; nor can any prince or princess on earth
boast of heads so _elegantly plumed_, as may be seen at the court of St.
_Catharine_; or of vassals who pay their tributes with half the
chearfulness they are given and received by the humble monarch of this
sequestered vale. If his meals are scanty, his dessert is served up with
a song, and he is hushed to sleep by the nightingale; and when we
consider, that he has but few days in the whole year which are inferior
to some of our best in the months of May and June, you may easily
conceive, that a man who breathes such pure air, who feeds on such light
food, whose blood circulates freely from moderate exercise, and whose
mind is never ruffled by worldly affairs, whose short sleeps are sweet
and refreshing, and who lives confident of finding in death a more
heavenly residence; lives a life to be envied, not pitied.--Turn but
your eyes one minute from this man's situation, to that of any monarch
or minister on earth, and say, on which side does the balance
turn?--While some princes may be embruing their hands in the blood of
their subjects, this man is offering up his prayers to God to preserve
all mankind:--While some ministers are sending forth fleets and armies
to wreak their own private vengeance on a brave and uncorrupted people,
this solitary man is feeding, from his own scanty allowance, the birds
of the air.--Conceive him, in his last hour, upon his straw bed, and see
with what composure and resignation he meets it!--Look in the face of
a dying king, or a plundering, and blood-thirsty minister,--what terrors
the sight of their velvet beds, adorned with crimson plumage, must bring
to their affrighted imagination!--In that awful hour, it will remind
them of the innocent blood they have spilt;--nay, they will perhaps
think, they were dyed with the blood of men scalped and massacred, to
support their vanity and ambition!--In short, dear Sir, while kings and
ministers are torn to pieces by a thirst after power and riches, and
disturbed by a thousand anxious cares, this poor hermit can have but
one, _i.e._ lest he should be removed (as the prior of the convent has a
power to do) to some other cell, for that is sometimes done, and very
properly.

The youngest and most hardy constitutions are generally put into the
higher hermitages, or those to which the access is most difficult; for
the air is so fine, in the highest parts of the mountain, that they say
it often renders the respi