty notions of others; who seeks to cultivate the just and manly feelings of the heart, and to pursue truth in the paths of science, must detach himself from the degenerate crowd, and seek his enjoyments in retirement. For to those who love to consult their own ideas, to form opinions upon their own reasonings and discernment, and to express only such sentiments as they really feel, a society whose judgments are borrowed, whose literature is only specious, and whose principles are unfounded, must not only be irksomely insipid, but morally dangerous. The firm and noble minded disdain to bow their necks to the slavish yoke of vulgar prejudice, and appeal, in support of their opinions, to the higher tribunal of sense and reason, from the partial and ill-formed sentences ofconceited critics, who, destitute themselves of any sterling merit, endeavor to depreciate the value of that coin whose weight and purity render it current, and to substitute their own base and varnished compositions in its stead. Those self-created who proudly place themselves in the professor’s chair, look with an envious and malignant eye on all the works of genius, taste, and sense; and as their interests are intimately blended with the destruction of every sublime and elegant production, their cries are raised against them the moment they appear. To blast the fame of merit is their chief object and their highest joy: and their lives are industriously employed to stifle the discoveries, to impede the advancement, to condemn the excellency, and to pervert the meaning of their more ingenious contemporaries. Like loathsome toads, they grovel on the ground, and, as they move along, emit a nasty slime, or frothy venom, on the sweetest shrubs and fairest flowers of the fields.
From the society of such characters, who seem to consider the noble productions of superior intellect, the fine and vigorous flights of fancy, the brilliant effusions of a sublime imagination, and the refined feelings of the heart, as fancied conceits or wild deliriums, those who examine them by a better standard than that of fashion or common taste, fly with delight.
The reign of envy, however, although it is perpetual as to the existence of the passion, is only transitory as to the objects of its tyranny; and the merit which has fallen the victim of its rage, is frequently raised by the hand of truth, and placed on the throne of public applause. A production of genius, however the ears of its author were deafened, during his life, by the clamors of calumny, and hisses of ignorance, is reviewed with impartiality when he dies, and revived by the acclamations of ingenuous applause. The reproach which the life of a great and good man is continually casting on his mean and degenerate contemporaries, is silenced by his death. He is remembered only in the character of his works; and his fame increases with the successive generations, which his sentiments and opinions contribute to enlighten and adorn.
The history of the celebrated English philosopher, David Hume, affords, perhaps, a stronger instance of the dangers to which wit and learning are exposed from the malicious shafts of envy, ignorance, and intolerance, than that of any other author. The tax indeed,is common to authors of every description, but it frequently falls the heaviest on the highest heads. This profound philosopher and elegant historian, possessed a mild temper; a lively, social disposition; a high sense of friendship, and incorruptible integrity. His manners, indeed, appeared, at first sight, cold and repulsive; for he had sacrificed little to the graces: but his mind was invariably cheerful, and his affections uncommonly warm and generous: and neither his ardent desire of fame, nor the gross and unfounded calumnies of his enemies, were capable of disturbing the happy tranquillity of his heart. His life was passed in the constant exercise of humanity and benevolence; and even those who had been seduced, by the jealous and vindictive artifices of others, wantonly to attack his fame and character with obloquy and reproach, experienced his kindness, and acknowledged his virtues. He would never indeed confess that his friends had ever had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of his character or conduct, or that he had ever been attacked either by the baleful tooth of envy, or the rage of civil or religious faction. His company, indeed, was equally agreeable to all classes of society; and young and old, rich and poor, listened with pleasure to his conversation, and quitted his company with regret; for although he was deeply learned, and his discourses replete with sagacity and science, he had the happy art of delivering his sentiments upon all subjects without the appearance of ostentation, or in any way offending the feelings of his hearers.
