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 1. Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good! Where the poetic birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food 2. Hail, the poor Muses richest manor-seat! Which all the happy gods so love, That for you oft they quit their bright and great 3. 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; 4. 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. 5. A silver stream shall roll his waters near, 6. Ah wretched, and too solitary he, Who loves not his own company! Unless he call in sin or vanity To help to bear't away. 7. Oh Solitude, first state of human-kind! As soon as two (alas !) together join'd, 8. 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. 9. Thou (tho' men think thine an unactive part) Dost break and tame th' unruly heart, Which else would know no settled pace, Making it move, well manag'd by thy art, With swiftness and with grace. 10. 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. 11. Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks I see The monster London laugh at me; I should at thee too, foolish city, If it were fit to laugh at misery; 12. Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, A village less than Islington wilt grow, A solitude almost. III. OF OBSCURITY. "NAM neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis; God made not pleasures only for the rich; 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, 66 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. Broom 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 we may say well enough, out of the same author, Sometimes with sleep, sometimes with wine, we strive 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 or 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 anybody. It was the case of Æneas and his Achates, when they walked invisibly about the fields and streets of Carthage; Venus herself A vail of thicken'd air around them cast, That none might know, or see them, as they past. The common story of Demosthenes' confession, that |