for life,) it is truly a great shame both to his parents and himself; for a very small portion of any ingenious art will stop up all those gaps of our time: either music, or painting, or designing, or chemistry, or history, or gardening, or twenty other things, will do it usefully and pleasantly; and, if he happen to set his affections upon poetry (which I do not advise him too immoderately), that will over-do it; no wood will be thick enough to hide him from the importunities of company or business, which would abstract him from his beloved.

"O qui me gelidis in vallibus Hæmi Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ?"*

Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye plebeian under-wood!

Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay, with their grateful voice.

Hail, the poor Muses' richest manor-seat!
Ye country houses and retreat,
Which all the happy gods so love,

That for you oft they quit their bright and great
Metropolis above.

Here Nature does a house for me erect;

Nature, the wisest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise
That can the fair and living trees neglect,
Yet the dead timber prize.

* Virg. Georg. ii. 489.

Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying,
Hear the soft winds, above me flying,
With all their wanton boughs dispute,
And the more tuneful birds to both replying;
Nor be myself, too, mute.

A silver stream shall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the sun-beams here and there,
On whose enamell'd bank I'll walk,
And see how prettily they smile, and hear
How prettily they talk.

Ah wretched and too solitary he,

Who loves not his own company!.
He'll feel the weight of't many a day,
Unless he call in sin or vanity
To help to bear't away.

Oh Solitude, first state of human kind!
Which blest remain'd, till man did find
Ev'n his own helper's company.
As soon as two, alas! together join'd,
The serpent made up three.

Tho' God himself, through countless ages, thee
His sole companion chose to be;

Thee, sacred Solitude, alone,
Before the branchy head of number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one.

Thou (tho' men think thine an unactive part,)*
Dost break and time the unruly heart,

* Thou (tho' men think thine an unactive part).] The

Which else would know no settled pace,
Making it move, well managed by thy art,
With swiftness and with grace.

Thou the faint beams of reason's scatter'd light
Dost, like a burning-glass, unite;'

Dost multiply the feeble heat,

And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright
And noble fires beget.

Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see
The monster London* laugh at me,†
I should at thee to, foolish city,
If it were fit to laugh at misery;
But thy estate I pity.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools, that crowd thee so,

poet, in this and the following stanza, would deliver an unwelcome truth, and therefore he delivers it indirectly, in the way of allusion, That solitude contributes more to form the human mind, and to bring out the latent energies of true genius, than society.-The present rage for figuring in the world, without staying to pass through the wholesome discipline of retirement, is the proper and immediate cause why ability of every kind is so rare among us.-Hurd.

# The monster London.] But why a monster? Unless perhaps, our poet conceived of this great city, as a certain philosopher of his acquaintance did, who had the incivility to pronounce of it-" London has a great belly, but no palate."-Hobbes, Hist. of the Civil Wars, p. 169,-Hurd.

† laugh at me.] Because he had taught, that solitude begets the noble fires of wit; whereas, the doctrine of London, as of every great city, is, that solitude begets nothing but stupidity.

Ev'n thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

III. OF OBSCURITY.

"NAM neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis;
Nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit."*

God made not pleasures only for the rich;
Nor have those men without their share too lived,
Who both in life and death the world deceived.

This seems a strange sentence, thus literally translated, and looks as if it were in vindication of the men of business (for who else can deceive the world?); whereas it is in commendation of those who live and die so obscurely, that the world takes no notice of them. This Horace calls deceiving the world; and in another place uses the same phrase,+

"-secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ."

The secret tracks of the deceiving life.

It is very elegant in Latin, but our English word will hardly bear up to that sense; and therefore Mr. Broome translates it very well

Or from a life, led, as it were, by stealth.

Yet we say in our language, a thing deceives our sight, when it passes before us unperceived; and

* Hor. 1 Ep. xvii. 9.

+ Hor. 1 Ep. xviii. 103.

we may say well enough out of the same author,*

Sometimes with sleep, sometimes with wine, we strive
The cares of life and troubles to deceive.

But that is not to deceive the world, but to deceive ourselves, as Quintilian says,+ "Vitam fallere," to draw on still, and amuse, and deceive our life, till it be advanced insensibly to the fatal period, and fall into that pit which nature hath prepared for it. The meaning of all this is no more than that most vulgar saying, "Bene qui latuit, bene vixit," he has lived well, who has lain well hidden; which if it be a truth, the world (I will swear) is sufficiently deceived: for my part, I think it is, and that the pleasantest condition of life is in incognito. What a brave privilege is it, to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving and from paying all kind of ceremonies! It is, in my mind, a very delightful pastime, for two good and agreeable friends to travel up and down together, in places where they are by nobody known,` nor know any body. It was the case of Æneas and his Achates, when they walked invisibly about the fields and streets of Carthage. Venus herself

A veil of thicken'd air around them cast,

That none might know, or see them, as they pass'd. ‡

The common story of Demosthenes' confession, that he had taken great pleasure in hearing of a tankerwoman say, as he passed, "This is that Demosthenes," is wonderfully ridiculous from so solid an

2 Sat. vii. 114.

Declam. de Apib.

Virg. Æn. i. 415.