The student, who is no flatterer of the little passions of men, will not be much incommoded by their presence. Gibbon paints his own situation in the heart of the fashionable world:--"I had not been endowed by art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address which unlock every door and every bosom. While coaches were rattling through Bond-street, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books. I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure." And even after he had published the first volume of his History, he observes that in London his confinement was solitary and sad; "the many forgot my existence when they saw me no longer at Brookes's, and the few who sometimes had a thought on their friend were detained by business or pleasure, and I was proud and happy if I could prevail on my bookseller, Elmsly, to enliven the dulness of the evening." A situation, very elegantly described in the beautifully polished verses of Mr. Rogers, in his "Epistle to a Friend:" When from his classic dreams the student steals Amid the buzz of crowds, the whirl of wheels, To muse unnoticed, while around him press The meteor-forms of equipage and dress; Alone in wonder lost, he seems to stand A very stranger in his native land. He compares the student to one of the seven sleepers in the ancient legend. Descartes residing in the commercial city of Amsterdam, writing to Balzac, illustrates these descriptions with great force and vivacity.