we must be brought into a state and condi- ations of political life for the tranquil and tion to reap benefit from retreat. The pa- useful pursuits of agriculture. Such purralytic might as reasonably expect to remove suits yield comparative repose, and produce his disease by changing his position, as the positive good. Besides this, the modern discontented to allay the unruly motions of Cincinnatus will have, the gratification of a distempered mind merely by retiring into finding how much he has gained by the the country. change in his choice of instruments, for he A great statesman, whom many of us re- will see that all sheep and oxen, yea and member, after having long filled a high of-all beasts of the field,' are far less perverse. ficial situation with honour and ability, be- faithless, and intractable than the indocile gan at length impatiently to look forward to human agents whom he has been so long the happy period when he should be exone- labouring to break in, and bring under the rated from the toils of office. He pathetical- yoke. ly lamented the incessant interruptions But whatever he may have gained in these which distracted him, even in the intervals respects, it the philosophical and political of public business. He repeatedly express-agriculturist do not make it part of his ared to a friend of the author, how ardently he rangement, as we hope he does, that the cullonged to be discharged from the oppressive tivation of personal piety shall divide his weight of his situation, and to consecrate his time and his thoughts with the cultivation of remaining days to repose and literature. At his paternal acres, he will not find his own length one of those revolutions in party, passions more tractable, his own appetites which so many desire, and by which so few more subdued, his own tempers better reguare satisfied, transferred him to the scene of lated, because the theatre in which they are his wishes. He flew to his rural seat, but exercised is changed from contentious sehe soon found that the sources to which he nates to blooming meadows. There is no had so long looked, failed in their power of power in the loveliest scenery to give that conferring the promised enjoyment; his am- character to the mind on which its peace deple park yielded him no gratification but pends. It is true his innocent occupations what it had yielded him in town, without the will divert ambition, but it requires a more present drawback; there he had partaken powerful operation to cure it. Ambition is of his venison without the incumbrance of an intermittent: it may, indeed, be cooled, its solitude. His Hamadryads, having no but without piety it will be cooled as the padespatches to present, and no votes to offer, tient in an ague is cooled 'in the well day soon grew insipid. The stillness of retreat between the two fits,' he will be looking back became insupportable; and he frankly de- on the fever he has escaped, and forward to clared to the friend above alluded to, that that which he is anticipating. There is but such was to him the blank of life, that the one tonic powerful enough to prevent the only relief he ever felt was to hear a rap at return of the paroxysm. He will find the the door. Though he had before gladly perusal of the Bible not less compatible than snatched the little leisure of a hurried life that of the Georgics with this interesting ocfor reading, yet when life became all leisure, cupation. While he is actually enjoying the books had lost their power to interest. Stu- lovely living images under which the indy could not fill a mind long kept on the spired writers represent the most delightful stretch by great concerns in which he him- truths of religion, he may realize the analoself had been a prime mover. The history gies intellectually, he may be, indeed, conof other times could not animate a spirit ha- ducted to green pastures' and led beside bitually quickened by a strong personal in- the still waters of comfort' in the highest terest in actual events.-There is a quality sense of those beautiful metaphors. in our nature strongly indicative that we What a blessing is it to mankind, when were formed for active and useful purposes. they, whose large domains confer on them These, though of a calmer kind, may be such extensive local influence, give their still pursued in retirement under the influ- views a wider range, and take in an ampler ence of the only principle powerful enough compass of beneficial patronage; when they to fill the heart which fancies itself emptied crown their exertions for the public good by of the world. Religion is that motive yet the pious education of their young dependquieting principle, which alone delivers a ants, by promoting the growth of Christianiman from perturbation in the world and in-ty as assiduously as the breed of sheep; by anity in retirement; without it, he will in the extending the improvement of the soil to the one case be hurried into impetuosity, or in the other be sunk into stagnation. But religion long neglected will not come when you 'do call for it.' Perhaps the noble person did not call.

It is an obvious improvement in the taste and virtue of the present day, that so many of our dictators retire, not to the turf, but to the plough; that they make an honourable and pleasant exchange of the cares and vex

moral cultivation of those whom Providence, having committed to their protection for that very purpose, will require at their hands.

