PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT AND AN ACTIVE LIFE PREFERRED TO SOLITUDE, AND ALL ITS APPANAGES, Such as Fame, Command, Richeses, Conversation, etc.  
In Reply to a late Ingenious Essay of a contrary Title.  
By J. E. Esq S. R. S.  
Arist. 1. Polit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sen. Ep. XXII.  
Excute istes qui, quae cupiere, deplorant, & de earum rerum loquuntur fuga, quibus carere non possunt: videbis voluntariam esse illis in eo inoram, quod aque far & inisere loquuntur.  
LONDON, Printed by I M. for H. Herringman at the Sign of the Blue Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New-Exchange. 1667.   

Imprimatur,  
Dec. 13 1666. Roger L'estrange.   


Ste: Apthorp Coll: Regal: Bank. soc:    

To the Honourable Sir Richard Browne Kt and B ᵗ, late Resident at the Court of France for their Majesties of Great Britain CHARLES the I and IIᵈ, Gentleman of the Privy-Chamber, and one of the Clerks of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy-Council, my most honoured Father-in-Law.  
SIR,  
I Am bold to present this liberal Discourse with the greater Confidence to you; because you alone being witness with how little application I have been able to frame it, (importuned as I was by several Avocations) it may with the better grace presume upon your indulgence: There is this only which I have infinite cause to regret; that the tenuity of the Oblation, bears so little proportion to the duty, and the service which I own you: But, though I might haply have oppressed you with a larger Volume, I could not with a more illustrious and becoming Argument; nor indeed, made choice of a fit Arbiter than yourself to determine between us, who have passed so much of your time in the Public service of your Prince and Country, and in a period when a lesle steady Virtue must have succumbed under your temptations. With what fidelity and success you discharged that Ministry, and how honourably you supported the change during the Nineteen years' space of your honourable Character abroad, I leave others to report, and to the great and most illustrious Persons of this Nation, whose Loyalties mingled their glorious misfortunes with Yours: I say nothing of your hospitality, and of the Civility of your house, which cannot be but gratefully recounted by as many as have made any stay at Paris, and that shall consider the circumstances of those lessening times: And your modesty since your Royal Masters most signal Restauration, has made it appear, that you served him without design, as esteeming your whole Fortune a Sacrifice too cheap, to preserve the dignity of a Charge in which his Majesty's Reputation was concerned. I might here mention the constant Asylum which the Persecuted Clergy found within your walls upon all occasions; because I have seen the Instances, and have heard them frequently acknowledged both to your self, and to your most excellent Lady; When your Chapel was the Church of England in her most glorious estate; at lest in the account of Heaven; for she was than the most persecuted Church in the World: But this is already recorded by better 
* 
Sir, The Benediction the Doctor gives to you and yours, in allusion to that which issued from the Ark to Obed Edom's house, I have a particular obligation to suffrage in, etc.—  
The public exercise of our Liturgy, is the Antitype we reflect upon, which, by God's singular indulgence to you, hath, when chased out of the Temple, took refuge in your House; so that we have been forced many times to argue from your Oratory for a visibility of our Church; Your easy admission of me to officiate in it for some months, and your endeavours to have such an establistment made for me, as whereby in the most difficult of times, I might have had a comfortable subsistence, and a safe Protection under your sacred roof, beside the other graces and civilities I had from you, exact this open retribution of my thanks, etc.— to you, whose name and memory must be ever venerable to the English Clergy, as your Person hath been most obliging to many of us, etc.—  
Rich. Watson in his Epist. Dedicat. before Dr Basiers Treatise of the Ancient liberty of the Britannic Church, and exemption thereof from the Roman Patriarchate, etc. Printed Lond. 1661.   Pens: Shall I descend to your other noble and more personal qualifications? That amidst your busy Employments for the concern of States, and the interest of Kingdoms, you still held correspondence with the Muses, and conversation with letters; so as what others know but at a great distance, and by reflection only, You derive from the Fountains themselves, and have beheld what has passed in the World from the very summit of Olympus: Thus Xenophon, Thycidides, Polybius; Caesar and Tacitus conceal nothing from you, who are a Critic both in the Greek and the Latin Tongues, as well as in all the modern Languages: To these I might add the sweetness and comity of your disposition, the temper of your Customs, the sedatenesse of your Mind, your infinite contempt of Vanity and gilded appearances; and in short, all those Perfections which are the result of a consummate Experience, a prudent and just estimation of the Vicissitude of things: But I am first to beg Pardon for this attempt on your Modesty, or rather indeed for this imperfect description of your Virtues: But Sir, I pretend not to oblige you by your Character, but the Public by your Example; and if that have been the chief design of this little Piece to declare it to the World, I attain my Purpose: You have obliged me with many signal kindnesses, with a contitinued affection, a profitable, and noble Conversation, and in a word, with all these in One, with an Excellent Wife, to make this just Acknowledgement, and to subscribe myself,  
SIR, Says-Court. Feb. 5. 1666/7. Your most Obedient, Humble Servant, and Son-in-Law, J. EVELYN.   

TO THE READER.  
I Have this Request to make, and this Account to give of the ensuing Discourse; That as it was but the Effects of a very few hours, a cursory pen, and almost but of a sitting, The Reader will be favourable in his suffrage, and not hastily pronounce against the merits of the Cause: I do not speak this to justify my discretion, that being Conscious of my defects, I would presume to engage: Let me be looked on but as the Forelorn, who though resigned for lost, do service yet in the day of Battle, and lead on the rest: I dare assure the most instructed for Fight, that it will be no dishonour to be o'erthrown by such an Hero; who, if I discern rightly of his spirit, by that of his style, is too generous to insult over the Vanquished; and it will be no shame to resign our Arms.  
I ingenuously acknowledge, that amongst so many Pens as the Writers of this Age employ, I found not many that are better cut. On the other side, it must be granted, that he has all the Topics and Discourses of almost all the Philosophers who ever writ; and that whilst he declames for Solitude, I am forced to tread the most unfrequented and solitary paths; and if for that reason I have not obliged myself to the exactest method, I have yet pursued my Antagonist, rightly parall'd and compared, who has himself laid down, and resumed as pleased him; nor in these Prolusive and Oratorious Contentions, is the liberty without good Example: But that which would best of all justify me, and the seeming incoherencies of some parts of my Discourse, would be the noble Author's Piece itself, because of the Antithesis, and the forms of his Applications. But as I said, I do not pretend to Laurels and Palms, but to provoke some stronger Party to undertake our Agressor: The War is Innocent, and I would be glad this way of Velitation and short Discourses upon all Arguments, in which other Languages greatly outdo us, might exercise our reasons, and improve the English style, which yet wants the Culture of her more Southern Neighbours, and to be redeemed from the Province, without wholly resigning it to the Pulpits and the Theatre, to the neglect of those other Advantages which made the Romans as famous for their Eloquence, as for their Arms, and enabled them to subdue more with their Tongues than with their Swords: Let us consider it was but their native Language, which they familiarly used, and brought to that Perfection; and that there is nothing so course and stubborn but is polished by Art.  
This ingenious Stranger (for some Expressions and some Words, (yet apt, and well inserted) persuade me he is so, (though a subject of his Majesties) will justify what I aim at; And the felicity which we have of gracefully adopting so many Languages and Idioms into our own, frustrates all presences of not infinitely improving it: This was once the design of the Royal Society; and as it was worthy their thoughts; so I hope they will resume it: I add not this, as presuming myself to have attained the most vulgar talon in this kind: My business has only been the Vindication of an oppressed subject, and to do honour to Employment: In the mean time, 'twere priety, if at last it should appear, that a Public Person has all this while contended for Solitude, as it is certain, a Private has done for Action: But as I persuade myself, if it be so, he has power to Retreat from Business; I protest I have not the lest inclination to it, though for want of a better, I have undertaken this.  
The Gentleman is pleased to call his Book but an Essay; Mine hardly pretends to so much; which makes me presume, be will not judge me uncivil, nor take any thing I have said in ill part, the nature of this War considered: But if he shall esteem it so important, and think fit to Rejoin; I so far promise' to assert his Cause, and the just conceptions I have of his rare abilities; that though I would willingly incite some better Pen to wait on him, that I may still enjoy the diversion and benefit of his Discourses, I will for ever be silent my self, and after all I have said here to the Contrary, Prefer his SOLITUDE.  
J. E.   

Public Employment, AND An Active Life Preferred to SOLITUDE.  
