f his retirement,
that none might violate his obscurity, and promised himself many a happy
day when he should hide himself among the trees, and contemplate the
tumults and vexations of the town.

He stepped into the post-chaise with his heart beating and his eyes
sparkling, was conveyed through many varieties of delightful prospects,
saw hills and meadows, cornfields and pasture, succeed each other, and
for four hours charged none of his poets with fiction or exaggeration.
He was now within six miles of happiness, when, having never felt so
much agitation before, he began to wish his journey at an end, and the
last hour was passed in changing his posture and quarrelling with his
driver.

An hour may be tedious, but cannot be long. He at length alighted at his
new dwelling, and was received as he expected; he looked round upon the
hills and rivulets, but his joints were stiff and his muscles sore, and
his first request was to see his bed-chamber.

He rested well, and ascribed the soundness of his sleep to the stillness
of the country. He expected from that time nothing but nights of quiet
and days of rapture, and, as soon as he had risen, wrote an account of
his new state to one of his friends in the Temple.

"Dear Frank,

"I never pitied thee before. I am now, as I could wish every man of
wisdom and virtue to be, in the regions of calm content and placid
meditation; with all the beauties of nature soliciting my notice, and
all the diversities of pleasure courting my acceptance; the birds are
chirping in the hedges, and the flowers blooming in the mead; the breeze
is whistling in the wood, and the sun dancing on the water. I can now
say, with truth, that a man, capable of enjoying the purity of
happiness, is never more busy than in his hours of leisure, nor ever
less solitary than in a place of solitude.

I am, dear Frank, &c."

When he had sent away his letter, he walked into the wood, with some
inconvenience, from the furze that pricked his legs, and the briars that
scratched his face. He at last sat down under a tree, and heard with
great delight a shower, by which he was not wet, rattling among the
branches: This, said he, is the true image of obscurity; we hear of
troubles and commotions, but never feel them.

His amusement did not overpower the calls of nature, and he, therefore,
went back to order his dinner. He knew that the country produces
whatever is eaten or drunk, and, imagining that he was now at