wind of other men’s breath, and have no oars of their own to steer withal. It is very fantastical and contradictory in human nature, that men should love themselves above all the rest of the world, and yet never endure to be with themselves. When they are in love with a mistress, all other persons are importunate and burdensome to them. “_Tecum vivere amem_, _tecum obeam lubens_,” They would live and die with her alone. _Sic ego secretis possum benè vevere silvis_ _Quà nulla humauo sit via trita pede_, _Tu mihi curarum requies_, _tu nocte vel atrâ_ _Lumen_, _et in solis tu mihi terba locis_. With thee for ever I in woods could rest, Where never human foot the ground has pressed; Thou from all shades the darkness canst exclude, And from a desert banish solitude. And yet our dear self is so wearisome to us that we can scarcely support its conversation for an hour together. This is such an odd temper of mind as Catullus expresses towards one of his mistresses, whom we may suppose to have been of a very unsociable humour. _Odi et Amo_, _qua nam id faciam ratione requiris_? _Nescio_, _sed fieri sentio_, _et excrucior_. I hate, and yet I love thee too; How can that be? I know not how; Only that so it is I know, And feel with torment that ’tis so. It is a deplorable condition this, and drives a man sometimes to pitiful shifts in seeking how to avoid himself. The truth of the matter is, that neither he who is a fop in the world is a fit man to be alone, nor he who has set his heart much upon the world, though he has ever so much understanding; so that solitude can be well fitted and set right but upon a very few persons. They must have enough knowledge of the world to see the vanity of it, and enough virtue to despise all vanity; if the mind be possessed with any lust or passions, a man had better be in a fair than in a wood alone. They may, like petty thieves, cheat us perhaps, and pick our pockets in the midst of company, but like robbers, they use to strip and bind, or murder us when they catch us alone. This is but to retreat from men, and fall into the hands of devils. It is like the punishment of parricides among the Romans, to be sewed into a bag with an ape, a dog, and a serpent. The first work, therefore, that a man must do to make himself capable of the good of solitude is the very eradication of all lusts, for how is it possible for a man to enjoy himself while his affections are tied to things without himself? In the second place, he must learn the art and get the habit of thinking; for this too, no less than well speaking, depends upon much practice; and cogitation is the thing which distinguishes the solitude of a god from a wild beast. Now because the soul of man is not by its own nature or observation furnished with sufficient materials to work upon; it is necessary for it to have continual resource to learning and books