IT was an ill Omen to the success of his Argument, that in ipso limine, the very Threshold of his Essay, he should think to establish it upon so wide a mistake, as what is derived from the sense of an impious Poet, and the sentences of a few Philosophers; insinuating by the unconcerned and inactive life of Him who gives life and activity to all Being's, that to resemble God (wherein consists our greatest perfection) we should sit still, and do nothing. Dissolvitur autem religio, 
De ira Dei c. 8.  si credamus Epicuro illa dicenti: Be this our Faith, says Lactantius, and farewell Religion: And if Memmius be persuaded to gratify his Ease, by being made believe that the supreme Arbiters of our actions would take little notice of them, it was no conclusion to the more illuminated Christian, that to approach the tranquillity of the Deity, men should pursue their Ease, or hid their Talents in a Napkin. God is always so full of Employment, that the most accurate Definers of him, style him to be Actus purus, to denote his eternal and incomprehensible activity? Creating, Preserving, and Governing: always doing Justice and giving Laws, rewarding the Virtuous, and defending the Innocent. For what Cicero affirms of the Philosophic life, relates to their Science, not their Solitude; and so indeed the Conscience of our Duty, joined with our performance of it, renders us like our Maker, and therefore rightly inferred by Plutarch, that the lives of Great Persons should resemble that of the Gods, who delight in such actions as proceed from beneficence, and doing good to others; since the contemplation of it alone was superior to all other satisfactions: But what if the same Cicero tell us in another place, that those who do nothing considerable in this world, are to be reputed but as so many dead men in it? 
C. 2. de Nat. Deor.  Mihi enim qui nihil agit, esse omnino non videtur, says he; and what is yet more remarkable, as 'tis opposed to what he seems to press from the lazy Deity of Epicurus: Certainly, God that would not permit the World itself to remain in Idëa only, but published and brought it forth to light by the very noblest of all his actions (for such was its educing out of nothing,) and that of seven whole days and nights, 
Gen. 2. 2.  reposed but one himself; and has been ever since preserving and governing what he made; shows us us by this, and by the continual motions of the Stars, and revolutions of the heavenly Bodies, that to resemble him (which is the sum of felicity) we should always be in action, and that there is nothing more agreeable to his nature. If we have recourse to the mystic Theology of the Ancients, we shall found there also, that even Minerva could not conceive without the operations of Vulcan, which signifies labour and the active life, not more than jupiter himself; and that Hercules was not admitted into the Celestial Courts, till he had first produced the Trophies of his heroic achievements: To this all the Mythology of the Heathens refer; and therefore doubtless, if Beatitude be our summum bonum (as all consent it to be) 'twas well said of the Philosopher, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Beatitude was Action, 
Arist. 7. de Repub. c. 3 Ethic. l. 1. c. 12.  and that Action by way of transcendency, was proper only to Man.  
But to pursue the method of our ingenious Author, whilst he is thus eloquently declaiming against Public Employment, Fame, Command, Richeses, Pleasure, Conversation and all the topics of his Frontispiece, and would persuade us wholly to retire from the active World; why is he at all concerned with the empty breath of Fame, and so very fond of it, that without remembering the known saying, Nemo eodem tempore assequi potest magnam famam, & magnam quietem, would have men celebrated for doing nothing? Verily there is more of Ambition and empty glory in some Solitudes, and affected Retreats, than in the most exposed and conspicuous actions whatsoever: Ambition is not only in public places, and pompous circumstances; but at home, and in the interior life; Heremits themselves are not recluse enough to seclude that subtle spirit, Vanity: Gloriari otio iners ambitio est, 
Sen. Ep. 78  'Tis a most 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.  
Neocles brother to Epicurus, as Suidas tells us, was the Father of that wary expression, Latenter esse vivendum, whence Balzac assumed it: What says Plutarch? Even he that said it, said it that he might be known: I will not add how severely he pursues it (because our Author may be concerned, that a second Impression has (I'm told) transmitted us his name) but if it be the property of those who are excessively ambitious themselves to redargue the glory and dignity of their Corrivals, that they alone may possess it; the resemblance was not inept, which compared those decriers of Public Employment to the Slaves in Galleys, 
Plut.  whose faces are averse from the place to which they tend, and advance forward, whilst they seem to go backwards. That which renders Public Employment culpable, is, that many affect Greatness, few Virtue, for which honours are alone desirable; be good and you cannot be too popular, community makes it better; for permit me to affirm, that there is an honourable and noble ambition, and nothing I think which more distinguishes man from brutes, their low and useless appetites; whilst this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, this despising of glory is the mother of sloth, and of all unworthy actions: Well therefore did the Philosopher assign its contrary, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Eth. ad Eud. c. 5  Magnanimity, and even some sort of Ambition too, a kind of rank amongst the Virtues: and we know Contemptu famae, contemni virtutes, and that even life itself (if the circumstances be handsome) will be parted withal to preserve it.  
But let us suppose the motives why men pursue greatness, to be some of the particulars here enumerated: may we not as well affirm Celador flies it for the appendent burden, and because 'tis expensive, out of closeness and avarice, humour, or want of ability? some grow sullen and peevish that they be not advanced; others are naturally Hypocondriacs and Saturnine, tempers of the basest aloy: But when opulent & great persons (says he) undertake Public Charges, the very rabble have so much of prudence as to condemn them for mad: when Philosophers, they serve their Country, not their inclinations, etc. None indeed but the rabble make that judgement; for being commonly mad, they think all others like themselves; and when Philosophers pretend it, it seems by him they cease to be Philosophers, and than 'tis no matter what they say. The truth is, men than begin to praise Retirement, when either not longer vigorous and capable to act, that their spirits and bodies fail; through age, infirmity, and decay of senses; or when they cannot otherwise attain to what they aspire; which sufficiently justifies the preference of Employment; since to be thus happy, they must first begin to dote. Nor does the Merchant traffic so dearly for Solitude, but for his Ease, and the difference is wide between them: If to be owner of a stately house, to be bravely furnished, to have a fair Lady, a rich Coach, and noble Retinue; if to eat good meat, drink the most generous Wine, and make more noise amidst his jolly friends, than ever he did either at Sea, or the Camp, be a Merchant or a Soldier's Solitude; who would not desire the pretty Retreat which he describes? For this (I take it) 'tis that both Merchants blow the Seas, that Lawyers break their brains, and Soldiers fight battles: in sum, to live at ease, and splendidly; who before, and whilst employed, were the Pillars and Ornaments of their Country. When Caesar is brought for an instance, aliquando licebit mihi vivere, were it possible to wrist it to the sense of this argument; it aught yet so far to dissuade us from the pursuit of his example, as 'tis perfectly opposite to an Evangelical, as well as moral position: No man (saith S. Paul) lives to himself: 
Rom. 14. 7  No man, says Cicero, is born for himself: Certainly the great Augustus had learned that lesson too well to affect repose for himself only; or with an intention to relax the excellent Government which rendered that age of his so happy above others: He knew justice and Fortitude were active Virtues, and that Princes are Shepherds, whose function 'tis not to play all day on the Pipe, and make love to Amarillis; but to attend the good of their flock: Nor indeed should they trifle their hours in giving audience to Bouffoons, or sport with Apes: Would it become an Emperor, who should march before Legions, and give Laws to Kingdoms, to play with Cockle-shells, or be stabbing Flies, when Ambassadors are attending him, as Domitian did? For what can this mihi vivere less signify in a Prince, whose greatest glory proceeds from actions, profitable and public, and to live for others, such as renowned the memory of this gallant Hero? whilst the rest abandoning themselves to ease, effeminacy, and fantastic pleasures (like Tiberius in his Capriae) became the pity of their age, and the subjects of Tragedy and satire: Caesar than breathed after Retirement for relaxation only, and that he might revert to his charge with the more courage and vigour: Thus Scipio and Lelius went apart, thus Cicero and Varro, and not to sing Verses to the Forests and Rocks, and dialogize with Echoes, the entertainments of Solitude.  
Neither does he lesle err in preferring it to public business in respect of dignity; seeing that which takes care for the being of so many Societies, is infinitely more honourable than what has only regard to it self; and if his Logic hold, quod effecit tale, est magis tale, those are most to be reputed happy, who tender others so; since God and Nature come under the consideration: Can his happy man remain in that desirable estate, without the active lives of others to protect him from rapine, feed and supply him with Bread, clothes, and decent necessaries? For 'tis a grand mistake to conceive, that none are employed, but such as are all day on horseback, fight Battles, or sitting in Tribunals: What think you of Ploughmen and Artificers? nay the labours of the brain that excogitates new Arts, and produce so many useful things for human Society, opposed to our Gentleman-hawker and Hunter, who rises so early and takes so much pains to so little purpose? A good Architect may without great motion operate more than all the inferior Workmen, who toil in the Quarries and dip their hands in mortar; and when the Historian had summed up a world of gallant persons who fought bravely for their Country, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aelian.  he did not esteem those to be lesle employed who served it by their Counsel: The Commonwealth is an assembly regulated by active Laws, maintained by Commerce, disciplined by Virtue, cultivated by Arts, which would fall to universal confusion and solitude indeed, without continual care and public intendency; and he that governs as he aught, is Master of a good Trade in the best of Poet's sense as well as mine: 
Strive thou brave Roman how to govern well, 
Aen. 6. Tu regere imperio populos—   
Be these the Arts, in which thou dost excel;  
Subjects to spare, and the bold Rebels quell.  For when Epicurus (who chose the private life above all) discourses of Public Ministers, he is forced to acknowledge that to be at Helm, is better than lying along in the Ship; not as 'tis indeed more honourable and conspicuous alone, but because 'tis more noble beneficium dare, quam accipere; and the sentence is of God as well as Man: For so the Apostle, 
Act. 20. 35.  it is more blessed to give than to receive: But 'tis not for nothing, that Patron of the Idle, does now and than so much celebrated action, and Public Employment: since unless salva sit Respublica, the Commonwealth be secure, even the slothful man himself cannot enjoy his sloth.  
