WRITTEN IN

ZIMMERMAN's SOLITUDE,

BY A YOUNG LADY.

HAIL! melancholy fage, whose thoughtful eye
Shrunk from the mere spectator's careless gaze,
And in retirement fought the social smile,
The heart-endearing aspect, and the voice
Of soothing tenderness, which Friendship breathes,
And which founds far more grateful to the ear
Than the soft notes of distant flute, at eve,
Stealing across the waters: ZIMMERMAN!
Thou draw'st not SOLITUDE as others do,
With folded arms, with pensive, Nun-like air,
And tearful eye, averted from mankind.
No! warm, benign, and cheerful, she appears
The Friend of Health, of Piety, of Peace ;
The kind Samaritan that heals our wocs!
The Nurse of Science, and of future Fame
The gentle harbinger: her meck abode
Is that dear home which still the virtuous heart,
E’en in the 'witching maze of Pleasure's dance,
In wild Ambition's dream, regards with love;
And hopes, with fond Sincerity, to pass
The evening of a long protracted day
Serenely joyful there!

Page

xi

1

11

100

21

Life of the Author

CHAP. I. Introduction

Chap. II. Influence of Solitude on the Mind

CHAP. III. Influence of Solitude upon the

Heart

Chap. IV. The general Advantages of Retire-

ment

CHAP. V. The Question, Whether it is easier

to live virtuously in Solitude or in the

World ? considered

CHAP. VI: The Advantages of Solitude in

Exile

Chap. VII. The Advantages of Solitude in

Old Age ; and on the Bed of Death

.

264

.

279

.

289

DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES.

PAGE

10

130

Head of the Author to front the Title.

Instruction

Observe the Shepherd .

Rousseau contemplating the wild Beauties of

Switzerland

Curius refusing the Samnites' Gold

The Death of Addison

WEAK and delicate minds may, perhaps, be alarmed by the title of this work. The word 66 SOLITUDE” may possibly engender melancholy ideas. But they have only to read a few pages to be undeceived. The Author is not one of those extravagant misanthropists who expect that men, formed by nature for the enjoyments of society, and impelled continually towards it by a multitude of powerful and invincible propenfities, should seek refuge in forests, and inhabit the dreary cave or lonely cell: he is a friend to the species, a rational philofopher, and a virtuous citizen, who, encouraged by the esteem of his Sovereign, endeavours to enlighten the minds of his fellow-creatures upon a subject of infinite importance to them,—the attainment of true felicity.

No writer appears more completely convinced than M. ZIMMERMAN that man is born for society, or feels its duties with more refined sensibility.

IT

a 3

It is the nature of human fociety, and its correspondent duties, which he here undertakes to examine: The important characters of Father, Husband, Son, and Citizen, impose on Man a variety of obligations, which are always dear to virtuous minds, and establish between him, his country, his family, and his friends, relations too necessary and attractive to be disregarded.

6. What wonder, therefore, since th' endearing tics
“ Of passion link the universal kind
6 Of man so close, what wonder if to search
“ This common nature through the various change
“ Of sex, and age, and fortune, and the frame
“ Of each peculiar, draw the busy mind
“ With unresisted charms? The spacious West,
" And all the teeming regions of the South,
“ Hold not a quarry to the curious flight
6 Of knowledge half so tempting or fo fair
66 As Man to Man."

But it is not amidst tumultuous joys and noisy pleasures, in the chimeras of ambition, or the illusions of self-love, in the indulgence of feeling, or the gratification of desire, that men must expect to fcel the charms of those mutual ties