Since, therefore, internal and external tranquillity is, upon earth, an incontestable commencement of beatitude, it may be extremely useful to believe, that a rational and qualified seclusion from the tumults of the world, may so highly rectify the faculties of the human soul, as to enable us to acquire in “blissful solitude” the elements of that happiness we expect to enjoy in the world to come. He is the happy man, whose life e’en now, Shows somewhat of that happier life to come: Who, doom’d to an obscure but tranquil state, Is pleas’d with it, and, were he free to choose Would make his fate his choice: whom peace, the fruit Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith, Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one Content, indeed, to sojourn while he must Below the skies, but having there his home, The world o’erlooks him in her busy search Of objects more illustrious in her view; And occupied as earnestly as she; Though more sublimely, he o’erlooks the world. She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not; He seeks not hers, for he has proved them vain. He cannot skim the ground like such rare birds Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems Her honors, her emoluments, her joys. Therefore in contemplation is his bliss, Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be reveal’d. END OF PART I. SOLITUDE. PART II. THE PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE OF A TOTAL SECLUSION FROM SOCIETY UPON THE MIND AND THE HEART. CHAPTER I. _Introduction._