idle ambition to vaunt of idleness, and but a mere boast to lie concealed too apparently; since it does but proclaim a desire of being observed. Wouldst thou be indeed retired, says the philosopher, let no man know it: ambition is never buried; repressed it may be, not extinguished.”

At page 77 is the following passage: "As for books I acknowledge with the philosopher, otium sine literis to be the greatest infelicity in the world; but on the other side, not to read men, and converse with living libraries, is to deprive ourselves of the most useful and profitable of studies. This is that deplorable defect which universally renders our bookish men so pedantically morose and impolished, and in a word so very ridiculous: for, believe it, Sir, the wisest men are not made in chambers and closets crowded with shelves, but by habitudes and active conversations. There is nothing more stupid than some of these μεσοπατακτοι, letter-struck men; for γραμματα μαθεῖν δει και μαθανοτα νοῶν ἐκειν, learning should not do men ill offices. Action is the proper fruit of science; and therefore they should quit the education of the college, when fit to appear in business, and take Seneca's advice, tamdiu istis immorandum, quamdiu nihil agere animus magus potest; rudimenta sunt nostra, non opera: and I am able to prove that persons of the most public note for great affairs have stored the world with the most of what it knows, even out of books themselves: for such were Cæsar, Cicero, Seneca, both the Plinys, Aristotle, Eschylus, Sophocles, Plato, Xenophon, Polybius; not to omit these of later ages, and reaching even to our own doors, in our Sydney, Verulam, Raleigh, the Count of Mirandula, Scaliger,

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Scaliger the father, Ticho Brache, Thuanus, Grotius, &c. profound men of letters, and so active in their lives, as we shall find them to have managed the greatest of public charges, not only of their native countries, but some of them of the world itself. Elian has employed two entire chapters expressly to vindicate philosophers from the prejudices and aspersions of those who, like our antagonists, deemed the study of it inconsistent with their administration of public affairs."

Sir George Mackenzie ingenuously confesses, that men of letters are in constraint when they speak before great persons, and in company. "And can you praise solitude for this virtue?" cries Evelyn. "Oh prodigious effect of learning; that those who have studied all their lives' time to speak, should then be mute, when they have most occasion to speak! Loquere ut te videam, said the philosopher; but he would have men dumb and invisible too: the truth is, it is the only reproach of men of letters, that, for want of liberal conversation, some of them appear in the world like so many phantasms in black, and by declining a seasonable exerting of themselves, and their handsome talents, which use and conversation would cultivate and infinitely adorn, they leave occasion for so many insipid and empty fops to usurp their rights, and dash them out of countenance. Francis the first, that great and incomparable prince, as Sleidan calls him, was never brought up to letters, yet by the reading of good translations, the delight he took to hear learned discourses, and his inviting of scholars to converse freely with him upon all subjects and occasions, he became not only very eloquent, but singularly knowing. For

this doubtless it was, that Plutarch composed that express treatise amongst his Morals, "Philosophandum esse cum Principibus," where he produces us several rich examples of these profitable effects and indeed, says one, a philosopher ought not to be blamed for being a courtier, and that we now and then find them in the company of great and opulent persons; nor imports it, that you seldom see their visits returned, since it is a mark he knows what he wants of accomplishments, and of their ignorance, who are so indifferent for the advantages they may derive from their conversations.

"But I might proceed to shew you, not only what makes our learned book-worms come forth of their cells with so ill a grace into company, but present you likewise with some of the most specious fruits of their so celebrated recesses; were it not better to receive what I would say from the lively character which Seneca has long since given us of them. In earnest, marvellous is the pains, which some of them take after an empty criticism, to have the points of Martial and Juvenal ad unguem; the scraps of the ancient poets to produce upon occasion. Some are for roots, genealogies, and blazons; can tell you who married who, what his great grandfather was, and the portion that came from his aunt. This was of old, says Seneca, the epidemical disease for men to crack their brains to discover how many oars Ulysses galley carried; whether it were first written "Ilias" or " Odyssea ;" and a profound student amongst the learned Romans would recount to you who was the first victor at sea; when elephants came into use at triumphs; and wonderful is the concern about "caudex" for the derivation of "codices" "caudicarius" &c. "Gellius"

our being, supports societies, preserves kingdoms in peace; protects them in war; has discovered new worlds, planted the gospel, encreases knowledge, cultivates arts, relieves the afflicted; and, in sum, without which the whole universe itself had been still but a rude and indigested chaos. Or, if you had rather see it represented in picture, behold here a Sovereign sitting in his august assembly of Parliament, enacting wholesome laws: next him, my Lord Chancellor and the rest of the reverend judges and magistrates dispensing them for the good of the people. Figure to yourself a Secretary of State, making his dispatches and receiving intelligence; a statesman countermining some pernicious plot against the commonwealth: here a general bravely embattling his forces and vanquishing his enemy there a colony planting an island, and a barbarous and solitary nation reduced to civility; cities, houses, forts, ships, building for society, shelter, defence, and commerce. In another table the poor relieved and set at work, the naked clad, the oppressed delivered, the malefactor punished, the labourer busied, and the whole world employed for the benefit of mankind in a word, behold him in the nearest resemblance to his Almighty Maker, always in action and always doing good.

"On the reverse now, represent to yourself the goodliest piece of Creation, sitting on a cushion picking his teeth; his country gentleman taking tobacco, and sleeping after a gorgeous meal: there walks a contemplator like a ghost in a church-yard, or sits pering on a book while his family starves: here lies a gallant at the foot of his pretty female, sighing and looking babies in her eyes, whilst she is reading the last new romance and laughs at his folly: on yonder

rack

rock an anchorite at his beads: there one picking daisies, another playing at push-pin; and abroad the young poacher with his dog and kite breaking his neighbour's hedges, or trampling over his corn for a bird not worth sixpence: this sits lousing himself in the sun; that quivering in the cold: here one drinks poison, another hangs himself; for all these, and a thousand more seem to prefer solitude and an inactive life as the most happy and eligible state of it. And thus have you landscape for your landscape.

"The result of all is, solitude produces ignorance, renders us barbarous, feeds revenge, disposes to envy, creates witches, dispeoples the world, renders it a desert, and would soon dissolve it. And, if after all this, yet he admit not an active life to be by infinite degrees more noble; let the gentleman, whose first contemplative piece he produces to establish his discourse, confute him by his example; since I am confident there lives not a person in the world, whose moments are more employed than Mr. Boyle's and that more confirms his contemplations by his actions and experience and if it be objected that his employments are not public, I can assure him there is nothing more public, than the good he is always doing."

By this summary Mr. Evelyn has shewn the fallacy of his own cause. He has represented all the best uses of an active life, and opposed them to the abuses of solitude. The praises of solitude, as he has already remarked, have been the theme of philosophers and poets in all ages. On such a theme therefore it would be impertinent and presumptuous for the present writer to dilate more especially as the English language affords essays on the subject, which in point of