for some time in this way, he suddenly abandoned the peaceful privacy of Vaucluse, and precipitated himself into the gayest and most active scenes of a luxurious city. The inhabitants of Avignon were amazed to behold the hermit of Vaucluse, the tender fugitive from love, the philosophic contemner of society, who could scarcely exist, except in the midst of romantic rocks and flowery forests, shining all at once the bright star of the fashionable hemisphere, and the choice spirit of every private and public entertainment. We’re sadly ignorant, when we hope to find In shades a med’cine for a troubled mind; Wan grief will haunt us wheresoe’er we go, Sigh in the breeze, and in the streamlet flow: There pale inaction pines his life away, And satiate, curses the return of day; There love, insatiate, rages wild with pain, Endures the blast, or plunges in the main; There superstition broods o’er all her fears And yells of demons in the zephyr hears He who a hermit is resolv’d to dwell, And bids a social life a long farewell, Is impious. It has already been observed, upon the authority of a very accurate and profound observer of nature, that a very extraordinary temperament of mind and constitution of body are required to sustain, with tranquillity and endurance, the various fatigues of continued solitude; and certain it is, that a human creature who is constantly pent up in seclusion, must, if he be not of a very exalted character, soon become melancholy and miserable. Happiness, like every other valuable quality, cannot be completely possessed, without encountering many dangers, and conquering many difficulties. The prize is great, but the task is arduous. A healthy body, and vigorous mind, are as essentially necessary to the enterprise, as equal courage and fortitude are to its success. The bold adventurer, who, destitute of these resources, quits the bays and harbors of society, shallow, rocky, and dangerous, as they undoubtedly are, and commits himself to the wild and expansive sea of solitude, will sink into its deep and disastrous bed without a hold to save him from destruction. The few instances we have already given, to which many more might easily be added, furnish unequivocal testimony of the truth of this grand precept, _it is not good for man to be alone_: which was given by the great Author of nature, and imprinted in characters sufficiently legible on the human heart.