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Where gay Content with healthy Temperance meets,
And Learning intermixes all its sweets;
Where Friendship, Elegance, and Arts unite
To make the hours glide focial, easy, bright:
He tastes the converse of the purest mind;
Tho' mild, yet manly; and tho' plain, refin'd;
And thro' the moral world expatiates wide,
TRUTH as his end, and VIRTUE as his guide.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOLITUDE, &C. 215

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

THE INFLUENCE OF SOLITUDE ON THE
PASSIONS.

THE PASSIONS lofe in Solitude a certain portion of that regulating weight by which in Society they are guided and controlled: The counteracting effects produced by variety, the restraints imposed by the obligations of civility, and the checks which arife from the calls of humanity, occur much less frequently in Retirement than amidst the multifarious transactions of a busy world. The defires and sensibilities of the heart having no real objects on which their vibrations can pendulate, are stimulated and increased by the powers of imagination. All the propenfities of the foul, indeed, experience a degree of restlessness and vehemence greater than they ever feel while diverted by the pleafures, fubdued by the surrounding distresses, and engaged by the business of active and social life.

The calm which seems to accompany the mind in its retreat is deceitful; the paffions are fecretly at work within the heart; the imagination is continually heaping fuel on the latent fire,

and at length the labouring defire bursts forth, and glows with volcanic heat and fury. The temporary inactivity and inertness which Retirement seems to impose, may check, but cannot subdue, the energies of spirit. The high pride and lofty ideas of great and independent minds may be, for a while, lulled into repose; but the moment the feelings of such a character are awakened by indignity or outrage, its anger springs like an elastic body drawn from its centre, and pierces with vigorous severity the object that provoked it. The perils of Solitude, indeed, always encrease in proportion as the sensibilities, imaginations, and paffions of its votaries are quick, excursive, and violent. The man may be the inmate of a cottage, but the fame paffions and inclinations still lodge within his heart: his manfion may be changed, but their refidence is the same; and though they appear to be filent and undisturbed, they are secretly influencing all the propenfities of his heart. Whatever be the cause of his retirement, whether it be a sense of undeserved misfortune, the ingratitude of suppofed friends, the pangs of despised love, or the disappointments of ambition, memory prevents the wound from healing, and stings the soul with indignation and resentment. The image of departed pleasures haunts the mind, and robs it of its wished tranquillity. The ruling passion still subsists; subsists; it fixes itself more strongly on the fancy; moves with greater agitation; and becomes, in retirement, in proportion as it is inclined to VICE OF VIRTUE, either a horrid and tormenting spectre, inflicting apprehenfion and dismay, or a delightful and supporting angel, irradiating the countenance with smiles of joy, and filling the heart with peace and gladness.

Blest is the man, as far as earth can bless,
Whose measur'd PASSIONS reach no wild excefs;
Who, urg'd by Nature's voice, her gifts enjoys,
Nor other means than Nature's force employs.
While warm with youth the sprightly current flows,
Each vivid sense with vig'rous rapture glows;
And when he droops beneath the hand of age,
No vicious habit stings with fruitless rage;
Gradual his strength and gay sensations ceafe,
While joys tumultuous sink in filent peace.

The extraordinary power which the PASSIONS affume, and the improper channel in which they are apt to flow in retired situations, is confpicuous from the greater acrimony with which they are in general tainted in small villages than in large towns. It is true, indeed, that they do not always explode in such situations with the open and daring violence which they exhibit in a metropolis; but lie buried, as it were, and smouldering in the bosom, with a more malignant

and

and confuming flame. To those who only observe the listlessness and languor which diftinguish the characters of those who refide in small provincial towns, the flow and uniform rotation of amusements which fills up the leisure of their lives; the confused wildness of their cares; the poor fubterfuges to which they are continually resorting, in order to avoid the clouds of discontent that impend, in angry darkness, over their heads; the lagging current of their drooping spirits; the miferable poverty of their intellectual powers; the eagerness with which they strive to raise a card party; the transports they enjoy on the profpect of any new diverfion or occafional exhibition; the haste with which they run towards any fudden, unexpected noise, that interrupts the deep filence of their situation; and the patient industry with which, from day to day, they watch each others conduct, and circulate reports of every action of each others lives, will scarcely imagine that any virulence of pafsion can disturb the bosoms of persons who live in so quiet and feemingly composed a state. But the unoccupied time and barren minds of fuch characters cause the faintest emotions, and most common defires, to act with all the violence of high and untamed paffions. The lowest diversions, a cockfighting, or a poney race, make the bosom of a country 'Squire beat with the highest rapture;

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