unqualified applause. He had, however, before the term of his exile expired, an opportunity of exhibiting the just contempt he felt for the treatment he had received; for when Sylla earnestly solicited him to return to Rome, he not only refused to comply with his request, but removed his residence to a greater distance from his infatuated country. Cicero, however, who possessed in an eminent degree all the resources and sentiments which are necessary to render Solitude pleasant and advantageous, is a memorable exception to these instances of happy and contented exiles. This eloquent patriot, who had been publicly próclaimed, "The Saviour of his Country," who had pursued his measures with undaunted perseverance, in defiance of the open menaces of a desperate faction, and the concealed daggers of hired assassins, sunk into dejection and dismay under a sentence of exile. The strength of his constitution had long been impaired by incessant anxiety and fatigue; and the terrors of banishment so oppressed his mind, that he lost all his powers, and became, from the deep melancholy into which it plunged him, totally incapable of adopting just sentiments, or pursuing spirited measures. By this weak and unmanly conduct he disgraced an event by which Providence intended to render his glory complete. Undetermined where to go, or what to do, he lamented, with effeminate sighs and childish tears, that he could now no longer enjoy the luxuries of his fortune, the splendour of his rank, or the charms of his popularity. Weeping over the ruins of his magnifient mansion, which Clodius levelled with the ground, and groaning for the absence of his wife Terentia, whom he soon afterwards repudiated, he suffered the deepest melancholy to seize upon his mind; became a prey to the most inveterate grief; com plained with bitter anguish of wants, which, if supplied, would have afforded him no enjoy. ment; and acted, in short, so ridiculously, that both his friends and his enemies concluded that adversity had deranged his mind. Cæsar beheld with secret and malignant pleasure, the man who had refused to act as his Lieutenant suffering under the scourge of Clodius. Pompey hoped that all sense of his ingratitude would be effaced by the contempt and derision to which a bene. factor, whom he had shamefully abandoned, thus meanly exposed his character. Atticus himself, whose mind was bent on magnificence and money, and who, by his temporizing talents, endeavoured to preserve the friendship of all parties without enlisting in any, blushed for the unmanly conduct of Cicero; and in the censorial style of Cato, instead of his own plausible dialect, severely reproached him for continuing so meanly attached to his former fortunes. Solitude had no influence over a mind so weak and depressed as to turn the worst side of every obI ject to its view. He died, however, with greater heroism than he lived, "Approach, old soldier!" cried he, from his litter, to Popilius Lænas, his former client and present murderer, "and, if you have the courage, take my life." "These instances," says Lord Bolingbroke, "shew, that as a change of place, simply considered, can render no man unhappy; so the other evils which are objected to exile, either cannot happen to wise and virtuous men, or, if they do happen to them, cannot render them miserable. Stones are hard, and cakes of ice are cold, and all who feel them feel alike; but the good or the bad events which fortune brings upon us, are felt according to the qualities that we, not they, possess. They are in themselves indifferent and common accidents, and they acquire strength by nothing but our vice or our weakness. Fortune can dispense neither felicity nor infelicity, unless we co-operate with her. Few men who are unhappy under the loss of an estate, would be happy in the possession of it; and those who deserve to enjoy the advantages which exile takes away, will not be unhappy when they are deprived of them." An exile, however, cannot hope to see his days glide quietly away in rural delights and philosophic repose, except he has conscientiously discharged those duties which he owed to the world, and given that example of rectitude to future ages, which every character exhibits who is as great after his fall as he was at the most brilliant period of his prosperity. CHAP. VII. The Advantages of Solitude in Old Age; and on the Bed of Death. THE decline of life, and particularly the condition of old age, derive from Solitude the purest sources of uninterrupted enjoyment. Old age, when considered as a period of comparative quietude and repose, as a serious and contemplative interval between a transitory existence and an approaching immortality, is perhaps, the most agreeable condition of human life: a condition to which Solitude affords a secure harbour against those shattering tempests to which the frail bark of man is continually exposed in the short, but dangerous voyage of the world; a harbour from whence he may securely view the rocks and quicksands which threatened his destruction, and which he has happily escaped. Men are by nature disposed to investigate the various properties of distant objects before they think of contemplating' their own characters; like modern travellers, who visit foreign countries before they are acquainted with their own. But prudence will exhort the young, and experience teach the aged, to conduct themselves on very different principles; and both the one and the other will find that Sclitude and self-examination are the beginning and the end of true wisdom. O lost to Virtue, lost to manly thought, Communion sweet; communion large and high! The levity of youth, by this communion large and high, will be repressed, and the depression which sometimes accompanies old age entirely removed. An unceasing succession of gay hopes, fond desires, ardent wishes, high delights and unfounded fancies, form the character of our early years; but those which follow are marked with melancholy and increasing sorrows. A mind, however, that is invigorated by observation and experience, remains dauntless and ummoved, amidst both the prosperities and adversities of life. He who is no longer forced to exert his powers, and who, at an early period of his life, has well studied the manners of men, will complain very little of the ingratitude with which his favours and anxieties have been requited. All he asks is, that the world will let him alone: and having a thorough knowledge, not only of his own character, but of mankind, he is enabled to enjoy the comforts of repose. It is finely remarked by a celebrated German, that there are political as well as religious Carthusians, and that both orders are sometimes composed of most excellent and pious characters. re "It is," says this admirable writer," in the deepest and mest sequestered recesses of forests that we meet with the peaceful sage, the calm observer, the friend of truth, and the lover of his country, who renders himself beloved by his wisdom, revered for his knowledge, spected for his veracity, and adored for his benevolence; whose confidence and friendship every one is anxious to gain; and who excites admiration by the eloquence of his conversation, and esteem by the virtue of his actions, while he raises wonder by the obscurity of his name, and the mode of his existence. The giddy multitnde solicit him to relinquish his Solitude, and seat himself on the throne; but they perceive inscribed on his forehead, beaming with sacred fire, "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo; and, instead of being his seducers, become his disciples." But, alas! this extraordinary character, whom I saw some years ago in Weteravia, who inspired me with filial reverence and affection, and whose animated countenance announced the superior wisdom and happy tranquillity of his mind, is now no more. There did not perhaps at that time exist in any court a more profound statesman he was intimately aquainted with all, and corresponded personally with some of the most celebrated Sovereigns of Europe. I never met with an observer who penetrated with such quick and accurate sagacity into the minds and characters of men, who formed such true opinious of the world, or criticised with such discerning accuracy the actions of those who were playing important parts on its various theatres. There never was a mind more free, more enlarged, more powerful, or more gaging; or an eye more lively and inquisitive. He was the man, of all others, in whose company I could have lived with the highest pleasure, and died with the greatest comfort. The en |