So says Milton. If you want a more minute description of it, take it from Spenser:

went on.

'Nepenthe is a drink of sovereign grace,
Devised by the gods, for to assuage
Heart's grief, and bitter gall away to chase,
Which stirs up anguish and contentious rage;
Instead thereof, sweet peace and quiet age

It doth establish in the troubled mind.'"*

I was delighted, but could say nothing, and he "This, potent as it was, when administered by Canace, to assuage the tumultuous rage of two combatants bent upon blood, was not of more power than a garden's sedatives are to the troubled mind. Hence, whenever I enter mine, even if vexed with some worldly care, every feeling becomes tranquil amid the outward aspect of peace. The heart expands with feelings of good-will, and is only alive to the attractions of Nature in her most pleasing and softest attire. Had I, therefore, envy or malice, or resentment against any of my fellow-creatures, I could not maintain them in a garden. Hence, no doubt, the ancient fictions of Elysium placed it always in gardens and groves, as the emblem of the purest pleasure and the abode of the good.

'Devenere locos lætos, et amœna vireta
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas.'

In fact, so sacred are such places, when properly considered, that the heart in them is still more moved than the eye. Hence the sentiment inspired by a rich vegetation is participated in by no animal but man; and hence that beautiful burst of Addison on

* Faery Queen, iv. 3. 43.

the effects of the cheerfulness of Nature on a good mind. Hence too, as I have said, even the most obtuse in faculties can never be an atheist, or doubter of Providence, if he possess a garden; for one walk, one little walk in it, if ever he swerved, would restore him to God.

"I felt this effect," continued Mordaunt, "the moment I returned here; for my garden occupations instantly restored the feelings of kindliness, I may say the innocence, of my childhood. Wonder not, therefore, at my saying that I would not exchange the freedom, the elegance, the beauty, and perfume, but, above all, the soothing of these walks for all the advantages that ambition could confer.

'Hic tamen hanc mecum poteris requiescere noctem
Fronde super viridi: sunt nobis mitia poma,

Castaneæ molles, et pressi copia lactis.'"*

Our evening repast in truth, with only the addition of some cold chicken and a better bed, seemed to realise the supposed entertainment given by Tityrus to his friend Melibæus.

I could not help congratulating my friend on the seemingly complete success of his experiment on himself, which all the incidents I had witnessed appeared to indicate, and which I owned I at first had doubted, from not being aware, from the tenor of his public life, of the number of qualifications which he possessed for a private one.

"Here, however, you may with me repose for the night, upon a bed of green leaves; and I have mellow apples, soft chestnuts, and plenty of curds and milk" [for supper].

"And yet," said he, "they are very simple, and in the power of any man that pleases, provided he has nothing on his conscience, and is free from the stings of ambition, the excitements of vanity, or the anxious pursuit of riches. You, for example, though you live in observation of the world, have most of the qualifications we talked of for living out of it."

"I am at least unconscious of them," said I. "You do yourself injustice," replied he; "you possess two of the first of them, moderation and content of mind. There are others, however, which, notwithstanding their simplicity, are far from being in every body's power. For,' to return once more to our friend in retirement (Cowley), 'neither he who is a fop in the world is a fit man to be alone, nor he who has set his heart upon the world, though he has never so much understanding; so that solitude can be well fitted and set right upon but very few persons. They must have knowledge of the world enough to see its vanity, and enough virtue to despise all vanity whatever.'

he still read

"As for the want of employment, from Cowley, "the first minister of state has not so much business in public as a wise man in private. If the one have little business to be alone, the other hath less to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of a nation, the other all the works of God.'

"So far," continued Mordaunt, "this (at least) theoretical philosopher; and it is therefore obvious, that the tedium you fear cannot happen, except when the ground is not properly laid by innocence of life, or

where the resolution to retire has been rashly taken. Where this is so, far from being contented in what has been called the tomb of a man not properly cured of ambition, or a lover of the world, but only retiring in a pet at some particular vexation, he will be like Plato's ghosts,

'Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,

Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave,

As loth to leave the body that it loved.'

Such a man will never prosper in retreat, but will either return to the world, or hang himself."

But now the old clock again struck, and Mordaunt concluded by saying, "We are reminded, however, that we have prosed long enough for one day, and must not forget that one of the most wholesome rules of a retired life is, early to bed;' so, if you have no objection, the descendant of the Ap Griffiths shall light you to your chamber."

With this proposal, my journey alone would have inclined me to a compliance, while the tumult I had undergone from my visit prepared me the more for repose, by no means the less from the day having been, on every account, one of the most interesting and exciting, as well as the most agreeable, I had ever passed.

No. XVI.

THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT DISPOSITIONS UPON OLD AGE.

"Great lords! wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms."

SHAKSPEARE: 1 Hen. VI.

Ir was said by David Hume of himself, that he was "ever more disposed to see the favourable, than the unfavourable side of things; a turn of mind,” he adds, "which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand pounds a year.'

This influence of the disposition we are born with is more powerful, and therefore of more consequence, than all the gifts of fortune, and even all the acquisitions of education. Insomuch, that if we were in the days of the fairies, and on the birth of a child I were offered the gift which I thought would most conduce to his happiness, it would be Hume's disposition to the favourable side of things. This I would prefer to riches, to honours, to fame, to talents, or to beauty, and I had almost said to health itself. The reason is plain. None of the above advantages, with the exception perhaps of the last, constitute happiness in themselves, but only the means of it.

It would swell into a work of no mean consequence, to contemplate the numerous failures, and the causes

* Own Life.