We may with more justice condemn the ambition of Pyrrhus than derive any advantage from his reply: For my part I think we are obliged to those glorious Conquerors for the repose, knowledge and morality they have imparted to us; when but for their Achievements and heroic actions, more than half the World had still remained barbarous, and the universe but one vast Solitude indeed. The Activity of men does best cover their frailties: Arts and Industry having supplied that which Nature has denied us; and if Felicity consist in Perfection, certainly whatever makes us to approach it nearest, renders us most happy. But his Wiseman's wit consists it seems in repute only: I had rather be wise than so reputed; and than is this not more advantage to Solitude, than the Melancholy and Silence he speaks of; the one being the basest of humours, and the other the most averse from Instruction, which is the Parent of Virtue: whilst Felicity in this article, appears the result of cheat; and imposture, and in making men seem what indeed they are not; whereas active persons produce themselves to the world, and are sooner to be judged what they are by what they do, according to that well known test Officium indicat virum. As therefore truth is preferable to hypocrisy, so is Employment before this Solitude: Had he affirmed Peace was better than War, he had gained my suffrage even almost to an unjust one; but whilst his antitheta are Solitude and Employment to state the period of Felicity, he as widely mistakes, as one that should affirm from the Text, that the milk and honey of Canaan dropped into the mouths of the Israelites without a stroke for it; whilst it cost so many years' travels in the Desert, and bloody battles, and that the wisest and happiest men in it, were the most active, and the most employed.  
To instance in the passion of Statesmen, breathing after self-enjoyment, and that to possess it a moment, they are even ready to disoblige their dearest interest; is not certainly to commend Retirement, but declaim against it. Had David been well employed, fair Bathsheba had washed in her Garden securely, and poor Vriah outlived many a hard Siege: 'Tis an old saying, and a true one, Quem Diabolus non invenit occupatum, ipse occupat, the Devil never leaves the Idle unbusied: But if Nature, Inclination and Pleasure vote (as is pretended) for Solitude; even the most contemplative men will tell us, as well as Philosophers and Divines, that Nature is depraved, Inclination propense to Evil, and Pleasure itself, if not simply evil, no moral Virtue. Public employment is not unnatural in its ascent; for there are degrees and methods to it: but if ambitious men will needs leap when they may safely walk, or run themselves out of breath, when they may take time and consider; the fault is not in the steps, but the intemperance of the Person: Those who indeed arrive to greatness by their Vices, sit in slippery places, whilst Virtue only is able to secure her favourites: and in these sublimer Orbs, if men continued humble, and govern their passions, amidst the temptations of Pride and Insolence; if they remain generous, chaste, and patiented against all the affaults of avarice, dissolution, and the importunity of Clients; how does such a Persons example improve the world, illustrate, and adorn his station? how infinitely exceed the Miser's Diamond and all his tinsel, which shines indeed, but is locked up in the dark, and like the Candle is set under a bushel? Men of Parts should produce their talents, and not enclosing themselves as Conjurers within their Circles, raise a thousand melancholy devils that pervert their abilities, and tender them, if not dangerous, useless to their generation. Anaxagoras was a wary Person, yet he conversed with Pericles; Plato with Dion; Panetius with Scipio; Cato with Athenodorus, and Pythagoras with all the World: Would Philosophers be more active and Socratical; Princes and Great-men would become Philosophers, and States consummately happy; You know who said it: The truth is, a Wise man is a perpetual Magistrate, and never a private Person; Not one City, 
Plato.  or place, but the World is his dominion: whilst those who introduce the example of Dioclesian, and the fift Charles, to justify the honour and delices of Retirement, take for the One a proscribed Prince, whose former tyrannies had deprived him of a Kingdom, and his fears of a resumption; and for the Other, a decrepit old Emperor, whose hands were so unable to manage a Sceptre, that, as one tells us, he had not strength enough to open a letter; not to insist on his other infirmities, and suspicion which induced the more partial Historians to writ; he did it plainly to prevent an ungrateful violence; or (as others) out of indignation to see himself so far outdone by our English 
* Lo sdegno di veder si soprafar dal Re Arrigo, & altri che esso haveae voluto a questo more do schifare la fortuna aversa, etc. See more in Lodovico Dolci's vita di Carlo V.  Harry. Whatever motive it were (for there are more assigned) so far was this felicity from smiling on those who acted the Scene; that the very grimaces of fortune alone, so affrighted them from society and the public, as to unking themselves whilst they were living. I will say nothing of another Pageantry resembling this, which has happened in our own times; because the frailty of the Sex carries more of excuse with it. But it seems no retreat can secure Greatness from the Censures and Revenge of those they have once injured; and therefore even Solitude itself is not the Asylum pretended: But that which can best protect us, is, and that certainly is Grandeur, as more out of reach, and nearest Olympus' top. Aeleas the King of Scythia was want to say ingenuously, that whilst he was doing nothing, he differed nothing from his Groom; and Plutarch exceedingly reproves this shameful abdication of Princes without cause: What a dishonour (says he) had it been for Agesilaus, Numa, Darius, Pericles, Solon, or Cato to have cast of their Diadems, torn their Purple, and broken their Sceptres in pieces for the despondency of a Dioclesian? or to have given place to proud and aspiring Boys? How was Caius Gracchus reproached but for retiring from his Charge a little, though on the death of his own Brother? If ever such Retreats be justifiable, 'tis when Tyrants are at Helm, and the Commonwealth in the power of cruel persons: When the wicked (says Solomon) rise, men hid themselves: 
29 Pro. 28.  than, bene vixit, bene qui latuit: if it were not yet infinitely more laudable with Demosthenes, even than to be most active, and endeavour its rescue: For things can never arrive at that pass, ut nulli actioni honestae sit locus; 'tis Seneca's inference from the bravery of Socrates, who resisted no lesle than thirty of those Athenian Monsters together: and how many thirties more our glorious Prince did not desist to oppose, we have lived to see in the fruits of our present felicity; and to the eternal renown of that illustrious Duke, who so resolutely unnestled the late juncto of Iniquity. Turpe est cedere oneri, 'tis a weakness to truckle under a burden, and be weary of what we have with good advice undertaken: He is neither worthy nor valiant, that flies business, but whose spirit advances in courage, with the pressure and difficulties of his Charge: Were it not gallant advice (says Plutarch) to dissuade Epaminondas from taking care of the Army? bid Lycurgus enact no more wholesome Laws? and Socrates to teach Wisdom not longer? Would you bring Virtue into Oblivion? should not Arts improve? becomes it Doctors to be silent? This were taking light out of the world, and pulling the Sun from his glorious Orb; would dissolve Laws, human Sciences, and even Government itself: But he proceeds, Had Themistocles been never known of the Athenians, Greece had never given Xerxes a repulse: Had the Romans still slighted Camillus, where had that renowned City been? If Plato had not known Dion, Sicily had yet groaned under Tyranny: But as the light not only makes us known to each other, but also renders us mutually useful; so the being public, and conspicuous to the World, does not only acquire glory, but presents us means of illustrating our Virtues; whilst those who through sloth, or dissidence never exercise themselves, though they possibly may have good in them, yet they do none.  
Indeed the Petalism in Sicily caused the most able Statesmen to retire themselves; because they would not be subject to the aspiring humour of those pragmatical spirits who affected a rotation in the Public Affairs; by which means experienced persons being laid aside, those Pretenders to the Politicss, had in a short time so confounded things together, that the very People who assisted to the Change, were the first that courted them to resume their power; abrogating that foolish Law which themselves had more foolishly enacted: To the like condition had the Athenian Ostracism near reduced that once glorious Republic: and what had like to be the Catastrophe even of this our Nation, upon the same model (when every man forsooth would be a Magistrate) sad has been the experience. Men may be employed, though not all as Senators and Kings; every Wheel in a Watch has its operation in the movement, without being all of them springs: Let every man (says Epicurus) well examine his own Genius, and pursue that kind of life which he is best furnished for: if he be of a slothful nature, he is not for action; if active, he will never become a good Private-man: For as to the one rest is business, and action labour; so to the other, Otium is labour, and activity the most desirable repose.  