With the deepest gratitude to God, let it be observed how many of these great persons, with a spirit more honourable to them than their coronets or any earthly distinctions, have stood forward as the avowed patrons of the noble Institution for dispersing the Bible into all countries, after having

transfused it into every dialect of every language. When we consider the object, and view the rapidity, and trace the success, are we not almost tempted to fancy that we see the Angel in the Revelation flying in the midst of heaven, carrying the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell in the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. '*

It might have supplied a thesis for disputation among the whimsical subtleties of the old school divines, which was the more blameable extreme, to possess the Bible ourselves without imparting the blessing to others, or to communicate it to them without using it ourselves. Unfortunately however, the cause for casuistry was cut short, by their refusing the Bible altogether to the laity.

It is indeed a spectacle to warm the coldest and to soften the hardest heart, to behold It is with reluctance we turn from subjects men of the first rank and talents, statesmen of grateful panegyric to those presented to who have never met but to oppose each us by the same class of society for animadother, orators who have never spoken but to version. With regret we take leave of differ, each strenuous in what is presumed scenes enriched and dignified by the benefihe believes right, renouncing every inter-cial presence and exertions of their lords, fering interest, sacrificing every jarring opi- for the dreary prospect of deserted mansions nion, forgetting all in which they differed, and abdicated homes. To not a few of the and thinking only on that in which they rich and the great, their magnificent houses agree; each reconciled to his brother and are rather a cumbrous appendage to granleaving his gift at the altar, offering up eve-deur, places to which strangers resort to adry resentment at the foot of the Cross! There mire the splendour of the proprietors, and might be two opinions how men should be the portraits of their ancestors, than what governed, there can be but one-whether Providence intended, a rich additional ingrethey should be saved. dient in their own overflowing cup of bless

We ought not to doubt that a portion of ings. Their seats are possessed without bethat generous zeal with which they dissemi-ing enjoyed. They appear, indeed, to comnate the word of life to others, will be ex-bine the advantages of retreat with those of erted in increasing their own personal ac- opulence. But it is only appearance. Do quaintance with it. To dispense the grand not too many of their owners strive to disinstrument of salvation to others, forgetful possess the scene of every attribute appendof our own interest in it, is one of the few in-ed to it: Do they not chiefly derive what stances in which disinterestedness would be little they know of the charms of the councriminal: while here to participate in the try from the descriptions of the poet-of the blessing we bestow, is one of the rare occa-diversities of landscape from the painters of sions in which self-love is truly honourable, the opera scenes-of the delights of retireMay we, without offence, without the re- ment from the moralist, the philosopher, motest idea of any thing personal, hazard and, more frequently, the novelist? They the observation that it is possible to be made contrive to transfer to their rural abodes the instrument, not only of temporal, but every thing of the metropolis, every moveeternal, good to others, without reaping our-able appendage of rural beauty. Like the selves any advantage from the good we communicate?

• May an old and attached member of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge be allowed to offer her epinion (though irrelevant to the subject of this chap. ter,) upon the complete establishment of the argument in favour of the Bible Society, from its not injuring its venerable predecessor? It is now obvious, that the benefits of the new institution are effected without detriment to the old, from its having excited fresh friends to its cause, and raised additional funds for its support. Reasoning indeed from analogy, would the benefactor, whose means were competent to both, refuse his patron age to the Middlesex Hospital, because he was already a subscriber to St. George's? When he saw that other contributors neither withdrew nor diminished, but especially when he saw that they augmented their bounty to the elder establishment, would he not bid God speed to the younger? Would he not rejoice that a new source was opened for healing more diseases, for relieving more wants? In the distribution of the Bible, are not both in stitutions streams issuing from the same fountain of

love, both flowing into the same ocean of good? If we

may be allowed the application,' they are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit;' 'they are differences of administration, but it is the same God that worketh all in all.'

imperial Roman glutton, who never tasted fish but at the fartherest possible distance from the sea, they enjoy the lovely products of the conservatory, glowing with every hue, and breathing every fragrance, any where but where they grow. The most exquisite flowers yield little delight till transported to the town-residence, There they exhale their sweets amid smoky lamps, and waste them on a fetid atmosphere; exhausting their beauties in the transient festivity of a single night, instead of reserving them to deCorate retreat, and add one attraction more to the charms of home and the pleasures of retirement.

change from town to country consists in the With these personages, the principal difference between a park and a square. They bring to one the same tastes, the same amusements, and the same inversion of hours which they adopted in the other. They lose the true enjoyment of both, by contriving that neither town nor country shall preserve any distinct character of its own. To some, indeed, the splendid inheritance is considered as little more than a commodious inn in which to repose in their incessant migration

from the capital to the watering-place, and from the chalybeate to the sea; without having the too valid plea of attending the sick, or being sick themselves.

