tafte in appearance dictated bydepreffionanddifguft, and attributed by him to the irresistible impulse of an affectionate, fond, and tender heart, which, not being able to find in the regions of philofophy and truth, fentiments fufficiently warm and animated, was conftrained to feek its enjoyments in the regions of fiction.

BUT the imagination may, in retirement, indulge its wanderings to a certain degree, without the rifque of injuring either the fentiments of the mind, or the fenfations of the heart. Oh! if the friends of my youth in Swifferland knew how frequently during the filence of the night, I pafs with them those hours which are allotted to fleep; if they were apprized that neither time nor absence can efface the remembrance of their former kindness from my mind, and that this pleafing recollection tends to diffipate my grief, and to caft the veil of oblivion over my woes; they would, perhaps, alfo rejoice to find that I ftill live among G 4 them

of composition throughout his life. Spending part of a summer at the parfonage houfe of Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, he chofe for his regular reading the old Spanish romance of Felixmarte of Hircania, in folio, which he read quite through. But he frequently attributed to those extravagant fictions that unfettled turn of mind which prevented his ever fixing in any profeffion. Bofwell's Life of Johnson, vol. i. p. 26. 8vo. edition.

them in imagination, though I may be dead to them in reality.

A SOLITARY man whose heart is warmed with refined and noble fentiments cannot be unhappy. While the ftupid vulgar bewail his fate, and conceive him to be the victim of corroding care and loathed melancholy, he frequently tastes the most delightful pleasure. The French entertained a notion that Rouffeau was a man of a gloomy and dejected difpofition; but he was certainly not fo for many years of his life, particularly when he wrote to M. de Malesherbes, the Chancellor's fon, in the following terms: "I cannot express to

you, Sir, how fenfibly I am affected by perceiv "ing that you think me the moft unhappy of "mankind; for as the Public will, no doubt, en"tertain the fame fentiment of me as you do, it is "to me a fource of real affliction! Oh! if my "fentiments were univerfally known, every in“dividual would endeavour to follow my example. "Peace would then reign throughout the world; "men would no longer feek to deftroy each other; "and wickedness, by removing the great incen❝tives to it, no longer exift. But it may be asked, "how I could find enjoyment in Solitude? I an"fwer, in my own mind; in the whole univerfe; "in every thing that does, in every thing that can "exift; in all that the eye finds beautiful in the

real,

"real, or the imagination in the intellectual "world. I affemble about me every thing that "is flattering to the heart, and regulate my "pleasures by the moderation of my defires. "No! The most voluptuous have never expe"rienced fuch refined delights; and I have al66 ways enjoyed my chimeras much more than if "they had been realized."

THIS is certainly the language of enthusiasm: but, ye ftupid vulgar! who would not prefer the warm fancy of this amiable philofopher to your cold and creeping understandings? who would not willingly renounce your vague converfation, your deceitful felicities, your boasted urbanity, your noisy assemblies, puerile pastimes, and inveterate prejudices, for a quiet and contented life in the bofom of a happy family? who would not rather feek in the filence of the woods, or upon the daified borders of a peaceful lake, those pure and simple pleasures of Nature, fo delicious in recollection, and productive of joys fo pure, fo affecting, fo differene from your own?

ECLOGUES, which are reprefentations of rural happiness in its highest perfection, are allo fictions; but they are fictions of the most pleasing and agreeable kind. True felicity must be fought in retirement, where the foul, difengaged from the

torments of the world, no longer feels thofe artificial defires which render it unhappy both in profpect and fruition. Content with little, fatisfied with all, surrounded by love and innocence, we perceive in retirement the golden age, as described by the poets, revived; while in the world every one regrets its lofs. The regret, however, is unjuft; for thofe enjoyments were not peculiar to that happy period; and each individual may, whenever he pleases, form his own Arcadia. The beauties of a chryftal fpring, a filent grove, a daified meadow,chaften the feelings of the heart, and afford at all times, to thofe who have a tafte for Nature, a permanent and pure delight.

"THE origin of poetry," fays Pope, "is "afcribed to that age which fucceeded the cre"ation of the world: as the keeping of flocks "feems to have been the firft employment of "mankind, the most ancient fort of poetry was "probably paftoral. It is natural to imagine; "that the leifure of thefe ancient thepherds ad"mitting and inviting femediverfion, none was so (c proper to that folitary and fedentary life as " finging, and that in their fongs they took occa"fion to celebrate their own felicity, From hence "a Poem was invented, and afterwards improved "to a perfect image of that happy time, which, "by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a for

"mer