be the production of enthusiasm. When the
youth sighs and languishes, and feels himself among crowds in an irksome
solitude,--that is the moment to fly into seclusion and meditation.
Where can he indulge but in solitude the fine romances of his soul?
where but in solitude can he occupy himself in useful dreams by night,
and, when the morning rises, fly without interruption to his unfinished
labours? Retirement to the frivolous is a vast desert, to the man of
genius it is the enchanted garden of Armida.

Cicero was uneasy amidst applauding Rome, and he has designated his
numerous works by the titles of his various villas, where they were
composed. Voltaire had talents, and a taste for society, yet he not only
withdrew by intervals, but at one period of his life passed five years
in the most secret seclusion and fervent studies. Montesquieu quitted
the brilliant circles of Paris for his books, his meditations, and for
his immortal work, and was ridiculed by the gay triflers he
relinquished. Harrington, to compose his Oceana, severed himself from
the society of his friends, and was so wrapped in abstraction, that he
was pitied as a lunatic. Descartes, inflamed by genius, abruptly breaks
off all his friendly connexions, hires an obscure house in an
unfrequented corner at Paris, and applies himself to study during two
years unknown to his acquaintance. Adam Smith, after the publication of
his first work, throws himself into a retirement that lasted ten years;
even Hume rallied him for separating himself from the world; but the
great political inquirer satisfied the world, and his friends, by his
great work on the Wealth of Nations.

But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a pleasure, at length
is not borne without repining. I will call for a witness a great genius,
and he shall speak himself. Gibbon says, "I feel, and shall continue to
feel, that domestic solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world,
by study, and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, which will
grow more painful as I descend in the vale of years." And afterwards he
writes to a friend, "Your visit has only served to remind me that man,
however amused and occupied in his closet, was not made to live alone."

I must therefore now sketch a different picture of literary solitude
than some sanguine and youthful minds conceive.

Even the sublimest of men, Milton, who is not apt to vent complaints,
appears to have felt this irksome period