This is the oppor

grace recover its native energy. tunity to rectify every evil impression; to expel the poison and guard against the contagion of corrupting examples. This is the place where I may with advantage apply myself to subdue the rebel within, and be master, not of a sceptre, but of myself. Throng then, ye ambitious, the levées of the powerful; I will be punctual in my assignation with solitude. To a mind intent upon its own improvement, solitude has charms incomparably more engaging than the entertainments of a theatre or the honours of a drawing-room. I said solitude! But am I then alone?'

"A solemn question," observed Manners, " to which he gives a solemn and awful answer, for he says, and says truly, that God and his angels are always with him, in him, and about him.' And this, in fact, is the real advantage of solitude, particularly in the country, that it every where prompts reflections as to nature and its author, which cannot find place in towns. Walton would never have been what he was, but for his country walks: they made every thing to look gladness and health, and beat all that the most costly art ever effected. He who can properly enjoy

them, has really the

'Vita solutorum miserâ ambitione gravique.''

I felt this to be equally true and affecting, particularly when my companion went on :

"Can any man, thinking thus of the world, and

his retreat from it, ever feel that retreat irksome or vacant? There are moments, indeed, worth a thousand pounds, when, free from bodily complaint, mental uneasiness, or mental fear, in love with God, and in charity with man, we feel an exuberant felicity which we cannot define, but which makes us pour out our souls in genuine thanksgiving.

"Such moments, however," continued he, "belong not to the inhabitants of the club-room or the denizen of office; they come but to those who live in part, at least, a contemplative life, and much alone; and such is the sweetest charm, as well as the most valuable property, of the solitude we are discussing. For such a person, thus fitted for it, though he appear the idlest and most unoccupied of men, is in fact the most busy; his body may seem a fixture, but his thoughts, his interests, are all in motion. He has a mute but observing eye, seemingly bent on vacancy, but no vacancy to him; for he will see, within the mere walls of his room, the whole perhaps of the peopled earth, from the beginning of time, passing in review before his intellect; he will meditate on the nature and history of man, and particularly on his own, in which he will discover a thousand minute traits which had escaped him in the world. If good, he will rejoice in them; if bad, he will amend them; and thus, though he stir not for hours from the fire in winter, or a garden bench in summer, yet is not his time misspent."

My instructor said this with an unction that proved

his sincerity, and only made the picture more impressive. It is certain I felt my veneration for him increase at every word he spoke, and I was, however alive to the sound, sorry when a most deep-toned bell from the top of the house, and echoed from the woodland below, announced that dinner was on the table.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OF THE GOOD DINNER WHICH

SOLITUDE MAY FUR

NISH TO THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD IT, AND THE
FURTHER HISTORY OF MR. MANNERS.

We have a trifling, foolish banquet toward.

SHAKSPEARE.-Romeo & Juliet.

OUR repast was simplex munditiis; unless the beautiful Sevre in which the viands, and the fine old Dresden in which the dessert were served, might be said to savour a little more of magnificence than

neatness.

Be that as it will, it is the property of elegance always to please, and as nothing forbade it here, I own I allowed myself to enjoy all that it is so calculated to add to the usual attraction of an excellent dinner. There was an exquisite soup; the promised chicken was most savoury, and done to a turn; and claret like a ruby, and foaming Saint Peray, which my host dealt out liberally from an embossed silver ice pail, crowned the feast.

Much as I was occupied, I could not help contrasting the scene with that in the kitchen of the Jolly Angler, and at the Ordinary of the Royal Oak; and

I thought, and began to believe, my new-found cousin and preceptor agreed with me in thinking that the simplicities of nature were not incompatible with the luxuries of art, particularly at dinner-time.

If ever the mollia tempora fandi prevail, it is at a good dinner; and it was upon the want of it that Coriolanus's friend Menenius laid the blame of all his faults with the mob:

"He had not dined;

The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then

We pout upon the morning."

Heaven knows, there was here no pouting; for, exclusive of the banquet before us, to which Mr. Manners did as much justice as myself, our different conversations had excited the good-humour of us both: mine, from having witnessed such cultivated talents in my host; his, for having so well exercised them.

One reason more, in regard to myself, was the secret satisfaction I felt in the so unexpected discovery of my relationship to him, and the frank good-will with which he acknowledged it. This was repeated several times; for he never replenished his glass but he called me cousin, and wished our better acquaintance.

Of what might be the consequence of this, I had no precise, or indeed any idea; but I felt a sort of secret consciousness of something good that time might reveal, the nature of which was confused but flattering (thanks to my sanguine temper), nor could I prevent a favourable vision of the world from rising in the distance to my view.