I am now arrived to the second period, which commences with the anxiety of great and Public Persons, upon the lest subtraction of their past enjoyments: To this I rejoin, That we can produce so many pregnant instances of the contrary, even in this age of ours, as all Antiquity can hardly parallel: Never was adverse Fortune encountered with greater fortitude and gallantry, than when so many brave men suffered patiently the spoiling of their Goods, sequestering their Estates, dissipating their substance, imprisoning their bodies, exiling their Relations, and all that can be named Calamity, to preserve their Loyalty and their Religion: In sum, when our Princes submitted to the Axe, and our Heros to the Halter; whilst we beheld people of meaner Fortunes, and private condition, lovers of Solitude and Ease, (repining at every inconsiderable loss) prostitute both their Honour and Conscience, to preserve or recover, what they but feared the loss of, and this Elegy is due to thousands of them yet surviving. I acknowledge that the ambitious person is in his sense a bottomless-pit; and that Ingratitude and Treason are too often paid for favour and good Offices: Though I have likewise asserted in what circumstances even Ambition itself is laudable, and may be styled a Virtue: But have Private men no thoughts of amplifying their Fortunes, and of purchasing the next Lordship? Marrying, not to say sacrificing their Children to the next rich Heir, and marketing for the Portion? Is there not in the best governed Families of Country Gentlemen, as much purloining, ingratitude, and infidelity amongst their few Servants and small Retinue (not to mention ungracious and disobedient Children) as in the greater Oeconomy of a Commonwealth, proportionably speaking? Where is there more emulation, contention, and canvasing, than in the remoter Villages, or next good Towns? They cell us repose too dearly (says Plutarch) 
De tranq. animi.  which we must purchase at the rate of idleness; and adds a pretty instance: If, says he, those who lest meddle in Public Employment, enjoy the greatest serenity of mind, than should doubtless Women be of all other the quietest lambs in the world, and far exceed men in peaceableness and tranquillity, since they seldom stir out of their Houses; yet we found the contrary so notorious, and this gentle Sex (whom so much as the wind dares not blow on) as full of envy, anger, anxiety, jealousy, and pride, as those who most of all converse in Public, and are men of business. And therefore we are not to measure felicity and repose from the multitude and number of Affairs, but from the temper and Virtue of the subject; besides that, 'tis often as criminal to omit the doing well, as to commit evil, and some wise States have accounted them alike. Indeed if all the world inhabited the Deserts, and could propagate like Plants without a fair Companion; had we goods in common, and the primitive fervour of those new made Proselytes; 
2 Act. 44.  were we to be governed by instinct; in a word, were all the Universe one ample Convent, we might all be contented, and all be happy; but this is an Idea no no where existant on this side Heaven; and the Hand may as well say, 
1 Cor. 2. 16.  I have no need of the Feet, and the Ears, I have no need of the Eye, as the World be governed without these necessary subordinations. Men must be prohibited all rational Conversation, and so come under the Category of brutes, to have no appetites besides eating and drinking; no passions, save the sensual: I have known as great animosities among the vulgar sort, as much bitterness of spirit, partiality, sense of injury, and revenge upon trifling occasions and suggestions, as ever I observed in the greater and more busied world: 'Twas evident that the Lacedæmonians were more proud of their mean Apparel at the Olympic Courses, than the most splendid Rhodians in all their bravery and clinquant; and Socrates soon espied the insolence of a slovenly Philosopher through his tattered mantle: The Gynic in his Tub currishly flouted the Eastern Monarch, and despised his purple that secluded him from the common beams of the Sun. He aught to be a wise and good man indeed that dares trust himself alone; for Ambition and Malice, Lust and Superstition are in Solitude, as in their Kingdom: Peritstulto, says Seneca, Recess is lost to a Fool, or an ill man; and how many weak heads are there in the world for one discreet Person! It was Crates the Disciple of Stilpon, that bid the morose walker, take heed he talked not with a Fool: some men, says Epictetns, like unskilful Musicians sing not where tolerably but in Consort; and 'tis noted he must have an excellent voice that can charm the ear alone, which renders them so difficult to be entreated. There are few Plants that can nourish themselves with their own juice; Every man grinds indeed, but the mill that has no Corn in it, grinds either chaff, or sets fire on itself.  
But he declames only against the most conspicuous Vices; and every defect in the brighter Luminaries is observed, whilst the lewd recesses of Tiberius' eclipsed none of his prodigious debaucheries: 
Sen. Ep. 82.  So true is that of the Philosopher, wherever men abscond themselves human miseries, or their vices found them out and ataque them: Multa intus (says he) many things within us enslave us, even in the midst of Solitude. Were not the greatest Philosophers, nay the very Fathers of them severely taxed for the lowest pleasures, and the sins not to be named? Seneca himself escaped not the censure of Covetous and Ambition; Pliny of excess of Curiosity; Epicurus of Riot; Socrates of Paederastie; Themistocles of Morosity; all of them of Vanity, Contempt and Fastidiousness.  
To the instance of great men's submissions to the commands of Princes, be they just or unjust, it holds well had the discourse concerned Tyrants only and Barbarians; but to produce that Example of Parmenio, and Cleander, is to quit the subject, and borrow the extravagance of a madman and a drunkard, to decry Princes and Statesmen, who are the most conspicuous examples of temperance: But I proceed to the Maxim: If nothing be morally good which labours of the lest defect, than so long as his Celador is not an Angel, he does no more come within the first part of the Definition, than the greatest and most employed Person living; and if he insist upon degrees, I answer; he lies not under the same temptation, and therefore neither can he pretend to approach his merit: but if I prove the most diabolical Arts, and cursed Machinations to have been forged by Persons of the most obscure condition, and hatched by the Sons of night, recluse, and little conversant in affairs, I shall infinitely distress that opinion of its virtue or advantage; for being either happy in itself, or rendering others so. The Monks have been so dextrous at the Knife, and other arts of mischief, that they have not trembled to make the holy and salutary Eucharist the vehicle of destruction, when they had any Kings to dispatch and put out of the way; and have made such havoc of the French Henrys, that but for these solitary birds, those Princes might have survived all their sad misfortunes: It was not for nothing that jeroboham withdrew so long into Egypt, 
1 Reg. 12. 2. 16.  (that Kingdom of Darkness) when he contrived the defection of no lesle than ten whole Tribes at a clap; and how much mischief, sin, and bloodshed it caused, the Sacred Story has accurately recorded: The blackest treasons have been forged in the Closets and gloomy recesles; Who is not amazed at the very image and thought of the Gunpowder Conspiracy! carried on and excogitated by the Devil, and a pack of these Solitary Spirits! 'Twas but an Arian Monk, and an obscure jew who first encouraged and instructed that mighty Impostor, occasioning more evil in the Christian Church and State than was ever done by all the Tyrants since it began: for it spawned not only an Heresy, but Blasphemy; razing the Christian name out of almost half the World: and the issues of the Cell are to this day conspicuous in the Fire and the Sword which has destroyed not Cities only, but whole Empires, and made more Fatherless and Widows, more desolation and confusion, and done more harm to Letters, than can be recounted; nor did the uttermost machination of the greatest Person in Employment, ever approach what one Monk set on foot out of his holy Den, that ever I could read in story; and what are all our truculent Champions of the Fift-Monarchy amongst us at this day, but so many Persons who seem to be the most selfdenying people, and the highest affected with Solitude and devout Enthusiasm, despising Honours, and public Charges, whilst they breathe nothing save ruin and destruction? They are the close, stagnate and covered Waters which stink most, and are fullest of mud and ordure, how calm and peaceable soever they seem upon the surface; whilst men of action, and public spirits, descending as from the highest rocks and eminences, though they sometimes make a noise, have no leisure to corrupt, but run pure and without mixture: There is an heavy Woe denounced in Scripture to those who thus settle on their Leeses: Physicians tell us the body is not longer in health, 
1 Zeph. 12.  than the blood is in motion and duly circulates: Action is the salt of life, and diligence the life of Action: All things in heaven are in motion, and though 'tis there only that we can promise' repose to ourselves; yet neither dare I say, we shall do nothing there; since the admiration of the beatifical Vision will certainly take up and employ all our faculties, and set them in operation; nor whilst we shall there be in perpetual Ecstasy, shall we live to ourselves, but to God alone. There is than doubtless no such thing as rest (unless it be that from earthly toil, anxieties, and the works of sin, which is that repose mentioned by the Apostle) since Action is so essential to our lives, 
Heb. 4. 9  that it constitutes our Being's; and even in all Theory and Contemplation itself, there is a kind of Action, as Philosophers do universally agreed.  
