CCXII.

SYLLA'S CONFESSION.

'Obsequious, artful, voluble, and gay.'

THESE are the fawning, cringing, creeping, crawling generation.

'Sir, I have lived a courtier all my days,

And studied men, their manners, and their ways;
And have observed this useful maxim still,

To let my betters ever have their will.'

This is the widest way to Fortune; for it is courting her in a manner in which she delights. She is not often carried by storm, except by men in high stations; every thing, or most things, in her power to bestow, being gained by the intrigue of the suitors, or the caprice of the sued.

Sylla made a remarkable confession*:-' Of all my actions, though all were undertaken upon the greatest 'deliberation, and regulated according to the justest measures, those,' said he, which I have been forced C to execute in a different manner from what I had at 'first projected, and which I have adventured on a sudden, have always been the most successful.' He attributed every thing to fortune; nothing to skill, or even to valour.

*Vide Plutarch.

CCXIII.

WHO CAN LIVE ALONE.

THE waters of the Rhine, before they flow into the lake of Constance, are of a bluish colour; when they issue thence, they are of a grass green; and, after receiving many tributaries as they pass through Alsace and the Black Forest, they at length assume a green hue, mixed with yellow. This is the colour of the falling leaf; and that reminds me of the season of autumn, which, in turn, brings to our recollection the fading manhood of the mind.

In the bosom of the Snowdon mountains there is a lake, than which, in summer, nothing can be more delightful to a lover of solitude. When I have sat, or mused along the borders of this clear, transparent surface, where, as the sun has sunk in the west, rocks, woods, and mountains are depicted with all that soft and illusive lustre, which the clouds and the blue sky render so beautiful; when I have beheld the plants flowering on the bosom of this lake, and have compared the quietude of the scene with the rush, the crash, the poison, the intrigue, and din of a large city, how deeply have I felt the truism, that in solitude there is peace!

Duppa, in reference to Michael Angelo, affords * some insight into the practice of the world, in regard to those, who have sufficient intellectual energy to enable them to live alone. From a ruling passion to culti*Page 161; 4to.

vate his mind,' says he, Michael Angelo became 'habituated to solitude; and, happy in his pursuits, he

was more content to be alone than in company, by 'which he obtained the character of being a proud and < an odd man; distinctions that never fail to be given C to those, with whom we wish to find fault for not resembling ourselves.'

Vasari seems to have been one of those who know, tolerably well, how to live in a village; and that is no mean accomplishment. I pass my time,' says he, in a letter to Serguidi*, in reading and contemplating the "Deity without sin, and without offending my neigh'bours with malicious scandal. The village is my 6 resource when melancholy; and to view the rural 'prospect, morning and evening, so soothes my mind, ' that, next to God, I am indebted to it for the tranquillity I enjoy.'

Tasso, however, presents a different picture. I am ' afflicted beyond all,' wrote he to a friend (Scipione Gonzaga), by the solitude in which I am placed; 'solitude being my sworn enemy; and having been so 'terrible to me even in my best days, that I was running about at all hours, even the most unseasonable, ❝ to find company.' Tasso, indeed, with all his height of qualification, was far from having been one of those, who have power to

C

- Steal from the degenerate crowd, And soar above this little scene of things.'

Thomson; Autumn, 1. 962.

* Dated Arezzo, July 6, 1537.

I have resolved on leaving this vast metropolis,' wrote one of my friends (writing from London) to his brother, then residing in Paris; 'I am not qualified to 'make way in it. There are sacrifices required which 'I do not feel myself disposed to make; to flatter and to bend before those I regard in no way superior to my self; to say one thing when I mean another; and to ' write that which I know ought not to be written. All this is what I shall not permit myself to perform. A 'life of labour may be a life of pleasure; but a life of labour without moral consolation or profit is not to be ' endured. I will betake myself to a country life. There, ' at least, I shall behold the rising and setting of the sun, 'feel the invigorating breath of the earth, and, as Lord 'Bacon would say, feel "the spirit of the universe" on my temples. You, my dear friend, will not, perhaps, be able to see the wisdom of all this. You are 'employed, and of extensive connexions; you, there'fore, can enjoy all that a large city affords. I, too, 'could wish to live in a vast city, like Paris, Rome, ' and London, to enjoy the community of enlarged minds; but the means are wanting; and in returning to the country, I do but return to my home:

'Here rich with harvests, and there white with flocks.'

I shall hold intercourse with the world by means of letters, journals, and books; and what is more, I shall 'hold communion with man in his connexion with the 'universe do not, therefore, regard me as lost to the world, but as one who chooses the lesser of two evils. I know enough of mankind to wish them well, and

'keep at a distance. Do I not know, that the hamster 'breaks the wing of its victim before it seizes on any 'other part; and am I not equally conscious, that, ninety times out of a hundred, fame is nothing more 'than the breath of blockheads? My choice then

'shall be,

"To woo lone quiet in her silent walks."

'I am so ashamed of the manner in which fame is 'sought, granted, and conquered, that I shall willingly consent to sleep with the dead. I can never cease to remember, that, for a multitude of years, not only 'Milton, but Bacon and Newton, were much less 'known and appreciated at home than abroad.'

For us; we had once so much to encounter from those who lived near us, and thought us too proud to mix with them, not proud, but disinclining,-that we resolved to live by ourselves. The greatest of our happiness has been this result. We have never been compelled to associate with those we despised or disliked. No weary moments have ensued from this. The quietude without, however, has not always been emblematical of the quietude within.

CCXIV.

WHO BUBBLE THEMSELVES.

Go, thou perfidious, false, dissembling queen;
As thou deceiv'st the world, so do I thee.'

Schiller; Mary Stuart; Salvin.

CLAUDE and Angelo, having been occupied in blowing bladders half the morning, reminded me that Newton