A filver ftream fhall roll his waters near,
Gilt with the fun-beams here and there;
On whofe enamel'd bank I'll walk,
And fee how prettily they smile, and hear
How prettily they talk.

Ah wretched and too folitary he,
Who loves not his own company!
He'll feel the weight of 't many a day,
Unless he call in fin or vanity

Oh Solitude, first state of human-kind!
Which bleft remain'd, till man did find
Ev'n his own helper's company.

As foon as two, alas! together join'd,
The ferpent made up three.

ages, thee

Tho God himself, through countless
His fole companion chofe to be,
Thee, facred Solitude, alone,
Before the branchy head of number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one.

Thou (tho' men think thine an unactive part)
Doft break and time th' unruly heart,
Which elfe would know no fettled pace,
Making it move, well-manag'd by thy art,
With fwiftnefs and with grace.

Thou

1

Thou the faint beams of reafon's fcatter'd light
Dost, like a burning-glass, unite;

Doft multiply the feeble heat,

And fortify the firength, till thou doft bright
And noble fires beget.

Whilft this hard truth I teach, methinks, I fee
The monfter London laugh at me;

I fhould at thee too, foolish city!
If it were fit to laugh at mifery;
But thy eftate I pity.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools, that crowd thee fo,
Even thou, who doft thy millions boast,
A village less than Iflington wilt grow,
A folitude almoft:

III.

N

OF

OBSCURITY.

AM neque divitibus contingunt gaudia folis;
"Nec vixit malè, qui natus morienfque fefel-
"lit *."

God made not pleafures only for the rich;
Nor have those men without their fhare too liv'd,
Who both in life and death the world deceiv'd.

*Hor. 1 Ep. xvii. 9.

U 2

This

This feems a ftrange fentence, thus literally translated, and looks as if it were in vindication of the men of bufinefs (for who elfe can deceive the world?); whereas it is in commendation of those who live and die fo obfcurely, that the world takes no notice of them. This Horace calls deceiving the world; and in another place ufes the fame phrase *,

"Secretuin iter & fallentis femita vitæ."
The fecret tracts of the deceiving life.

It is very elegant in Latin, but our English word will hardly bear up to that sense; and therefore Mr. Broom tranflates it very well

Or from a life, led, as it were, by stealth.

Yet we fay in our language, a thing deceives our fight, when it paffes before us unperceived; and we may fay well enough, out of the same author †,

Sometimes with fleep, fometimes with wine, we strive The cares of life and troubles to deceive.

But that is not to deceive the world, but to deceive ourfelves, as Quintilian fays, "vitam fallere," to draw on ftill, and amufe, and deceive, our life, till it be advanced infenfibly to the fatal period, and fall into that pit which nature hath prepared for it. The meaning of all this is no more than that moft vulgar faying, "Bene qui latuit, bene vixit," He has

*Hor. 1 Ep. xviii. 103.
Declam. de Apib.

10

+ 2 Sat. vii. 114.

lived

lived well, who has lain well hidden; which, if it be a truth, the world (I will fwear) is fufficiently deceived: for my part, I think it is, and that the pleasantest condition of life is in incognito. What a brave privilege is it, to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving and from paying all kind of ceremonies! It is, in my mind, a very delightful paftime, for two good and agreeable friends to travel up and down together, in places where they are by nobody known, nor know any body. It was the cafe of Æneas and his Achates, when they walked invifibly about the fields and ftreets of Carthage. Venus herself

A vail of thicken'd air around them caft,

That none might know, or fee them, as they pafs'd *. The common ftory of Demofthenes' confeffion, that he had taken great pleasure in hearing of a tanker-woman fay, as he paffed, "This is that Demofthenes," is wonderfully ridiculous from fo folid an orator. I myfelf have often met with that temptation to vanity (if it were any); but am fo far from finding it any pleafure, that it only makes me run faster from the place, till I get, as it were, out of fight-fhot. Democritus relates, and in fuch a manner as if he gloried in the good-fortune and commodity of it, that, when he came to Athens, nobody there did fa much as take notice of him; and Epicurus lived there very well, that is,

*Virg. Æn. i. 415.

U 3

lay

lay hid many years in his gardens, fo famous fince that time, with his friend Metrodorus: after whofe death, making in one of his letters a kind commemoration of the happiness which they two had enjoyed together, he adds at last, that he thought it no disparagement to thofe great felicities of their life, that, in the midft of the most talked-of and talking country in the world, they had lived fo long, not only without fame, but almoft without being heard of. And yet, within a very few years afterward, there were no two names of men more known, or more generally celebrated. If we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we fet open our gates to the invaders of most of our time we expofe our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences, which would make a wife man tremble to think of. Now, as for being known much by fight, and pointed at, I cannot comprehend the honour that lies in that: whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor, and the hangman more than the lord chief juftice of a city. Every creature has it, both of nature and art, if it be any ways extraordinary. It was as often said, "This is that Bucephalus," or, " This is that Incitatus," when they were led prancing through the streets, as, "This is that Alexander," or, "This is that Domitian ;" and truly, for the latter, I take Incitatus to have been a much more honourable beast than his mafter, and more deferving the confulfhip, than he the empire.

I love