Let it be confessed the Court is a Stage of continual Masquerade, and where most men walk incognito; where the art of dissimulation (which Donna Olympia has named the Keys of the Vatican) is avowed; yet it cannot be denied, but there are some in that warm Climate too, as perfectly sincere, as in the Country; and where Virtue shines with as much lustre as in the closest Retirements, where if it give any light, it is but in a dark lantern: And to be so innocent there, where there is so much temptation, is so much the greater merit: Believe it, to conserve one's self in Court, is to become an absolute Hero; and what place more becoming Heros than the Courts of Princes? for not only to vanquish Armies in the field, defend our Country, and free the oppressed, are the gloricus actions of those Demigods; but to conflict with the regnant Vices, and overcome ourselves, greater exploits than the winning of enchanted Castles and killing of Giants: For what violence must be applied to be humble in the midst of so much flattery; chaste amongst such licence, where there is so much fire, and so much tinder, and not to look towards the fruit which in that Paradise is so glorious to the eye, and so delicious to the taste? what a disposition to purity, to come forth white from the region of Smoke, and where even the Stars themselves are not without their spots? in sum, not to fall into the nets which the noonday Devils spread under our feet, above our heads, and about us; and who pursue those that fly, and bear down those who resist? But, as I said, if the difficulties be so great, how much greater the glory? whilst pretending to no such temptation in his Solitude, there is lesle exercise for his Virtue; it being rather a privation from Evil, than any real habit to Good. Certainly, there is not in the Country, that admirable simplicity pretended, nor do they altogether transact with that integrity: For is there not among them as much iniquity in buying and selling? as much overreaching in the purchase of a Cow, or a score of Sheep? as much contention about the incrochment of a dirty fence? as much regreating with the Farmer, keeping up the price of Corn, when the poor are starving? How many Oaths and Execrations are spent to put of a diseased horse? Have we not seen as much ambition and state where the Country justice's conven e on the Market-days at the petty Towns, to have the Caps and the Knees of the Bumkins? as much canvasing for Suffrages and Voices? not to insist on the prodigious debauches, drink, emulation, and perjuries at Elections? and even greater pride, deadly feud, railing and traducing amongst the She-Pharisees, or little things of the Neighbourhood, for the upmost place in the Church-pew, or at a Goshiping-meeting, as at Court, and in the City between the Ladies of the best quality? and all this while we grow weary of the Public, and resolve against Employment, and the sound of affairs; repenting of the lost moments that are passed in Conversation: and yet in every Cave, and every Cottage, there is a chair for ambition, and a bed for luxury, and a table for riot, though hell be raining out of heaven: and it may be observed that we do not hear the least evil of Lot, or the virtue of his daughters, whilst they lived in the midst of Sodom itself, 
Gen. 19 32.  till abandoning even his little Zoar to his more solitary and cavernous recess, he fell into those prodigious crimes of ebriety and incest. Verily, that is truly great to retire from our Vices, not from Cities, or Conversation: If you be Virtuous, let your Example profit; if Vicious, repent and amend; Strive not so much to conceal your passions, as to reform them: for little do solitary persons profit, without a mind adapted for it; Wise men only enjoy themselves, not the voluptuous or morose; and I have seen some live discontented even in houses of pleasure, and so in their Solitudes, as if none were more full of business.  
When he celebrates Recess for the little it wants, he gratifies the Cynic; He could attribute as much to his Tub, and the treen dish that he drank in, which was all the house and furniture we read of; and an Owl and a Pelican want as little as the Philosopher; but he does not say by this, that Solitude is fertile: it is not from the abundance that it supplies than, but from its sterility and defects, which if it be a commendation to that, is so to nothing else in Nature.  
He proceeds again to the passions of great men, which are indeed more conspicuous, as lightning and Thunder are amongst the Meteors, and in the Air; but we do not take notice of the Corruscations, conflicts, and emotions which are every day in the bowels of the Earth: How impatient and unjust are some of your Country Gentlemen to their Domestics? how gripping to their Tenants? how unnatural to their Children, and uncivil to their Wives? Pardon me these reflections, he has compelled me: and it is for your justification (O ye Great Ones) that I found myself obliged to produce these odious comparisons; whilst I could give Celadors friend such an example in our first Charles of blessed memory, Philip the second of Spain, Alphonso of Arragon, and divers of the later Emperors, for acts of the highest Patience, Fortitude, Devotion, Constancy, and Humanity, as would shame all the pretenders to moral Virtues, in his so celebrated Retirements and private persons: With what constancy, spirit, and resignation did our Royal Martyr unjustly suffer from the machinations of the most insolent and implacable of his Vassals, is not certainly to be paralleled by any thing 〈◊〉 has recorded, save that grand Exemplar our blessed Saviour, who was a King too, but more than man: from whose emulous pattern he has transmitted to us not only all the perfections of the most innocent private persons; but the Virtues of the most eminent Saints. He was imprisoned, and reviled, spit on, and injuriously accused; he was arraigned, and by a barbarous contradiction condemned and despoiled of three Kingdoms by the most nefarious Parricide that ever the Sun beheld, and that before his own very Palace: Tell me yet you admirers of Solitude, in what corner of your Recesses dwelled there a more excellent soul, abstracted from all the circumstances of his birth and sacred Character, and considered only as a private person? Where was there a more sincere man in his actions? a more constant devote to his Religion? more faithful Husband to his Wife? and a more pious Father to his Children? in a word, a more accomplished and consummate Christian? Look on him than as a King, to be superlatively all this, and all that a good and a most virtuous Prince can be to his Subjects, and you have the Pourtraicture of our Charles opposed to all the petty Images of your solitary Gentlemen, and decryers of Public Employment. One day that Philip the second, had been penning a tedious Dispatch, importing some high affair of State, which employed him almost the whole day; he bid the Secretary that waited by him, to throw some dust on the paper; he instead of the Sand snatching up the Ink-bottle, poured it all on the letters: The King taking a large sheet of clean paper wrote it verbatim over again, and when he had finished, calmly delivering it to the confounded Secretary, bid him dry it; but, says the Prince, take notice that this is the Ink, and this the Sandbox; which was all the reproof he gave him: I instance in this (because of the rest of those Virtues I have enumerated, there are such Volumes of Examples) to put to silence all that can be produced, upon the account of that passion, which is so frequently charged on Great Persons; but which indeed upon the most trifling occasions, use to discompose the most retired persons: And what if amongst these, besides many others, I should instance in S. Hierome himself, and other Fathers of the Church, as recluse and private as they were known to be Religious.  
As to the comparative exemption of Solitude from Vice for want of opportunity; the advantage is very slender; since (with what I have already furnished to evince it) it implies only what monsters it would else produce; and indeed the most formidable that were ever hatched, have thence had their original; as I have abundantly proved by the dark and infernal machinations of Solitary Persons: so as his Happyman seems at best to be but a starved, or Chained Lion, who would do mischief enough had he liberty, and a power equal to his will: 'Tis instanced in the madness of some few Heathen Emperors; but he passes by the salutary Laws promulged by them for the universal good: Nor were there so many debauched and Vicious of the Roman heretofore, but I can name you as many Christian Princes religious to miracle and without reproach, if what is already said be not sufficiently irreplicable. As for the rest, whatever they might once have been in their ascent; it was said of Caesar, that either he should never have aspired to dominion, or having once attained it, been immortal; so just, so equal, and so merciful was his successive Reign: Never was it pronounced of any private Person, that he was a man after Gods own heart; but we know it was so of a King, and that from the Almighty himself. And not to mention Hezekias, josias, jehosaphat and many others recorded in holy Writ: I durst oppose an Augustus, a Titus, a Trajan, Antoninus, Aurelius; to omit Constantine, Theodosius, justinian, Charles the Great, S. Edward, S. Lewes, both the Alphonso's and divers more of the Crowned heads, before any, or all he can produce: It's true, they all died not in their beds; no more do all in his Solitude; for they often hung themselves, linger in Consumptions, break their necks in hunting, inflame themselves with tippling; perish of the unactive Scorbut; Country Agues and Catarrhs: And if he speak it out, who they were that stabbed the two Henrys, and our gallant Buckingham whom he mentions; it must be avowed they were all murdered by private persons: But whilst he is thus exact in recording all the Vices of ill Princes; because the spots in the Sun are so easily discerned by his optic; he takes no notice of the light it universally diffuses, and is silent of the Virtues of the good and the beneficent, who have both in all ages rewarded, cherished and protected gallant men: But when he shall have passed through all the Examples of the Great-ones who are come to ruin and destruction, he does not examine how many private men, Gentlemen and others, remain in any one Country, whose patrimonial Estates are not impaired by as trifling contests, neglects, prodigality and ill-husbandry, as any he charges upon those eminent Persons.  
If Solitude be assistant to Religion and Devotion, how much more is Society? 
Mat. 18. 20.  Where two or three are assembled together in my name, there am I in the midst of them: I know no Text, where acts of Religion are commended for being solitary: It is true, our blessed Saviour went apart into desert places 
Luk. 9 10.  to avoid the importunities of a malicious and incredulous people: but he was tempted there, 
Mat. 4. 1.  as well as in the City; and though he sometimes retired to pray; 
Luk. 6. 12.  and which was commonly in the night, when conversation with the world was lesle seasonable; he was all day teaching in the Temple, 
Luk. 21. 37.  or continually going about doing good, 
Mat. 4. 23.  and healing all manner of diseases among the people, giving counsel to, and instructing his Disciples, whom he dispersed over the world to Evangelize his holy Doctrine. 