They gradually persuade their votaries, that nothing but what they receive through their medium is real. Where the allusions of sense are allowed to make their full impression, the pleasures of religion appear merely visionary; faint shadows at first, and afterwards unexisting things.

things. It is one great aim of religion to cure this natural malady. It is the great end of dissipated pleasures to inflame it. These pleasures forcibly address themselves to the But if we compare the domestic scenes senses, and thus, not only lower the taste, but from which they are hurrying, with the pla-nearly efface the very idea of spiritual things. ces to which they are resorting, we are inclined to pity them on the score of taste, as much as on the loss of enjoyment. A stranger to our manners who had heard of the self-denial which our religion enjoins, when he compared what they had quitted with what they are flying to, would naturally compliment them on the noble sacrifice which If religion makes out certain pleasures to he would conclude they had made to duty. be dangerous, these pleasures revenge themHe would admire the zeal which prompted selves in their turn by representing religion the abandonment of such pure for such tur- to be dull. They are adopted under the bid pleasures: he would admire the eleva- specious notion of being a relief from more tion of mind which could submit to such un- severe employments; whereas others less imposed penance. When he followed them poignant would answer the end better, and from the splendid mansion to the close and exhaust the spirit less. If the effect of cerincommodious residence, in which a crowd- tain diversions only serves to render our reed season sometimes immures the possessors turn to sober duties more reluctant, and the of palaces; when he saw them renounce duties themselves insipid, if not irksome-if their blooming gardens, their stately woods, we return to them as to that which, though trees worthy of paradise,' for unshaded we do not love, we dare not omit, it is a walks or artificial awnings; their bowers and temples for the unsheltered beach, open to all the rage of the dog star; the dry, smooth-shaven green, for sinking sands rivalling the soil of Arabia, or burning gravel, which might emulate queen Emma's plough- But it is never too late for a change of sysshares, would he not exclaim in rapture, tem, provided that change is not only intendsurely these heroic ladies submit to such ed, but adopted. We would respectfully inprivations, encounter such hardships, make vite those who have been slaves to custom, such renunciations, from motives of the courageously to break their chain. Let most sublime self-denial! Doubtless they them earnestly solicit the aid which is from crowd to these joyless abodes, because they above on their own honest exertions. Let could find at home no distress to be relieved, them tear themselves from the fascinating no innocence to be protected, no wrongs to objects which have hitherto detained them be redressed, no ignorance to be instructed. from making acquaintance with their own Now, would he exultingly add, I have some hearts. It is but to submit heroically to a practical experience of the sacrifices of little dulness at first, which habit will convert which disinterested piety is capable. The into pleasure, to encounter temptation with good they must be doing here is indeed a no-a resistance which will soon be rewarded ble recompence for the pleasure they are giving up.

question even in the article of enjoyment, whether we do not lose more than we gain by any recreation which has the effect of rendering that disgusting which might otherwise have been delightful.

fund of interesting employment, of which they had been so long in search, their own hearts can furnish.

with victory. They will be sensible of one surprising revolution; from the period when Unimportant as this gradual revolution in they begin to inure themselves to their own our habits may be thought, there are few company, they will insensibly dislike it less; things which have more contributed to lower not so much for the goodness they will find the tone both of society and solitude, than in themselves, as from discovering what a this multiplied and ever multiplying scenes of intermediate and subordinate dissipation. When the opulent divided the year between the town and country residence-the larger As the scrutiny becomes deeper, the importion always assigned to the latter-being provement will become greater, till they stationary in each, as they occupied a post of will grow not so much to endure retirement more obvious responsibility, they were more as to rejoice in it, not so much to subsist likely to fulfill their duties, than in these pa- without dissipation as to soar above it. If rentheses between both. For these places, they are not so much diverted, they will be to persons who only seek them as scenes of less discomposed. If there are fewer vanidiversion and not as recruits to health, are ties to amuse, there will be fewer disorders considered as furnishing a sort of suspension to repair; there will be no longer that strugfrom duty as well as an exoneration from gle between indulgence and regret, between care the chief value of the pleasures they enjoyment and repentance, between idleafford consisting in their not being home-ness and conscience, which distracts many made. amiable, but unfixed minds, who feel the We have little natural relish for serious right which they have not courage to pur

