tary advice, consulted me respecting the difficulty he frequently laboured under in suppressing the violence of those transports of affection which he bore towards his young and amiable consort, and which, in a previous conversation on philosophic subjects, I had seriously exhorted him to check, under a conviction, that a steady flame is more permanent and pure than a raging fire. He asked me, with some concern, what expedient I could recommend to him as most likely to control those emotions which happy lovers are so anxious to indulge. "My dear friend," I replied, "there is no expedient can surpass your own; and whenever the intemperance of passion is in danger of subverting the dictates of reason, repeat The Lord's Prayer, and I have no doubt you will foil its fury."

When the mind is thus enabled to check and regulate the effects of the passions, and bring back the temper to its proper tone and rational bias, the serenity and calmness of Solitude as. sists the achievement, and completes the victory. It is then so far from infusing into the mind the virulent poisons we have before described, that it affords a soft and pleasing balm to the soul; and, instead of being its greatest enemy, becomes its highest blessing and its warmest friend.

Solitude, indeed, as I have already observed, is far from betraying well-regulated minds either into the miseries of melancholy, or the dangers of eccentricism. It raises a healthy and vigorous imagination to its noblest production, elevates it when dejected, calms it when disturbed, and re. stores it, when partially disordered, to its natural tone. It is, as in every other matter, whether physical or moral, the abuse of Solitude which renders it dangerous: like every powerful medicine, it is attended, when misapplied, with the most mischievous consequences; but, when properly administered, is pleasant in its taste, and

highly salutary in its effects. He who knows how to enjoy it, can

truly tell

To live in Solitude is with Truth to dwell;

Where gay Content with healthy Temperance meets,
And Learning intermixes all its sweets;

Where Friendship, Elegance, and Arts unite
To make the hours glide social, easy, bright:
He tastes the converse of the purest mind:
Tho' mild, yet manly; and tho' plain, refin'd;
And thro' the moral world expatiates wide,
Truth as his end, and Virtue as his guide.

CHAP. VI.

The Influence of Solitude on the Passions.

THE passions lose in Solitude a certain portion of that regulating weight by which in Society they are guided and controled; the counteracting effects produced by variety, the restraints imposed by the obligations of civility, and the checks which arise from the calls of humanity, occur much less frequently in Retirement than amidst the multifarious transactions of a busy world. The desires and sensibilities of the heart having no real objects on which their vibrations can pendulate, are stimulated and increased by the powers of imagination. All the propensities of the soul, indeed, experience a degree of restlessness and vehemence greater than they ever feel while diverted by the pleasures, subdued by the surrounding distresses, and engaged by the business of active and social life.

The calm which seems to accompany the mind ⚫in its retreat is deceitful; the passions are secretly at work within the heart; the imagination is continually heaping fuel on the latent fire, and at length the labouring desire bursts forth, and glows

with volcanic heat and fury. The temporary inactivity and inertness which Retirement seems to 'impose, may check, but cannot subdue, the energies of spirit. The high pride and lofty ideas of great and independent minds may be, for a while, lulled into repose; but the moment the feelings of such a character are awakened by indignity or outrage, its anger springs like an elastic body drawn from its centre, and pierces with vigorous severity the object that provoked it. The perils of Solitude, indeed, always increase in propor-, tion as the sensibilities, imaginations, and passions of its votaries are quick, excursive, and violent. The man may be the inmate of a cottage, but the same passions and inclinations still lodge within his heart: his mansion may be changed, but their residence is the same; and though they appear to be silent and undisturbed, they are secretly influencing all the propensities of his heart. Whatever be the cause of his retirement, whether it be a sense of undeserved misfortune, the ingratitude of supposed friends, the pangs of despised love, or the disappointments of ambition, memory pre. vents the wound from healing, and stings the soul with indignation and resentment. The image of departed pleasures haunts the mind, and robs it of its wished tranquillity. The ruling passion still subsists it fixes itself more strongly on the fancy; moves with greater agitation; and becomes, in retirement, in proportion as it is inclined to Vice or Virtue, either a horrid and tormenting spectre, inflicting apprehension and dismay, or a delightful and supporting angel, irradiating the countenance with smiles of joy, and filling the heart with peace and gladness.

Blest is the man, as far as earth can bless,

Whose measur'd Passions reach no wild excess;
Who, urg'd by Nature's voice, her gifts enjoys,
Nor other means than Nature's force employs.

While warm with youth the sprightly current flows,
Each vivid sense with vig'rous rapture glows;
And when he droops beneath the hand of age,
No vicious habit stings with fruitless rage;
Gradual his strength and gay sensations cease,
While joys tumultuous sink in silent peace.

The extraordinary power which the Passions assume, and the improper channel in which they are apt to flow in retired situations, is conspicuous from the greater acrimony with which they are in general tainted in small villages than in large towns. It is true, indeed, that they do not always explode in such situations with the open and daring violence which they exhibit in a metropolis; but lie buried, as it were, and mouldering in the bosom, with a more malignant and consuming flame. To those who only observe the listlessness and languor which distinguish the characters of those who reside in small provincial towns, the slow and uniform rotation of amusements which fills up the leisure of their lives; the confused wildness of their cares; the poor subterfuges to which they are continually resorting, in order to avoid the clouds of discontent that impend, in angry darkness, over their heads; the lagging current of their drooping spirits; the miserable poverty of their intellectual powers; the eagerness with which they strive to raise a card party; the transports they enjoy on the prospect of any new diversion, or occasional exhibition; the haste with which they run towards any sudden unexpected noise that interrupts the deep silence of their situation; and the patient industry with which, from day to day, they watch each other's conduct, and circulate reports of every action of each other's lives, will scarcely imagine that any virulence of passion can disturb the bosoms of persons who live in so quiet and seemingly composed a state. But the unoccupied time and barren minds of such characters cause the faintest

emotions, and most common desires, to act with all the violence of high and untamed passions. The lowest diversions, a cock-fighting, or a poneyrace, make the bosom of a country 'squire beat with the highest rapture; while the inability to attend the monthly ball fills the minds of his wife and daughter with the keenest anguish. Circumstances, which scarcely make any impression on those who reside in the metropolis, plunge every description of residents in a country village into all the extravagancies of joy, or the dejections of sorrow: from the peer to the peasant, from the duchess to the dairy-maid, all is rapture and convulsion. Competition is carried on for the humble honours and petty interests of a sequestered town, or miserable hamlet, with as much heat and rancour, as it is for the highest dignities and greatest emoluments of the state. Upon many occasions, indeed, ambition, envy, revenge, and all the disorderly and malignant passions, are felt and exercised with a greater degree of violence and obstinacy amidst the little contentions of clay-built cottages, than ever prevailed amidst the highest commotions of courts. Plutarch re.

lates, that when Cæsar, after his appointment to the government of Spain, came to a little town as he was passing the Alps, his friends, by way of mirth, took occasion to say, "Can there here be any disputes for offices, any contentions for precedency, or such envy and ambition as we behold among the great in all the transactions of Imperial Rome?" The idea betrayed their ig norance of human nature; while the celebrated reply of their great commander, that He would rather be the first man in this little town, than the second even in the imperial city, spoke the language, not of an individual, but of the species; and instructed them that there is no place, however insignificant, in which the same passions do not proportionately prevail. The humble com