CHAPTER THE THIRD.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOLITUDE

UPON THE HEART.

THE highest happiness which is capable of being enjoyed in this world confifts in peace of mind. The wife mortal who renounces the tumults of the world, reftrains his defires and inclinations, refigns himself to the difpenfation of his Creator, and looks with an eye of pity on the frailties of his fellow-creatures; whose greatest pleasure is to liften among the rocks to the foft murmurs of a cascade; to inhale, as he walks along the plains, the refreshing breezes of the zephyrs; and to dwell in the furrounding woods, on the melodious accents of the aerial chorifters ; may, by the fimple feelings of his heart, obtain this invaluable blessing.

To tafte the charms of Retirement, it is not neceffary to diveft the heart of its emotions. The world may be renounced without renouncing the enjoyment which the tear of fenfibility is capable of affording. But to render the heart susceptible

of

of this felicity, the mind must be able to admire with equal pleasure Nature in her fublimeft beauties, and in the modeft flower that decks the val lies; to enjoy at the fame time that harmonious combination of parts which expands the foul, and those detached portions of the whole which prefent the softest and most agreeable images to the mind. Nor are thefe enjoyments exclufively reserved for thofe ftrong and energetic bofoms whofe fenfations are as lively as they are delicate, and in which, for that reafon, the good and the bad make the same impreffion; the pureft happiness, the most enchanting tranquillity, are also granted to men of colder feelings, and whose imaginations are less bold and lively; but to fuch characters the portraits muft not be fo highly coloured, nor the tints fo fharp; for as the bad ftrikes them lefs, fo alfo are they lefs fufceptible of livelier impreffions.*

* M. Antoninus, speaking of the beauty of univerfal Nature, obferves, that there is a pleafing and graceful afpect in every object we perceive, when once we perceive its connection with the general order of things. He inftances many things which at first fight would be thought rather deformities, and then adds, "that a man "who enjoys a fenfibility of temper, with a juft comprehenfion "of the univerfal order, will difcern many amiable things not "credible to every mind, but to thofe alone who have entered "into an honourable familiarity with Nature and her works."

THE high enjoyments which the heart feels in Solitude are derived from the imagination.* The touching aspect of delightful nature, the variegated verdure of the forefts, the refounding echoes of an impetuous torrent, the soft agitation of the foliage, the melodious warblings of the tenants of the groves, the beautiful scenery of a rich and extenfive country, and all those objects which compose an agreeable landscape, take fuch complete poffeffion of the foul, and fo entirely absorb our faculties, that the sentiments of the mind are by the charms of the imagination instantly converted into fenfations of the heart, and the fofteft emotions give birth to the most virtuous and worthy fentiments. But, to enable the imagination thus to render every object fascinating and delightful, it must act with freedom, and dwell amidft furrounding tranquillity. Oh! how easy it is to renounce noify pleasures and tumultuous affemblies, for the enjoyment of that philofophic melancholy which Solitude inspires!

"He comes! he comes! in every breeze the power "Of philofophic Melancholy comes !

"His

* An account of the natural and moral advantages refulting from a fenfible and well formed imagination, is finely given by Dr. Arbuthnot, in the Third Book of "The Pleasures of the Imagination."

His near approach the fudden starting tear, "The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air, "The foften'd feature, and the beating heart,

"Pierc'd deep with many a virtuous pang, declare. "O'er all the foul his facred influence breathes; "Inflames imagination; thro' the breast

Infufes every tendernefs; and far

"Beyond dim earth exalts the fwelling thought. "Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, fuch "As never mingled with the vulgar dream, "Croud faft into the mind's creative eye; "As faft the correfpondent paffions rife, "As varied and as high: Devotion rais'd "To rapture, and divine astonishment; "The love of Nature unconfin'd, and chief "Of human race; the large ambitious wish "To make them bleft; the figh for fuffering worth, "Loft in obfcurity; the noble fcorn

"Of tyrant pride; the fearless great refolve; "The wonder which the dying patriot draws, "Infpiring glory thro' remotest time;

"Th' awaken'd throb for virtue and for fame; "The fympathies of love, and friendship dear; "With all the focial offspring of the heart."

RELIGIOUS awe and rapturous delight are alternately excited by the deep gloom of forefts, by the tremendous height of broken rocks, and by the multiplicity of majestic and sublime objects which are combined within the scite of a delightful and extenfive prospect. The most painful fenfations H 4 immediately

immediately yield to the ferious, foft, and folitary reveries to which the furrounding tranquillity invites the mind; while the vaft and awful filence. of Nature exhibits the happy contraft between fimplicity and grandeur; and as our feelings become more exquifite, fo our admiration becomes more intense, and our pleasures more complete.

I HAD been for many years familiar with all that Nature is capable of producing in her sublimeft works, when I first faw a garden in the vicinity of Hanover, and another, upon a much larger fcale, at Marienwerder, about three miles diftant, cultivated in the English style of rural ornament. I was not then apprized of the extent of that art which sports with the most ungrateful foil, and, by a new species of creation, converts barren mountains into fertile fields and smiling landscapes. This magic art makes an astonishing impreffion on the mind, and captivates every heart, not infenfible to the delightful charms of cultivated Nature. I cannot recollect, without shedding tears of gratitude and joy, a single day of this early part of my refidence at Hanover, when, torn from the bofom of my country, from the embraces of my family, and from every thing that I held dear in life, my mind, on entering the little garden of my deceased friend M. de Hinuber, near Hanover, immediately revived, and forgot for the

moment