sue. There will be fewer of those inequali- posed to leave behind us, without the same ties which cost more pain in filling up than pretence of wanting time to watch against they afforded pleasure in creating. In their them. If we settle down in petty systemahabits there will be regularity without mo- tic trifling, it is not the size of the concern, notony. There will be a uniform beauty in but the spirit in which it is pursued, that the even tissue of life; the web, though not makes the difference. The scandal of a vil→ so much spangled, will be more of a picce; lage, the intrigues of a little provincial town if it be less glittering in patches, the design may be entered into with as much warmth, will be more elegant; if the colours are less and as little profit, as the more imposing folglaring, they will wear better; their sober-lies of the metropolis. ness will secure their permanence; if they are not gaudy when new, they will be fresh to the end.

CHAP. XV.

Retirement, therefore, though so favourable to virtue, is not without its dangers. Taste, and, of course, conversation, is liable to degenerate. Intellect is not kept in exercise. We are too apt to give to insignificant topics an undue importance; to beDangers and advantages of retirement. come arbitrary; to impose our opinions as If some prefer retirement as an emanci- laws; to contract, with a narrowness of pation from troublesome duties rather than thinking, an impatience of opposition. Yet, as a scene of improvement, others chuse it while we grow peremptory in our decisions, as a deliverance from restraint, and as the we are, at the same time, liable to individusurest mode of indulging their inclinations al influence; whereas, in the world, the inby a life of freedom; not a freedom from jurious influence of one counsellor is soon the dangers of the world, but of following counteracted by that of another; and if, their own will. While we continue in the from the collision of opposite sentiments, we active world, while our idleness is animated do not strike out truth, we experience, at with bustle, decorated with splendor, and least, the benefit of contradiction. If those diversified with variety, we cheer our erro- with whom we associate are of an inferior neous course with the promise of some day education and cast of manners, we shall inescaping from it; but when we sit down in sensibly lower our standard, thinking it suffiour retreat, unprovided with the well-cho-ciently high, if it be above theirs, till we imsen materials of which true enjoyment is perceptibly sink to their level. The author alone compounded, or without proposing to saw, very early in life, an illustration of dedicate our retirement to the obtaining them, we are almost in a more hopeless condition than when we lived without reflection in the world. We were then looking forward to the privacy we now enjoy, as to a scene of mental profit. We had in prospect a point which, if ever attained, would be to us the beginning of a new life, a post from which we should start in a nobler race, But the point is attained, and the end is neglected. We are set down in our ultimate position.

these remarks, in a person who had figured in the ranks of literature. He was a scholar and a poet. Disappointed in his ambitious views of rising in the church, a profession for which he was little calculated, he took refuge in a country parsonage. Here he affected to make his fate his choice. On Sundays he shot over the heads of the inferior part of his audience, without touching the hearts of the better informed; and, during the week, paid himself for the world's neglect, by railing at it. He grew to dislike polished society, for which he had been well qualified. He spent his mornings in writing elegies on the contempt of the world, or odes on the delights of retirement, and his evenings in the lowest sensuality with the most vulgar and illiterate of his neighbours.

But retirement, from which we promised ourselves so much, has produced no change, except from the idleness of tumult to that of ennui in one sex, and from levity to apathy in the other. The active life which we had promised to turn into contemplative life is no improvement, if a gay frivolity is only transformed into a dull vacuity. In the Another danger is that of aspiring to beworld we were not truly active if we did little come the sun of our little system, since the good; in retirement we are not contempla-love of popularity is not exclusively attached tive, if contemplation is not exercised to the to public situations. In the world, indeed, best purposes. It is in vain that we retire if there be not a real, there must at least be from great affairs, if our hearts are stuffed a spurious merit to procure it, whereas, with such as are insignificant. There is less when there are no competitors, it is easy to hope of a change in the mind, because there be popular; to be admired by the uncultivais no probability of a change in the circum-ted, and flattered by the dependent, may be stances with which this projected moral al- the attainment of the most moderately gifted. teration used to be connected. Where the Let us not, therefore, judge of ourselves by outset was froth, and the end is feculence, acclamations, which would equally follow there may be a difference, but there is no im- the worthless, if they filled the same situaprovement. We shall find in retirement, tion. If we do not remember to distinguish under new modifications, the same passions, between our merit and our place, we shall tempers, and weaknesses, which we had pro-l receive the homage, not as a debt of grati

tude or a bait for bounty, but as a tribute to Many of the duties of retirement are more excellence. From being accustomed to flat-fixed and certain, more regular in their retery, we shall exact it as a right; from not currence, and obvious as to their necessity. being opposed, we shall learn not to endure opposition.

