Petrarch scarcely perceived the approaches of old age. By constant activity he contrived to render retirement always happy, and year after year rolled unperceived away in pleasures and tranquillity. Seated in a verdant arbor in the vicinity of a Carthusian monastery, about three miles from Milan, he wrote to his friend Settimo with a simplicity of heart unknown in modern times. “Like a wearied traveller, I increase my pace in proportion as I approach the end of my journey, I pass my days and nights in reading and writing; these agreeable occupations alternately relieve each other, and are the only sources from whence I derive my pleasures. I lie awake and think, and divert my mind by every means in my power; and my ardor increases as new difficulties arise. Novelties incite, and obstacles sharpen, my resistance. The labors I endure are certain, for my hand is tired of holding my pen: but whether I shall reap the harvest of my toils I cannot tell. I am anxious to transmit my name to posterity: but if I am disappointed in this wish I am satisfied the age in which I live, or at least my friends, will know me, and this fame will satisfy me. My health is so good, my constitution so robust, and my temperament so warm, that neither the advance of years nor the most serious occupation, have power to conquer the rebellious enemy by which I am incessantly attacked. I should certainly become its victim, as I have frequently been, if Providence did not protect me. On the approach of spring, I take up arms against the flesh, and am even at this moment struggling for my liberty against this dangerous enemy.” A rural retreat, however lonely or obscure, contributes to increase the fame of those great and noble characters who relinquish the world at an advanced period of their lives, and pass the remainder of their days in solitude: their lustre beams from their retirement with brighter rays than those which shone around them in their earliest days, and on the theatre of their glory. “It is in solitude, in exile, and on the bed of death,” says Pope, “that the noblest characters of antiquity shone with the greatest splendor; it was then they performed the greatest services; for it was during those periods that they became useful examples.” And Rousseau appears to have entertained the same opinion: “It is noble,” says he, “to exhibit to the eyes of men an example of the life they ought to lead. The man who, when age or ill health has deprived him of activity, dares to resound from his retreat the voice of truth, and to announce to mankind the folly of those opinions which render them miserable, is a public benefactor. I should be of much less use to my countrymen, were I to live among them, than I can possibly be in my retreat. Of what importance can it be, whether I live in one place or in another, provided I discharge my duties properly?”