I might ask, in my turn, “Where is mighty charm that draws you to this inglorious solitude, from the duties of business and conversation, from the proper end and employment of man? How comes it to pass, that this stillness of a country landscape, this uninstructing, though agreeable enough, scene of fields and waters, should have greater beauty in your eye, than flourishing peopled towns, the scenes of industry and art, of public wealth and happiness? Is not the sublime countenance of man, so one of your acquaintance terms it, a more delightful object than any of these humble beauties that lie before us? And are not the human virtues, with all their train of lovely and beneficial effects in society, better worth contemplating, than the products of inanimate nature in the field or wood? Where should we seek for Reason, but in the minds of men tried and polished in the school of civil conversation? And where hath Virtue so much as a being out of the offices of social life? Look well into yourself, I might say: hath not indeed the proper genius of solitude affected you! Doth not I know not what of chagrin and discontent hang about you? Is there not a gloom upon your mind, which darkens your views of human nature, and damps those chearful thoughts and sprightly purposes, which friendship and society inspire?”

You see, Sir, were I but disposed, and as able as you are, to pursue this way of fancy and declamation, I might conjure up as many frightful forms in these retired walks, as you have delightful ones. And the enchantment in good hands would, I am persuaded, have more the appearance of reality. But this is not the way in which I take upon myself to contend with you. I would hear, if you please, what reasons, that deserve to be so called, could determine you to so strange, and, forgive me if at present I am forced to think it, so unreasonable a project, as that of devoting your health and years to this monastic retirement. I would lay before you the arguments, which, I presume, should move you to quit a hasty, perhaps an unweighted, resolution: so improper in itself, so alarming to all your friends, so injurious to your own interest, and, permit me to say, to the public. I would enforce all this with the mild persuasions of a friend; and with the wisdom, the authority of a great person, to whose opinion you owe a deference, and who deserves it too from the entire love and affection he bears you.”

My dearest friend, replied he, with an earnestness that awed, and a goodness that melted me, I am not to learn the affection which either you or my noble friend bear me. I have had too many proofs of it from both, to suffer me to doubt it. But why will you not allow me to judge of what is proper to constitute my own happiness? And why must I be denied the privilege of choosing for myself, in a matter where the different taste or humour of others makes them so unfit to prescribe to me? Yet I submit to these unequal terms; and if I cannot justify the choice I have made, even in the way of serious reason and argument, I promise to yield myself to your advice and authority. You have taken me perhaps a little unprepared and unfurnished for this conflict. I have not marshalled my forces in form, as you seem to have done; and it may be difficult, on the sudden, to methodize my thoughts in the manner you may possibly expect from me. But come, said he, I will do my best in this emergency. You will excuse the rapture which hurried me at setting out, beyond the bounds which your severer temper requires. The subject always fires me; and I find it difficult, in entering on this argument, to restrain those triumphant sallies, which had better have been reserved for the close of it.

Here he paused a little; and recollecting himself, “But first,” resumed he, “you will take notice, that I am not at all concerned in the general question, so much, and, I think, so vainly agitated, ”whether a life of retirement be preferable to one of action?” I am not, I assure you, for unpeopling our cities, and sending their industrious and useful inhabitants into woods and cloisters. I acknowledge and admire the improvements of arts, the conveniencies of society, the policies of government[34]. I have no thought so mad or so silly, as that of wishing to see the tribes of mankind disbanded, their interests and connexions dissolved, and themselves turned loose into a single and solitary existence. I would not even wish to see our courts deserted of their homagers, though I cannot but be of opinion, that an airing now and then at their country houses, and that not with the view of diverting, but recollecting themselves, would prove as useful to their sense and virtue, as to their estates. But all this, as I said, is so far from coming into the scheme of my serious wishes, that it does not so much as enter into my thoughts. Let wealth, and power, and pleasure, be as eagerly sought after, as they ever will be: let thousands or millions assemble in vast towns, for the sake of pursuing their several ends, as it may chance, of profit, vanity, or amusement: All this is nothing to me, who pretend not to determine for other men, but to vindicate my own choice of this retirement.

As much as I have been involved in the engagements of business, I have not lived thus long without looking frequently, and sometimes attentively into myself. I maintain, then, that to a person so moulded as I am; of the temper and turn of mind, which Nature hath given me; of the sort of talents, with which education or genius hath furnished me; and, lastly, of the circumstances, in which fortune hath placed me; I say, to a person so charactered and so situated, RETIREMENT is not only his choice, but his duty; is not only what his inclination leads him to, but his judgement. And upon these grounds, if you will, I venture to undertake my own apology to you.”

Your proposal, said I, is fair, and I can have no objection to close with you upon these terms; only you must take care, my friend, that you do not mistake or misrepresent your own talents or character; a miscarriage, which, allow me to say, is not very rare from the partialities which an indulged humour, too easily taken for nature, is apt to create in us.

Or what, replied he, if this humour, as you call it, be so rooted as to become a second nature? Can it, in the instance before us, be worth the pains of correcting?

I should think so, returned I, in your case. But let me first hear the judgement you form of yourself, before I trouble you with that which I and your other friends make of you.

I cannot but think, resumed he, that my situation at present must appear very ridiculous. I am forced into an apology for my own conduct, in a very nice affair, which it might become another, rather than myself, to make for me. In order to this, I am constrained to reveal to you the very secrets, that is, the foibles and weaknesses, of my own heart. I am to lay myself open and naked before you. This would be an unwelcome task to most men. But your friendship, and the confidence I have in your affection, prevail over all scruples. Hitherto your friend hath used the common privilege of wearing a disguise, of masking himself, as the poet makes his hero, in a cloud, which is of use to keep off the too near and curious inspection both of friends and enemies. But, at your bidding, it falls off, and you are now to see him in his just proportion and true features.

My best friend, proceeded he with an air of earnestness and recollection, it is now above forty years that I have lived in this world: and in all the rational part of that time there hath not, I believe, a single day passed without an ardent longing for such a retreat from it, as you see me at length blessed with. You have heard me repeat some verses, which were made by me so early as the age of thirteen, and in which that inclination is expressed as strongly, as in any thing I have ever said or written on that subject[35]. Hence you may guess the proper turn and bias of my nature; which began so soon, and hath continued thus long, to shew itself in the constant workings of that passion.