nations, driven Pyrrhus out of Italy, and enjoyed three times the honour of a triumph, he retired to his cottage in the country, and there cultivated, with his own victorious hands, his little farm, where, when the ambassadors from the Samnites arrived to offer him a large present of gold, he was found, seated in his chimneycorner, dressing turnips. The noble recluse refused the present, and gave the ambassadors this answer: "A man that can be satisfied with such a supper, has no need of gold: and I think it more glorious to conquer the owners of it, than to possess it myself."

The perfect happiness which Curius enjoyed in dressing this humble meal, may be truly envied by the greatest Monarchs and most luxurious Princes. It is a melancholy truth, but too well known to Kings and Princes, that under many circumstances they are deprived of real friends; and this is the reason why they ask the advice of many, and confide in none. Every man of candour, reflection, and good sense, pities the condition of virtuous Sovereigns; for ever, the best of Sovereigns are not totally exempt from fears and jealousies. Their felicity never equals that of a laborious and contented husbandman; their pleasures are neither so pure nor so permanent, nor can they even experience the same tran. quillity and unalloyed content. The provisions, indeed, of a peasant are coarse, but to his ap petite they are delicious: his bed is hard, but/ he goes to it fatigued by the honest labours of the day, and sleeps sounder on his mat of straw than Monarchs on their beds of down.

CHAP. VI.

The Advantages of Solitude in exile.

THE advantages of Solitude are not confined to rank, to fortune, or to circumstances. Fra grant breezes, magnificent forests, richly tinted meadows, and that endless variety of beautiful objects which the birth of Spring spreads over the face of Nature, enchant not only philosophers, kings, and heroes, but ravish the mind of the meanest spectator with exquisite delight. An English author has very justly observed, that, "it is not necessary that he who looks with pleasure on the colour of a flower, should study the principles of vegetation; or that the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems should be compared, before the light of the sun can glad. den, or its warmth invigorate. Novelty in itself is a source of gratification; and Milton justly observes, that to him who has been loug pent up in cities, no rural object can be presented which will not delight or refresh some of his senses."

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 false joys and fictitious pleasures which they followed in the zenith of greatness, habituate their minds to others of a nobler kind, more worthy the attention of rational beings; and to pass their days with tranquillity, invent a variety of innocent felicities, which are only thought of at a distance from society, far removed from all consolation, far from their country, their families, and their friends.

But exiles, if they wish to ensure happiness

in retirement, must, like other men, fix their minds upon some one object, and adopt the pursuit of it in such a way as to revive their buried hopes, or to excite the prospect of approaching pleasure.

Maurice, Prince of Isenbourg, distinguished himself by his courage during a service of twenty years under Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, and Marshal Broglio, and in the war between the Russians and the Turks. Health and repose were sacrificed to the gratification of his ambition and love of glory. During his service in the Russian army, he fell under the displeasure of the Empress, and was sent into exile. The calamitous condition to which persons exiled by this government are reduced is well known; but this philosophic Prince contrived to render even a Russian banishment agreeable. While op.

pressed both in body and in mind, by the painful reflection which his situation at first created, and reduced by his anxieties to a mere skeleton, he accidentally met with the little Essay written by Lord Bolingbroke on the subject of Exile. He read it several times, and "in proportion to the number of times I read," said the Prince, in the preface to the elegant and nervous translation he made of this work, "I felt all my sorrows and disquietudes vanish."

This Essay by Lord Bolingbroke upon Exile, is a masterpiece of stoic philosophy and fine writing. He there boldly examines all the adversities of life. "Let us," says he, "set all our past and present afflictions at once before our eyes let us resolve to overcome them, instead of flying from them, or wearing out the sense of them with long and ignominious patience. Instead of palliating remedies, let us use the incision knife and the caustic, search the wound to the bottom, and work an immediate and radical cure."

Perpetual banishment, like uninterrupted Solitude, certainly strengthens the powers of the mind, and enables the sufferer to collect sufficient force to support his misfortunes. Solitude, indeed, becomes an easy situation to those exiles who are inclined to indulge the pleasing sympathies of the heart; for they then experience pleasures that were before unknown, and from that moment forget those they tasted in the mofe flourishing and prosperous conditions of life.

Brutus, when he visited the banished Marcellus in his retreat to Mitylene, found him enjoying the highest felicities of which human nature is susceptible, and devoting his time, as before his banishment, to the study of every useful science. Deeply impressed 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 peopie, under the guidance of Marius, were laying the foundation of that tyrauny which Cæsar afterwards completed, Metellus singly, in the midst of an alarmed senate, and surrounded by au enraged populace, refused to take the oath imposed 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 senatorial seat 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 resolved rather to perish than behold their country unjustly deprived of so much merit: but this magnanimous Roman, whom no persuasion could induce to do wrong, declined to increase the confusion of the commonwealth by

encouraging resistance, conceiving it a duty he owed to the laws, not to suffer any sedition to take place on his account. Contenting himself with protesting his innocence, and sincerely lamenting the public phrensy, he exclaimed, as Plato had done before during the distractions of the Athenian commonwealth, "If the times should mend, I shall recover my station; if not, it is a happiness to be, absent from Rome;" and departed without regret into exile, fully convinced of its advantages to a mind incapable of finding repose except on foreign shores, and which at Rome must have been incessantly tortured by the hourly sight of a sickly state and an expiring republic.

Rutilius also, feeling the same contempt for the sentiments and manners of the age, voluntarily withdrew himself from the corrupted metropolis of the republic. Asia had been defended by his integrity and courage against the ruinous and oppressive extortion of the publicans. These noble and spirited exertions, which he was prompted to make not only from his high sense of justice, but in the honour able discharge of the particular duties of his office, drew on him the indignation of the Equestrian Order, and excited the animosity of the faction which supported the interests of Ma. rius. They induced the vile and infamous Apicius to become the instrument of his destruction. He was accused of corruption! and, as the authors and abettors of this false accusation sat as judges on his trial, Rutilius, the most innocent and virtuous citizen of the republic, was of course condemned; for, indeed, he scarcely condescended to defend the cause. Seeking an asylum in the East, this truly respectable Roman, whose merits were not only overlooked, but traduced, by his ungrateful country, was every where received with profound veneration and