Mar. 16. 15.  We are indeed bid to offer up our prayers to our heavenly Father in secret, 
Mat. 6. 2. 6.  and to do our Alms without a Trumpet; not because it adds to the dignity of the service, but to avoid the temptation of hypocrisy, and because we have infirmities; whilst we are yet in another place commanded to tender our Works so illustrious, that both men may see them, 
Mat. 5. 16.  and God may have the glory. Certainly, the most instructive motives to Religion are from our imitation of others, and the incentives of devout Congregations, as they approach the nearest resemblance to the Church Catholic Militant here on earth, so doubtless do they to the Communion of Saints Triumphant in Heaven: Is there than no devotion save in Conventicles and Cells? and yet even the most recluse Carthusian spend eight hours of the twelve in divine Offices together: The commendation of a true Christian consists in doing, not in meditating only; and it were doubtless an admirable compendium of all our notional disputes in Religion, if lesle were believed, and more were practised. 'Tis true Mary's sitting at the feet of our Saviour, and harkening to his instructions, was preferred before busy Martha's employment; but the man who laid up his Master's Talon, 
Luk. 10. 41.  and actively improved it not, did worse; 
Mat. 25. 26. 30.  she was gently reproved, he severely condemned.  
But he adds, that most temptations are in Solitude disarmed of the chains which tender them formidable to us in Public, as there wanting the presence of an inflaming object, etc. But what if I sustain that absence does oftentimes augment the passion he speaks of, and that our fancies operate more eagerly when alone, than when we are possessed of the object? 
Nor is there half so warm a fire  
In fruition as desire;  
When we have got the fruit of pain,  
Possession makes us poor again;  
Sense is too niggardly for bliss,  
And pays as dully with what is:  
Whilst Fancy's liberal, and gives all  
That can within her largeness fall, etc.   
Thus we are ever the most inquisitive after mysteries and hidden things, whilst those we enjoy, we neglect or grow weary of: But I proceed: The most superstitious of men have been the greatest Eremites, and besides the little good they do by their Example, there is not in the world a life more repugnant to nature, and the opportunities of doing our duty; since even the strongest Faith without Works will not save us: For how can he that's immured perform those acts of misericord, which shall be so severely exacted of us at the last judgement; to feed the hungry, visit, the sick, 
Mat. 25. 35, 36.  cloth the naked, unless it be in the mock-sense of St. james, 
Ja. 2. 16.  Departed in peace, be you warmed and filled, etc. whilst they give neither meat nor clothes to refresh the miserable? But I am altogether astonished at his instance in David again, as prompted to his lust and murder by the ill fate of his public Character; when 'tis evident, had he been employed, or but in good company, he had never fallen into so sad a crime: Let it be remembered that he was alone upon the Battlements of his Palace, 
2 Sam. 11. 2.  and than all the water in Bathsheba's Fountain was not cold enough to extinguish his desires; so mighty a protectress is Society from that particular temptation, that even the presence of a Child has frustrated an opportunity of being wanton. If it were Gods own verdict, 
Gen. 2. 18.  that to be alone was an evil state, how come we to have Adam's society blamed? for even Adam, he says, could not live innocent a day in it: But, besides that the short duration of his felicity is but a conjecture; I have some where read, that but for Eves curiosity, which prompted her to stray from the company and presence of her Husband, the Serpent (as subtle as he was) had never found an opportunity to tempt her: He was indeed too easily enticed by her example, and no marvel, he was himself alone; God had forsaken his sweet associate, and than the first effects of both their shame and disobedience was their dark retirement: 
Gen. 3. 10.  Doubtless there are many heinous sins which Company preserves us from, for it is even a shame to speak of some things, which are done by men in secret.  
I suppose it was no Widow (as he speaks her to be) who so hospitably entertained the great Elisha, but a married Lady, 
2 Reg. 8. 9, 10.  and of an ample Fortune: For the Text calls her a great woman; and we found her speaking to her Husband in another place, concerning the building and furniture of the Prophet's Chamber: Nor does the answer she returned him, at all imply her wants; she plainly needed nothing that the Court could confer upon her; only an Heir she wanted to inherit: she lived amongst her People, and had company enough. And verily we shall found the Solitude of the same Prophet to be the effect of a Persecution, not of his preferring it before Society; & we meet the holy man much oftener at Court, in the Camp, at the College, & perpetually employed, than either in the mountains or in the Wilderness. But let us grant that some Devotions are best performed in our Closets, yet does the life of a Christian consist only in wearing the marbles with our knees? I have already showed that there are Works of Charity, that can no no where be so well performed as in company: nor can I assent that the being alone contributes half so much to our zeal, as the examples of Conversation: How frequently does David repeat his ardent affections, and address to the Tabernacle, 
22. Ps. 25. 35.— 18. 40— 9, 10  and the great Congregation? And though the Country about Sinai, were a howling desert; 
Deut. 32. 10.  yet had it at one time in it, not lesle than six hundred thousand fight men together, 
Numb. 1. 46.  whereof the most devout were the most publicly employed: Witness Moses, Aaron, joshua, Caleb, Phineas, etc. which being but in the minority and pupillage of that Church, were all this while but preparing for God's public Worship, and the constitution of a People in the world the most busy and employed.  
To the Text in Hosea 2. 14. where God says he will comfort his Church in the Wilderness: I oppose his innumerable sweet compellations under the type of the Daughter of Zion, which was a great and most eminent part of that populous City, and that glorious accession of the Gentiles described by Isaiah. The Tabernacle was indeed for a time in the Wilderness; 
Isaiah 60.  but neither did that, nor the extraordinary presence of God in it, restrain a rebellious people from committing more crimes and insolences in it, in forty years, than in four hundred before, when they dwelled in the Cities of Egypt: For (as the Psalm) Lust came upon them in the Wilderness, 
Ps. 106. 14  and they tempted God in the Desert. It is well known that the first occasion of the Monastical life, we because men could not longer live quietly in the more frequented places, by reason of the heat of Persecution; and yet even in their remotest recesses, he that looks into St. Hieroms description of it, 
Passim in Epist.  shall found that they were in such numbers, and so near to one another, that they were almost perpetually in Company; nor does any, I think, consider the stories of Onuphius, Anthony, Simon Stylites and the rest of that Spirit, but as hypocondriacs, singular persons, and Authors of much superstition and unprofitable severity: The invasion of the Goths on the Roman Empire, drove multitudes of those holy persons to these Latebrae, 
1 Cor. 7. 26.  and the present distress (to use St. Paul's expression) might sometimes be a sufficient argument to recommend, if not prefer, the Coelibate before the Conjugal estate, and the barbarity of that age to the extraordinary mode of living, which from compulsion and a certain cruel necessity, became afterwards to be of choice and a voluntary obligation. But does he think to derive any force to his darling Solitude, from the servile and busy occupations, which none save Heathens and Mahumitans teach, shall be among infernal torments? Turks and scoffing Lucian's may possibly broach those Fancies of the impertinent employments of Alexander and Caesar in the other World; but I presume he takes them but for the dreams of that Philosophical drol, and to have no solid foundation besides their scoffing and Atheistical Wits. He is now pleased again, to imagine that there is nothing which does more prevail with men to affect Grandeur, than what he thinks due only to Phantosms and Ghosts: Though Fame be indeed a bubble in the estimation of those who are not much concerned for the future; I found yet how impossible it was for him to secure any praise even to Solitude itself, by the neglect of it; whilst he so carefully has consecrated to posterity the Names and Eulogies of so many as seemingly despised it, on purpose to obtain it: But this stratagem is very thin and transparent: For such as he mentions not, I presume never were, and those he does record, have purchased more by that artifice, than if they had continued men of the busiest Employment; Charles the fifth and the rest he ennumerates, being more celebrated for their supposed voluntary abdication (whatever the true motive were) than for all the most glorious passages of their former Reigns: But however these great men are beholden to their Patron, I confess the Pedants (as he calls them) and the Poets are not lesle obliged to him for the power he attributes them of being able to make great whomsoever they please: But those persons I should think, to have little merited of Posterity, whose memory has no other dependence than their airy suffrages; when it is from the sober Pens, and the veritable Memoires of Grave and Faithful Historians, that the Heroic lives of deserving men receive life and immortality after death. Let the Pedants and the Poets than celebrated the soft and weakest circumstances of the reigns of those Princes he would justify; the Pens of great and Illustrious Authors shall eternize those who persevered in their grandeur, and public Charges to the end: for such were Xenophon, Polybius, Tacitus, Livy, and even Caesar himself, besides many others as well of ancient as modern times, from whose writings we have received the noblest Characters of their Virtues: And if it be retorted, that whilst they actually writ, they were retired; I grant it; but if men had not done things worthy Writing, where had been either the use, or fame of what they so bravely acted, and transmitted to Posterity? In the mean time I acknowledge, that the greatest Empire is to command one's self, and that the Courts of Princes have always had this of ungrateful to generous Souls; that they but too frequently subject gallant men to caparizoned Asses; gay, but vicious, or insipid: Princes are not always happy in their choice of Favourites: But as it is not universally so, and that it is in the breast of the same Prince to turn them of, or lay by the Counters, to advance Good men, and bring Virtue into reputation, these external submissions may the better be supported: For wise men do not bend the knee to the Beast (we have the example of Mordecai) but to the Shrine it bears, 
Hest. 3. 2.  as those who adored Isis upon the back of the Animal that carried it: And so the Sun may shine on a Dunghill unpolluted, and thus it shall be done to the man whom the King is pleased to honour; which though it denotes obedience in the observer, does no real dignity to the recipient, nor can they themselves but believe it with some useful reflection as often as they see a respect paid them, which they must needs be conscious to themselves they do not deserve. I cannot therefore accuse the deferent of so much adulation, as praise him for his obedience, so long as he offers no divine, or Consumptive Oblations to the Idol, and offends not God: For there is certainly no man merely by being a Courtier, obliged to imitate their vices, or subject themselves to the unworthy compliances he would insinuate; since in that case, a fair retreat is always in ones power; and if on that score, or the experience of his personal frailty, he be prompted to it, how infinitely more glorious will be the example of quitting those specious advantages, which can neither be conserved, or attained without succumbing under a temptation? And when he discourses of society, instancing in the trisling conversation of idle persons, and Knights of the Carpet, who consume their precious moments at the feet of some insipid female, or in pursuit of the pleasures of the lower belly; I hearty assent: There are a sort of Bouffoons and Parasites which are the very excrements of Conversation, as well in Country as Courts; and to be therefore treated as such, wiped of, and cast from us; and there are worthier diversions for men of refined sense, when they feel themselves exhausted with business, and weary of action: Certainly, those who either know the value of themselves, or their employments, may found useful entertainments, without retiring into Wildernesses, immuring themselves, renouncing the World, and deserting public affairs; and when ever you see a great person abandoned to these dirty and mean familiarities; he is an object of pity, and has but a little Soul; nothing being more true, Noscitur ex socio, qui non cognoscitur ex se. But God be thanked, the age is not yet so barren of ingenuous spirits, but that men may found Virtue with facetiousness, and worthy conversations without morosity to entertain the time with: He has else been strangely unhappy in his acquisitions, who is to seek for good company to pass an hour with, if ever he sought one of the sweetest condiments of life: and doubtless, did great persons but once taste the difference which is between the refined conversation of some Virtuous men, who can be infinitely witty, and yet inoffensive; they would sand some of their damned familiars with a Dog-whip out of their Companies; because a man of honour (to use jobs expression) would disdain to set them with the dogs of his flock: 
Job 30. 1.  For after their prostituted and flavish sense and contrivances are spent upon the praise or acquisition of some fair sinner, or the derision of what is more excellent than themselves, to supply their want of furniture, fill their emptiness, and keep up a worthy and truly recreative and profitable conversation, they degenerate into flatness and shame, and are objects rather of pity than envy. Men of business do not cell their moments to these triflers; Conversation should whet and adorn our good parts, and the most excellent endowments both of nature, industry and grace would grow dull and effete without culture and exercise: let men choose their company as they aught, and let them keep as much as they please; it is but to sit on a bright place, and the Chameleon itself is all shining: Men will contract both Colour and perfume from the qualities of their associates: This made Moses' face to glister, and the Conversation of good men as well as bad, is alike contagious.  
