For, notwithstanding all you have said, in the spirit and language of stoicism, of the comforts of your present SITUATION, will you seriously undertake to persuade me that they are in any degree comparable to what you might propose to yourself, by returning to a life of business? Is the littleness, the obscurity, and pardon me if I even say, the meanness of this retreat, to be put in competition with the liberal and even splendid provision, which your friends at court will easily be able to make for you? Is it nothing, my friend, (for let us talk common sense, and not bewilder ourselves with the visions of philosophy) is it nothing to live in a well-furnished house, to keep a good table, to command an equipage, to have many friends and dependants, to be courted by inferiors, to be well received by the great, and to be somebody even in the presence?
And what if, in order to compass such things, some little devoirs and assiduities are expected? Is it not the general practice? And what every body submits to, can it be ignominious? Is this any thing more than conforming one’s self to the necessary subordination of society? Or, what if some time passes in these services, which a present humour suggests might be more agreeably spent in other amusements? The recompence cannot be far off; and, in the mean time, the lustre and very agitation of a life of business, hath somewhat in it sprightly and amusing. Besides, yours is not the case of one that is entering, for the first time, on a course of expectation. Your business is half done. The prince is favourable; and there are of his ministers that respect and honour you. Your services are well known; your reputation is fair; your connexions great; and the season inviting. What, with all these advantages, forego the court in a moping mood, or, as angry men use, run to moralize in a cloister!
I was proceeding in the warmth of this remonstrance, when, with a reproachful smile, he turned upon me, and, in a kind of rapture, repeated the following lines of Spenser:
“Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent:
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy prince’s grace, yet want his peeres[50];
To have thy askings, yet wait many yeers[51];
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despaires;
To faun, to crouche, to wait, to ride, to ronne;
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.”
This, said he, is my answer once for all to your long string of interrogatories. I learnt it of one that had much experience in courts: and I thought it worth imprinting on my memory, to have it in readiness on such an occasion. Or, if you would rather have my answer in my own words, the Muse shall give it you in a little poem, she dictated very lately[52]. It may shew you perhaps, that, though my nature be somewhat melancholy, I am not moping; and that I can moralize, and even complain, as I have reason to do, without being angry.
The look and tone of voice, with which he said this, a little disconcerted me. But I recovered myself, and was going on to object to his unreasonable warmth, and the fascination of this wicked poetry, when he stopped me with saying, “Come, no more of these remonstrances and upbraidings. I have heard enough of your pleadings in a cause, which no eloquence can carry against my firm and fixed resolutions. I have seen, besides, the force you have done to yourself in this mock combat. Your extreme friendliness hath even tempted you to act a part which your true sense, and the very decorum of your profession, I have observed through all your disguises, has rendered painful to you. I will tell you my whole mind in one word. No inducements of what the world calls INTEREST, no views of HONOUR, no, nor what the poet aptly calls, SANCTISSIMA DIVITIARUM MAJESTAS[53], shall make me recede from the purpose I am bent upon, of consecrating the remainder of a comfortless distracted life, to the sweets of this obscure retirement. Believe me, I have weighed it well, with all its inconveniencies. And I find them such as are nothing to the agonies have long felt in that troubled scene, to which you would recal me. If it hath any ingredients, which I cannot so well relish, they are such as my friends, and, above all, such as you, my best friend, may reconcile to me. Let me but have the pleasure to see the few, I love and esteem, in these shades, and I shall not regret their solitude.
And as for my much honoured friend, whose munificence hath placed me in them, I shall hope to satisfy him in the most effectual manner. Nothing, you will believe, could give me a pain equal to that of being suspected of ingratitude towards my best benefactor. It was indeed with the utmost difficulty, that I constrained myself at last to think of leaving his service. The truth is, he expostulated with me upon it pretty roundly; and though my resolution was taken, I left him with the concern of not being able to give him entire satisfaction. These repeated instances by you are a fresh proof of his goodness, and do me an honour I had little reason to expect from him. But his lordship’s notions of life and mine are very different, as is fitting in persons, whom fortune hath placed in two such different situations. It becomes me to bear the most grateful remembrance of his kind intentions; and, for the rest, I can assure myself, that his equity and nobleness of mind, will permit an old servant to pursue, at length, his own inclinations.
However, to repay his goodness as I can, and to testify all imaginable respect to his judgment, I have purposed to write my own APOLOGY to his lordship; and to represent to him, in a better manner, than I have done in this sudden and unpremeditated conversation, the reasons that have determined me to this resolution. I have even made some progress in the design, and have digested into several essays the substance of such reflections as, at different times, have had most weight with me[54].
Hearing him speak in so determined a manner, I was discouraged from pressing him further with such other considerations, as I had, prepared on this argument. Only I could not help enforcing, in the warmest manner, and in terms your lordship would not allow me to use in this recital, what he himself had owned of your unexampled goodness to him; and the obligation which, I insisted, that must needs create in a generous mind, of paying an unreserved obedience to your lordship’s pleasure. He gave me the hearing very patiently; but contented himself with repeating his design of justifying himself to your lordship in the apology he had before promised.
And now, resumed he with an air of alacrity, since you know my whole mind, and that no remonstrances can move me, confess the whole truth; acknowledge at last that you have dissembled with me all this while, and that, in reality, you approve my resolution. I know you do, my friend, though you struggle hard to conceal it. It cannot be otherwise. Nature, which linked our hearts together, had formed us in one mould. We have the same sense of things; the same love of letters and of virtue. And though I would not solicit one of your years and your profession to follow me into the shade, yet I know you so well[55], that you will preserve in the world that equal frame of mind, that indifference to all earthly things, which I pretend to have carried with me into this solitude.