he pen of Lord BOLINGBROKE, in what
his lordship calls "a letter to Pope," often probably passed over among
his political tracts. It breathes the spirit of those delightful
conversations. "My thoughts," writes his lordship, "in what order soever
they flow, shall be communicated to you just _as they pass through my
mind_--just as they used to be when _we conversed together_ on these or
any other subject; when _we sauntered alone_, or as we have often done
with good Arbuthnot, and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick, among the
_multiplied scenes of your little garden._ The theatre is large enough for
my ambition." Such a scene opens a beautiful subject for a curious
portrait-painter. These literary groups in the garden of Pope, sauntering,
or divided in confidential intercourse, would furnish a scene of literary
repose and enjoyment among some of the most illustrious names in our
literature.

CHAPTER X.

Literary solitude.--Its necessity.--Its pleasures.--Of visitors by
profession.--Its inconveniences.

The literary character is reproached with an extreme passion for
retirement, cultivating those insulating habits, which, while they are
great interruptions, and even weakeners, of domestic happiness, induce at
the same time in public life to a secession from its cares, and an
avoidance of its active duties. Yet the vacancies of retired men are
eagerly filled by the many unemployed men of the world happily framed for
its business. We do not hear these accusations raised against the painter
who wears away his days by his easel, or the musician by the side of his
instrument; and much less should we against the legal and the commercial
character; yet all these are as much withdrawn from public and private
life as the literary character. The desk is as insulating as the library.
Yet the man who is working for his individual interest is more highly
estimated than the retired student, whose disinterested pursuits are at
least more profitable to the world than to himself. La Bruyere discovered
the world's erroneous estimate of literary labour: "There requires a
better name," he says, "to be bestowed on the leisure (the idleness he
calls it) of the literary character,--to meditate, to compose, to read and
to be tranquil, should be called _working_." But so invisible is the
progress of intellectual pursuits and so rarely are the objects palpable
to the observers, that the literary character appears to be denied for his
pursuit