Unfavorable, however, as a dreary and disconsolate solitude certainly is to the recovery of a mind labouring under this grievous affliction, it is far preferable to the society of licentious companions, and to wild scenes of inebriating dissipation. Worldly pleasures, and sensual gratifications of every description, when intemperately pursued, only drive a melancholy mind into a more abject state of dejection. It is from rational recreation, and temperate pleasures alone, that an afflicted mind can receive amusement and delight. The only scenes by which the mudded current of his mind can be cleared, or his stagnated system of pleasure refreshed, must be calm, cheerful, and temperate, not gay. Melancholy is of a sedate and pensive character, and flies from whatever is hurrying and tumultuous. How frequently do men of contemplative dispositions conceive a distaste for the world, only because they have unthinkingly engaged so ardently in the pursuits of pleasure, or of business, that they have been prevented for a length of time, from collecting their scattered ideas, and indulging their natural habits of reflection! But in striving to reclaim a melancholy mind, it is necessary to attend to the feelings of the heart, as well as the peculiar temper of the mind. A gloomy, disturbed, unquiet mind, is highly irritated, and its disease of course increased, by the company and conversation of those whose senseless bosoms are incapable of feeling the griefs it endures, or the complaints it utters. This, indeed, is another cause which drives melancholy persons from society into solitude; for how few are there whose tenderness leads them to sympathize with a brother in distress, or to contribute a kind aid to eradicate the thorns which rankle in his heart! Robust characters, in whose bosoms nature has planted the impenetrable shield of unvarying health, as well as those whose minds are engrossed by the charms of uninterrupted prosperity, can form no idea of the secret but severe agonies which shake the system of valetudinary men: nor feel any compassion for the tortures which accompany a wounded and afflicted spirit, until the convulsive frame proclaims the dreadful malady, or increasing melancholy sacrifices its victim on the altar of self-destruction. The gay associates of the unfeeling world view a companion suffering under the worst of nature’s evils, with cold indifference, or affected concern; or, in the career of pleasure, overlook the miseries he feels until they hear that exhausted wo has induced him to brave the anger of the Almighty, and to rush from mortal misery, uncalled, into the awful presence of his Creator. Dreadful state! The secrecy and silence, indeed, with which persons of this description conceal the pangs that torture their minds, is among the most dangerous symptoms of the disease. It is not, indeed, easy to hide from the anxious and attentive eye of real friendship the feelings of the heart; but to