CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

THE ADVANTAGES OF SOLITUDE IN EXILE.

THE advantages of Solitude are not confined

to rank, to fortune, or to circumftances. Fragrant breezes, magnificent forefts, richly tinted meadows, and that endless variety of beautiful objects which the birth of spring spreads over the face of nature, enchant not only Philofophers, Kings, and Heroes, but ravish the mind of the meaneft fpectator with exquifite delight. An English author has very justly observed, that "it is not neceffary that he who looks with "pleasure on the colour of a flower, should study "the principles of vegetation; or that the Pto"lemaick and Copernican systems should be com"pared, before the light of the Sun can gladden,

or its warmth invigorate. Novelty in itself "is a fource of gratification; and Milton juftly "obferves, that to him who has been long pent "up in cities, no rural object can be presented, "which will not delight or refresh some of his "fenfes."*

EXILES

*The lines of Milton upon this fubject are so extremely beautiful, that we shall make no apology for tranfcribing them. On Satan's entrance into Paradise,

EXILES themselves frequently experience the advantages and enjoyments of Solitude. Instead of the world from which they are banished, they form in the tranquillity of retirement, a new world for themselves; forget the falfe joys and fictitious pleasures which they followed in the zenith of greatnefs, habituate their minds to others of a nobler kind, more worthy the attention of rational beings;* and to pass their days with

"Veil'd in a cloud of fragrance, where fhe ftood,
"Half fpied, fo thick the roses blushing round
"About her glowed

"Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
"Of ftatelieft covert, Cedar, Pine, or Palm;
"Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,
"Among thick woven arborets and flowers,
"Imbordered on each bank

"Much he the place admir'd, the person more.
"As one who long in populous cities pent,
"Where houses thick and fewers annoy the air,
"Forth iffuing on a fummer's morn to breathe
"Among the pleasant villages and farms
"Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight,
"The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
" Or dairy; each rural fight, each rural found,
"If chance with nymph-like-step, fair virgin pass,
"What pleafing feemed, for her now pleases more,
"She moft, and in her looks feems all delight."

PARADISE LOsr, Book 9, line 438.

CICERO fays, "Multa præclare DIONYSIUS PHALEREUS in illo exilio fcripfit; non in ufum aliquem fuum, quo erat orbatus; fed animi, cullus ille, erat ei quafi quidam humanitatis cibus.”

with tranquillity, invent a variety of innocent felicities, which are only thought of at a dif tance from fociety, far removed from all confolation, far from their country, their families, and their friends.

BUT exiles, if they wish to infure happiness in retirement, muft, like other men, fix their minds upon fome one object, and adopt the pursuit of it in fuch a way as to revive their buried hopes, or to excite the profpect of approaching pleasure.

MAURICE, Prince of Ifenbourg, diftinguished himself by his courage during a service of twenty years under Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, and Marfhal Broglio, and in the war between the Ruffians and the Turks. Health and repofe were facrificed to the gratification of his ambition and love of glory. During his fervice in the Ruffian army, he fell under the displeasure of the Emprefs, and was fent into exile. The calamitous condition to which persons exiled by this government are reduced is well known; but this philofophic Prince contrived to render even a Ruffian banishment agreeable. While oppressed both in body and mind, by the painful reflection which his fituation at first created, and reduced by his anxieties to a mere skeleton, he accidentally met with the little Effay written by Lord Boling

broke

broke on the subject of Exile.. He read it several times, and" in proportion to the number of times "I read," faid the Prince, in the preface to the elegant and nervous translation he made of this work, "I felt all my forrows and difquietudes vanish.”

THIS Effay by Lord Bolingbroke upon Exile, is a mafter-piece of Stoic philosophy and fine writing. He there boldly examines all the adverfities of life. "Let us," fays he, "fet all

our paft and prefent afflictions at once before (c our eyes let us refolve to overcome them, in❝ftead of flying from them, or wearing out the "fense of them with long and ignominious pa"tience. Inftead of palliating remedies, let us "ufe the incifion knife and the cauftic, search "the wound to the bottom, and work an im-"mediate and radical cure."

PERPETUAL banishment, like uninterrupted Solitude, certainly ftrengthens the powers of the mind, and enables the fufferer to collect fufficient force to support his misfortunes. Solitude, indeed, becomes an eafy fituation to those exiles who are inclined to indulge the pleasing sympathies of the heart; for they then experience pleafures that were before unknown, and from that moment forget those they tafted in the more flourifhing and profperous conditions of life.

BRUTUS,

BRUTUS, when he visited the banished Marcellus in his retreat at Mytilene, found him enjoying the highest felicities of which human nature is fufceptible, and devoting his time, as before his banishment, to the study of every ufeful fcience. Deeply impreffed by the example this unexpected scene afforded, he felt, on his return, that it was Brutus who was exiled, and not Marcellus whom he left behind. Quintus Metellus Numidicus had experienced the like fate a few years before. While the Roman people, under the guidance of Marius, were laying the foundation of that tyranny which Cæfar afterwards completed, Metellus fingly, in the midst of an alarmed Senate, and furrounded by an enraged populace, refused to take the oath impofed by the pernicious laws of the tribune Saturnius; and his intrepid conduct was converted, by the voice of faction, into an high crime against the State; for which he was dragged from his fenatorial feat by the licentious rabble, exposed to the indignity of a public impeachment, and sentenced to perpetual exile. The more virtuous citizens, however, took arms in his defence, and generously refolved rather to perish, than behold their country unjustly deprived of so much merit: but this magnanimous Roman, whom no perfuafion could induce to do wrong, declined to increase the confufion of the Commonwealth by encouraging resistance, conceiving