which only summer or winter
can supply; but of the annual flight of human rovers it is much harder
to assign the reason, because they do not appear either to find or seek
any thing which is not equally afforded by the town and country.

I believe that many of these fugitives may have heard of men whose
continual wish was for the quiet of retirement, who watched every
opportunity to steal away from observation, to forsake the crowd, and
delight themselves with _the society of solitude_. There is indeed
scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural
privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds,
the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets; nor any man eminent
for extent of capacity, or greatness of exploits, that has not left
behind him some memorials of lonely wisdom, and silent dignity.

But almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those
whom we cannot resemble. Those who thus testified their weariness of
tumult and hurry, and hasted with so much eagerness to the leisure of
retreat, were either men overwhelmed with the pressure of difficult
employments, harassed with importunities, and distracted with
multiplicity; or men wholly engrossed by speculative sciences, who
having no other end of life but to learn and teach, found their searches
interrupted by the common commerce of civility, and their reasonings
disjointed by frequent interruptions. Such men might reasonably fly to
that ease and convenience which their condition allowed them to find
only in the country. The statesman who devoted the greater part of his
time to the publick, was desirous of keeping the remainder in his own
power. The general, ruffled with dangers, wearied with labours, and
stunned with acclamations, gladly snatched an interval of silence and
relaxation. The naturalist was unhappy where the works of Providence
were not always before him. The reasoner could adjust his systems only
where his mind was free from the intrusion of outward objects.

Such examples of solitude very few of those who are now hastening from
the town, have any pretensions to plead in their own justification,
since they cannot pretend either weariness of labour, or desire of
knowledge. They purpose nothing more than to quit one scene of idleness
for another, and after having trifled in publick, to sleep in secrecy.
The utmost that they can hope to gain is the change of ridiculousness to
obscurity, and th