As they are less interrupted, the neglect of them is less excusable. In the world, events Besides the danger of contracting superci- and engagements succeed each other with lious habits if surrounded with inferiors, such rapidity and pleasure, that the imaginathere is also that of indulging a censorious tion has hardly time or incitement to exercise spirit on comparing ourown habits with those itself. Where all is interruption or occupaof persons who live in the world, and of over- tion, fancy has little leisure to operate. But rating our own exemption from practices, to if, in retirement, where this faculty finds full which, from indolence, we have no induce- leisure both for exercise and for chastisement, and, from circumstances, no opportu- ment; if the undisciplined mind if left ennity. When we compare our hearts and tirely to its mercy, the guilt will be enhanlives with those of whom we know little, let ced, and the benefit lost; it will be ever fous not forget to compare also, with others, raging for prey, and. like other marauders, our situations and temptations. The com- instead of stopping to select, will pick up all parative estimates we make in our own fa- the plunder that falls in its way, and bring vour are frequently fallacious, always dan-in a multitude of vain thoughts to feed upon, gerous. Many who live in the world have a mortified spirit, while others may bring to a cloister hearts overflowing with the love of that world from which it is easier to turn our faces than to withdraw our affections.

tude. In those hours we may lay in a stock
of grace, which, if faithfully improved, will
shed its odour on every portion of the day.
If general society contributes more to
smooth the asperities of manner, to polish

as an indemnification for the realities of which it is deprived. The well-regulated mind, in the stated seasons devoted to the closet, should therefore severely discipline this vagrant faculty. They who do not Secluded persons are sometimes less care- make a good use of these seasons of retireful to turn to profit small parcels of time, ment, will not be likely to make a good use which, when put together, make no incon- of the rest. The hour of prayer or meditasiderable fund. Reckoning that they have tion is a consecration of the hours employed an indefinite stock upon hand, they neglect in the business, whether of society or solito devote each portion to its definite purpose. The largeness of their treasure makes them negligent of small, but incessant, expenses. For instance; instead of light reading being used as a relief from severer studies, and better employments, it is too frequently re-roughnesses, and file off sharpnesses, retiresorted to as the principal expedient for get- ment furnishes better means for cultivating ting over the tediousness of solitude; people that piety which is the only genuine softener slide into the indulgence to such an excess, of the temper. Without this corrective, even that it becomes no longer the relaxation, but the manners may grow austere, and the lanthe business. The better studies, which guage harsh. But while the benevolent afwere only to be relieved, are superseded; fections are kept in exercise, and the kindly they become dull and irksome; what was offices of humanity in operation, there will once pleasure is converted into a dry duty,be little danger that the mind will become and the duty is become a task. From this rough and angular from the want of perpetuplenitude of leisure there is also a danger of al collision with polished bodies. The exfalling into general remissness. Business ercise of beneficence, too, in the country is which may be done at any time, is, for that accompanied with more satisfaction, as the very reason, not done at all. The belief that good done is less equivocal. In great cities, we shall have opportunities enough to repair and especially in the metropolis, some chaan omission, causes omissions to be multi-ritable persons chiefly content themselves plied. with promoting public subscriptions, and suFrom the dangers of retirement, we come perintending public charities, for want of now to the more pleasant topic of its advan-knowing the actual degree of individual distages. The retired man cannot even pretend tress or the truth of private representation. that his character must of necessity be melt- Here all the advantage lies on the side of the ed down in the general mass, or cast into the country resident. The characters, as well general mould. He, at least, may think for as wants, of the poor are specifically known, himself, may form his own plans, keep his and certainly the immediate vicinity of the own hours, and, with little intermission, pur- opulent has the more natural, though not sue his own projects. He is less enslaved to the sole claim to their bounty. the despotism of custom, less driven about by Retirement is calculated to cure the great the absurd fluctuations of fashion. His en- infirmity, I had almost said the mortal disgagements and their execution depend more ease, of not being able to be alone; it is immediately on himself, his understanding is adapted to relieve the wretched necessity of left unfettered, and he has less pretence for perpetually hanging on others for amuseScreening himself under the necessity of fall-ment; it delivers us from the habit of deing in with the popular habits when they mili-pending, not only for our solace, but almost tate against convenience and common sense. for our existence on foreign aid, and extri