lona, who soon unveiled to my eyes her
naked deformity. How often did I sigh for my proper station in society
and letters. How often (a proud comparison) did I repeat the complaint
of Cicero in the command of a provincial army: "Clitellae bovi sunt
impositae. Est incredibile quam me negotii taedeat. Non habet satis
magnum campum ille tibi non ignotus cursus animi; et industriae meae
praeclara opera cessat. Lucem, libros, urbem, domum, vos desidero. Sed
feram, ut potero; sit modo annuum. Si prorogatur, actum est."--Epist. ad
Atticum, lib. v. 15. From a service without danger I might indeed have
retired without disgrace; but as often as I hinted a wish of resigning,
my fetters were riveted by the friendly intreaties of the colonel, the
parental authority of the major, and my own regard for the honour
and welfare of the battalion. When I felt that my personal escape was
impracticable, I bowed my neck to the yoke: my servitude was protracted
far beyond the annual patience of Cicero; and it was not till after the
preliminaries of peace that I received my discharge, from the act of
government which disembodied the militia.

When I complain of the loss of time, justice to myself and to the
militia must throw the greatest part of that reproach on the first seven
or eight months, while I was obliged to learn as well as to teach. The
dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the
hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual hurry
of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished
from my mind. After this long fast, the longest which I have ever known,
I once more tasted at Dover the pleasures of reading and thinking;
and the hungry appetite with which I opened a volume of Tully's
philosophical works is still present to my memory. The last review of my
Essay before its publication, had prompted me to investigate the nature
of the gods; my inquiries led me to the Historie Critique du Manicheisme
of Beausobre, who discusses many deep questions of Pagan and Christian
theology: and from this rich treasury of facts and opinions, I deduced
my own consequences, beyond the holy circle of the author. After this
recovery I never relapsed into indolence; and my example might prove,
that in the life most averse to study, some hours may be stolen,
some minutes may be snatched. Amidst the tumult of Winchester camp I
sometimes thought and read in my tent; in the more settled quart