ration painful. Nothing therefore can be more
reasonable than, that as these good men grow older, and less able to
bear the fatigues and inconveniencies the highest abodes unavoidably
subject them to, should be removed to more convenient dwellings, and
that the younger and stouter men should succeed them.

As the hermits never eat meat, I could not help observing to him, how
fortunate a circumstance it was for the safety of his little feathered
friends; and that there were no boys to disturb their young, nor any
sportsman to kill the parent.--God forbid, said he, that one of them
should fall, but by his hands who gave it life!--Give me your hand, said
I, and bless me!--I believe it did; _but it shortened my visit_:--so I
stept into the _grot_, and _stole_ a pound of chocolate upon his stone
table, and myself away.

If there is a happy man upon this earth, I have seen that extraordinary
man, and here he dwells!--his features, his manners, all his looks and
actions, announce it;--yet he had not even a single _maravedi_ in his
pocket:--money is as useless to him, as to one of his black-birds.

Within a gun-shot of this _remnant_ of _Eden_, are the remains of an
ancient hermitage, called _St. Pedro_. While I was there, my hermit
followed me; but I too _coveted retirement_. I had just bought a fine
fowling-piece at _Barcelona_; and when he came, I was availing myself of
the hallowed spot, to make _my vow_ never to use it. In truth, dear Sir,
there are some sorts of pleasures too powerful for the body to bear, as
well as some sort of pain: and here I was wrecked upon the wheel of
felicity; and could only say, like the poor criminal who suffered at
_Dijon_,--O God! O God! at every _coup_.

I was sorry my host did not understand English, nor I Spanish enough,
to give him the sense of the lines written in poor _Shenstone_'s alcove.

"O you that bathe in courtlye bliss,
"Or toyle in fortune's giddy spheare;
"Do not too rashly deeme amisse
"Of him that hides contented here.

I forgot the other lines; but they conclude thus:

"For faults there beene in busye life
From which these peaceful glennes are free."

LETTER XXII.

I know you will not like to leave _St. Catherine_'s harmonious cell so
soon;--nor should I, but that I intend to visit it again. I will
therefore conduct you to _St. Juan_, about four hundred paces distant
from it, on the east side of which, you look down a most horrid and