But 'tis objected that familiarity creates contempt. I reply, it was never seen amongst those who know truly what it signified: 'tis one thing to be civil, and affable, useful and accessible, without being impudent, rustic or cheap in our addresses: They skill little of the pleasure and delices of a worthy friendship, who know not how to enjoy, or preserve it without satiety; that's left to the meaner sort, and was indeed not to have been instanced in so generous a discourse. There is no better means to preserve our esteem with others, than by setting a value on ourselves.  
To what's alleged of the variety private persons enjoy in their own cogitations, and the reading of other men's books, so much superior to Conversation, and the reading of men; One of the greatest Book-writers in the world will tell you; 
Cic. de Amicit.  that should a man ascend as high as Heaven itself, not by contemplation, only but ocular intuition, and surveyed all the beauty and goodly motions of the Stars; it would be little delight or satisfaction to him, unless he had some body to communicate his speculations to; Sic natura solitarium nihil amat; whence he nobly infers, how highly necessary Conversation is to friendship; & that he must certainly be of no good nature, who does not prefer it before all other enjoyments of life whatsoever: We know who it is has pronounced the Vae soli, 
Eccles. 4. 10.  and how necessary God found the Conjngations of Mankind, without which nor had the Earth been inhabited with Men, nor Heaven filled with Saints: Solomon says Two are better than One, and a threefold cord is not easily broken; 
Eccles. 4. 9 12.  and Plutarch tells us that of old they were want to call men Photo, which imports light; not only for the vehement desire which there is in him to know and be known; but (as I would add) for its universal communication; there being few of whom it may be affirmed, as 'twas of Scipio, that he was never less idle, than when alone, and which as the orator has it, do in Otio de negotiis cogitare, & in solitudine secum loqui; But thus did those great persons neither affect nor use it, other than as the greater Vessels and beaten Ships after a storm, who go aside to trim and repair, and pass out again: So he, tanquam in portum, and therefore by that Master of Eloquence, infinitely preferred to those who quite retired out of business for ease and self indulgence only: Seneca in his Book De Otio Sapientis totally condemns this cogitative virtue, as a life without action, an imperfect and languishing good; and in the same Chapter: Why does a Wiseman retire himself but as a Bow is unbent ut cessando majora? instancing the recess of Zeno and Chrysippus, whose very repose was it seems more busy than other men's actions: But let us hear him speak; 
Tran.  what, says he! Solitude makes us love ourselves, Conversation others; the one to comfort, the other to heal; the one allays, the other whets and adds new vigour: Nothing pleases always; and therefore God who has built us for labour, provides us also refreshments: Socrates himself was not ashamed to play the Child with Children; severe Cato took sometimes a chirping Cup; and Asinius Pollio diverted himself after Pleading; and the wisest Legislators ordained Holy-days, and some grave men took their pastime at Dinner, or walking in their Gardens, and among their facetious friends, when the greatest Persons laid of their State, constraint and other circumstances which their Characters obliged them to personate; but they did never grow angry with business, and depose themselves, for Multum interest, remittas aliquid an solvas, there's a wide difference 'twixt relaxation and absolute relinquishing; and to imagine that great persons have little repose, when twixt-every stroke of the Anvil the very Smith has leisure to breathe, is an egregious mistake: The Compass which moves in the largest Circle, has a limb of it fixed to the Centre; and do we think that Honour, Victory, and Richeses (which tender all things supportable, besides the benefits which it is in the power of great Ones, to place on worthy persons) are not pleasures equal to all other refreshments of the spirits? For my part, I believe the capacity of being able to do good to deserving men, so excessive a delight, that as 'tis nearest the life of God himself, so no earthly felicity approaches it; wherefore wisely (says Plutarch) did the Ancients impose those names upon the Graces, to show that the joy of him that does a kindness, exceeds that of the Beneficiary; many (says he) blushing when they receive favours, but never when they bestow them.  
As for Books, I acknowledge with the Philosopher, 
Sen.  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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 letter-struck men; for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 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 majus 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 Caesar, Cicero, Seneca, both the plinies, Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato, Xenophon, Polybius, not to omit these of later ages, and reaching even to our own doors, in our Sidny, Verulam, Raleigh, the Count of Mirandula, Scaliger the Father, Tycho Brache, Thuanus, Grotius, etc. profound men of letters, and so active in their lives, as we shall found them to have managed the greatest of Public Charges, not only of their native Countries, but some of them of the World itself: Aelian has employed two entire Chapters expressly to vindicate Philosophers from the prejudices and aspersions of those (who like our Antagonist) deemed the study of it inconsistent with their administration of Public Affairs: There he shows us that Zeleucus both constituted and reform the Locrian Republic; 
Var. hist. l. 3. 6. 17.  Charondas that of Catana, and after his Exile that of Rhegium: The Tarentine was exceedingly improved by Archytas: Solon governed the Athenians; Bias and Thales much benefited jonia, Chilon the Lacedæmonians, and Pittacus that of Mitylena: The Rhodians Cleobulus: and Anaximander planted a Colony at Apollonia from Miletus: Xenophon was renowned for his military exploits, and approved himself the greatest Captain amongst all the Greeks in the expedition of Cyrus, who with many others perished: for when they were in a straight for want of one to make good their retreat, he alone undertook and effected it. Plato the Son of Aristo brought back Dio into Sicily; instructing him how he should subvert the Tyranny of Dionysius: Only Socrates indeed deserted the care of the Athenian Democraty, for that it more resembled a Tyranny; and therefore refused to give his suffrage for the condemning those ten gallant Commanders, nor would he by any means countenance the thirty Tyrants in any of their flagitious actions: But when his dear Country lay at stake, than he cheerfully took up Arms, and fought bravely against Delium, Amphipolis and Potidea: Aristotle when his Country was not only reduced to a very low ebb, but almost utterly ruin'd, restored her again: Demetrius Phalerius governed Athens with extraordinary renown till their wont malice expelled him; and yet after that, he enacted many wholesome Laws, whilst he sojourned with King Ptolemy in Egypt: Who will deny Pericles' son of Xanthippus to have been a most profound philosopher? or Epaminondas, Photion, Aristides and Ephialtes the sons of Polymnes, Phocus, Lysander and Sophonidas, and some time after Carneades and Critolans? who were employed Ambassadors to Rome, and obtained a Peace, prevailing so far by their Eloquence and discreet behaviour, as that they used to say, the Athenians had sent Ambassadors not to persuade them to what they pleased but to compel them: Now can we omit Perseus his knowledge in Politics who instructed Antigonus; nor that of the great Aristotle, who instituted the young, but afterwards great Alexander in the study of Letters; Lysis the Disciple of Pythagoras instructed Epaminondas: I shall not need to importune you with more recitals (though he resumes the same instances in the 14. Chapter of his 7th Book) to celebrated the renown of Learned Men for their knowledge and success in arms, as well as in civil government, where he tells us of Plato's exploit at Tanagra, and many other great Scholars; but show you rather how he concludes: He (says AElian, for it seems there were some admirers of solitude too before our days) that shall affirm Philosophers to be 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  unfit for public employment, and business, talks childishly, and like an ignorant: and Seneca gives so harsh a term to those who pretended that public affairs did hinder the progress of Letters, 
Ep. 62.  and the enjoyment of ourselves, that the language would be hardly sufferable from any save a stoic; Mentiuntur, says he Wise men do not subject themselves to the employments they undertake, but accommodate and lend themselves to them only: So as our Antagonist could not have chosen a Topic less to the advantage of solitude, or the humour of his happy Celador, whilst being confined to specnlation and Books alone, he deprives himself of that pleasing variety which he contends for. These great men were men of Action, and men of Knowledge too, and so may persons of the busiest employments, were they as careful to improve their time and opportunities, as those glorious Heroes were: Which puts me in mind of what I have heard solmnly reported; that 'tis an ordinary thing at Amsterdam to found the same Merchant who in the morning was the busiest man in the World at Exchange-time, to be reading Plato or Xenophon in Greek, or some other of the learnedst Authors and Poets, at home in the afternoon. And there is no man (says my Lord Bacon) can be so straitened, and oppressed with business, and an active course of life, but he may reserve many vacant times of leisure (if he be diligent to observe it, and how much he gives to play, insignificant discourses, and other impertinences) whilst he expects the returns, and tides of affairs; and his own Example has sufficiently illustrated what he writes, whose studies and productions have been so obliging to the Learned World, as have deservedly immortalised his name to Posterity.  