The interests of religion are said to have suffered by the abuse of his talents; but the precepts of Christianity were never more powerfully recommended, than by the integrity of his morals, and the purity of his life. His benign and gentle spirit, attached to virtue, and averse from every species of vice, essentially promoted the practice of piety, and the duties of a religious mind; and did not, as is always the case with the zeal of persecution and martyrdom, tear away the very foundation of that fabric which it pretends to support. The excellency, indeed, both of the head and the heart of this great and good man, enabled him not only to enjoy himself with perfect felicity, but to contribute to the improvement, and increase the happiness of mankind. This is the opinion now generally entertained of the character of Hume; but far different were the sentiments of his contemporaries upon this subject. Itwas neither in a barbarous country, or in an unenlightened age, that he lived; but although the land was free, the people philosophical, and the spirit of the times provoked the minds of learned men to metaphysical inquiry, the fame of Hume was wrecked upon his moral and religious writings. He was charged with being a sceptic; but from the propagation of certain doctrines, and the freedom of inquiry which had then gone forth, it is impossible to attribute his disappointments to this cause. A kind of natural prejudice, indeed, prevailed in England at this period against the Scots; but as he did not experience much favor from his own countrymen, no conclusion can be fairly drawn from this circumstance; and the extraordinary History of his Literary Transactions, a work written by himself, cannot be perused without an equal degree of surprise and concern. The contemptuous repulses which his several compositions received from the public, appear incredible; but the facts he relates are undoubtedly authentic; and while they raise a sorrowful regret for the fate of Hume in particular, they most unhappily tend to diminish the ardor of the student, who contemplates the various dangers to which his desire of fame may be exposed, and may, perhaps, induce him to quit the pursuit of an object “so hard to gain, so easy to be lost.”
The melancholy history of the literary career of the celebrated Hume, as appears from the short sketch he made ofhis own life, while he calmly waited, under an incurable disorder, the moment of approaching dissolution; a work which proclaims the mildness, the modesty, and the resignation of his temper, as clearly as his other works demonstrate the power and extent of his mind. The history, indeed, of every man who attempts to destroy the reigning prejudices, or correct the prevailing errors, of his age and country, is nearly the same. He who has the happiness to see objects of any description with greater perspicuity than his contemporaries, and presumes to disseminate his superior knowledge, by the unreserved publication of his opinions, sets himself up as a common mark for the shafts of envy and resentment to pierce, and seldom escapes from being charged with wicked designs against the interests of mankind. A writer, whatever his character, station, or talents may be, will find that he has a host of malevolent inferiors ready to seize every opportunity of gratifying their humbled pride, by attemptingto level his superior merits, and subdue his rising fame. Even the compassionate few, who are ever ready to furnish food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and consolation to the afflicted, seldom feel any other sensation than that of jealousy on beholding the wreath of merit placed on the brow of a deserving rival. The Ephesians, with republican pride, being unable to endure the reproach which they felt from the pre-eminency of any individual, banished to some other state, the citizen who presumed to excel the generality of his countrymen. It would be, in some measure, adopting this egregious and tyrannical folly, were I to exhort the man whose merits transcend those who are his equals in rank, or station, to break off all intercourse and connexion with them; but I am certain that he might, by an occasional retirement, elude the effects of their envy, and avoid those provocations to which, by his superiority, he will otherwise be continually exposed.
To treat the frailties of our fellow creatures with tenderness, to correct their errors with kindness, to view even their vices with pity, and to induce, by every friendly attention, a mutual complacency and good will, is not only an important moral duty, but a means of increasing the sum of earthly happiness. It is, indeed, difficult to prevent an honest mind from bursting forth with generous indignation against those artful hypocrites who, by specious and plausible practices, obtain the false character of being wise and good, and obtrude their flimsy and heterodox opinions upon the unthinking world, as the fair and genuine sentiments of truth and virtue. The anger which arises in a generous and ardent mind, on hearing a noble action calumniated, or a useful work illiberally attacked, is not easily restrained; but such feelings should be checked and regulated with a greater degree of caution than even if they were less virtuous and praiseworthy; for, if they are indulged with frequency, their natural violence may weaken the common charities of the mind, and convert its very goodness and love of virtue into a mournful misanthropy, or virulent detestation of mankind.
Let not the man, whose exalted mind, improved by study and observation, surveys with a discriminating eye the moral depravities and mental weaknesses of human nature, submit to treat his envious inferiors with inveterate anger, and undistinguishing revenge. Theirenvy as a tribute of approbation to his greatness. Let him look with the gentle eye of pity upon those who err rather from the wicked suggestions of others, than from the malevolence of their own hearts: let him not confound the weak and innocent reptile with the scorpion and the viper; let him listen, without emotion, to the malignant barking and envious hissings that everywhere attend the footsteps of transcendent merit; let him disregard, with philosophic dignity, the senseless clamors of those noisy adversaries who are blinded by prejudice, and deaf to the arguments of sense and reason: let him rather, by a mild and forbearing temper, endeavor to make some impression on their hearts; and if he should find their bosoms susceptible, he may hope in time to convince them of their errors, and, without violence or compulsion, bring back their deluded understandings to a sense of truth, and the practice of virtue; but, if experience convince him that every endeavor to reform them is fruitless and vain, let him—