But he proceeds, and indeed ingenuously acknowledges that men of letters are in constraint, when they speak before great persons, and in Company: And can you praise solitude for this virtue? O prodigious effect of Learning, That those who have studied all their lives time to Speak, should than 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, 'tis the only reproach of men of Letters, that for want of liberal conversation some of them appear in the world like so many fantosmes 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, 
Hist.  (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 aught not to be blamed for being a Courtier, and that we now and than found them in the company of great and opulent Persons; nor imports it that you seldom see their visits returned; since 'tis 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 and show 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 all the points of Martial and juvenal ad vuguem, 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 by his Aunt: This was of old (says Seneca) the Epidemical disease, 
De brevitate Vitae.  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 wounderful is the concern about Caudex, for the derivation of Codices, Caudicarius, etc. Gellius or Agellius, Vergilius or Virgilius, with the like trifles that make men idly busy indeed, not better: yet are these amongst the considerable effects and rare productions of Recess, Solitude, and Books, and some have grown old in the learning, and been greatly admired for it: But what says our Philosopher to it? Cujus isti errores minuent? Cujus cupiditates prement, quem fortiorem, quem justiorem, quem liberaliorem facient? Who's the better, lesle Covetous, more Valiant, Just, or Liberal for them? I tell you Fabianus preferred Ignorance before this unprofitable Science; and certainly therefore useful and Public Employment is infinitely superior to it: If needs we will be Learned out of Books only, let it be in something more useful; Qui fructuosa, non qui multa scit, sapit; for 'tis no Paradox to affirm, a man may be learned and know but little, and that the greatest Clerks, are not always the wisest men. 
Isocrat.  The Greek Orator gives us this description of usefully knowing men: Reckon not those (says he) for Philosophers, whom you found to be acute Disputants, and that can contest about every minute scruple; but those who discourse pertinently of the most important Affairs: who do not entertain men about a felicity, to which they can never arrive; but such as speak modestly of themselves, and neither want Courage nor address on all emergencies; that are not in the lest discomposed with the common accidents of life, but that stand unshaken amidst all vicissitudes, and can with Moderation support both Good and Adverse Fortune; In sum, those who are fit for action, not discouraged, or meditating retreats upon every cross adventure: to this purpose the Orator: But neither would I by this be thought to discountenance even this kind of Erudition, which more than any other is the effect of Solitude, and very great leisure, not to call it Pedantry; much lesle Bookish and Studious persons, who would prove the most dear to Princes and Great men of all other Conversations, had they such generous encouragements, as might sometimes invite them to leave their beloved Recesses, as did those great Philosophers whom we have brought on the Stage: But we bestow more now a days in painting a Scene, and the expense of a ridiculous farce, than in rewarding of the Poet, or a good Historian, whose Laurels not longer thrive and are verdant, than they are irriguous and under showers of Gold, and the constellations of Crowns, for which they give immortality even to Crowns themselves: For what would there remain of so many Pyramids and Obeliscs of Marble, so many Amphitheatres, Circs, Colossuses, and enormous Pomps, if Books and Bookmen aere perenniores, did not preserve them to posterity? If under Heaven than there be any thing Great, and that approaches Eternity, it is from their hands who have managed the Pen: 'Tis from their labours (Ye Great Ones) that you seek to live, and are not forgotten as the dust you lie mingled with: Never had we heard of Achilles but for poor Homer; never of the Exploits of thousands more, but from the Books and Writings of Learned men, who have it in their power, to give more lustre to their Heros, than their Crowns, and Purple; and can with one dash of their pen, kill more dead, than a stab, with a Stiletto.  
There is no man alive that more affects a Country life than myself, no man it may be, who has more experienced the delices of it: But even those without action were intolerable: You will say it is not public: If it contribute and tend to it, what wants it but the name and the sound? For he does not mean by business to reside only in Cities or Courts; since without that of the Country, there would neither be Court nor City: But if he would have this life spent only in Theory and Fancy, Ecstasy and Abstractions, 'twere fit for Bedlam, and a potion of Helebor, than for sober men, whose lives and healths, wits and understanding were given them for action, and not to sit with their arms a cross, and converse with shadows; whilst the fates of Pythagoras, Archimedes and Pliny, whose curiosity cost them their lives, may well be ranked amongst those whom he is pleased to name the nobly senseless, as far indeed transported beyond themselves, as they had transported themselves beyond the world: But  
It is after he has celebrated the Pedant for being enchanted at the story of Pompey, that he again introduces the Country Gentleman, whose easy and insignificant life is preferred before that of the happiest favourite; and can be as well pleased with a few bawling Curs, or what he calls an happy chase, as with the acquisition of the most useful Office in the State. But does he call this solitude and recess? 
Ep. 55.  'Tis exceeding pretty what Seneca observes of Servillus Vatia, who, it seems, had long retired himself to the most pleasant part of the Baiae: There it was (says he) that this Gentleman passed his time, and had never been known but from his famous solitude: No man eat, nor drank better: He had rare fishponds and Parks (I suppose he kept good Hawks, and excellent Dogs) in sum, he was thought the only happy man; for arrive what would, as to change in the Commonwealth, Vatia still enjoyed himself; and o Vatia (they used to say) tu solus scis vivere: For my part (adds my Author) I never passed by his house, but I cried Vatia hîc situs est; Here lies Vatia; esteeming him as dead and buried, whom others thought the only man alive: 
De brevitate vitae, c. 11. 12.  But he proceeds; There are a number (says he) who seem to have abandoned the World, that are as full of business in their Villas, and Rural retirements, as other men who live in Towns and Cities; and trouble themselves extremely in their very solitude: Though there be no body with them, yet are they never in Repose: Of these we must not say their life is idle, but an idle Occupation: Do you fancy him retired that goes a madding after Medals and Curiosities, and spends his time in raking a Tinker's Shop for a rusty piece of Copper? or that is dieting and breathing his Jockeys for the next Running-match? or that consumes his time trifling amongst Barbers, razing and sprucing himself, Powdering, Combing, and summoning a Council upon every Hair; raging like an Hector at a slip of the Scissors, or a lock out of curl? and of which sort of wretches there are some who had rather see the Commonwealth out of order, than one of their hairs: Call you these Retired and at Rest, who are so eternally inter pectinem speculumque occupati? or those who are always humming or whistling of a Tune as they go about? These Persons (says Seneca) are not in Repose, but impertinently active: If at any time they make a Feast, there's nothing more pretty than to observe but the grave consultations about plaiting of the Nappery, ordering the Plate and Glasses, and setting out the Services: O how solicitous shall you have them, that the Courses come up in time, that the Fowl be skilfully carved, and the Sauces tightly made! and all this forsooth, that men may say; Such a one knows how to treat, lives handsomely and at his Ease, etc. when, God knows, all this while, they are of all other in the most miserable anxiety: There were of these soft and retired Gentlemen, that had their Officers to mind them when 'twas time to go to Supper, and abandoned themselves so prodigiously to their ease, that they hardly knew when they were hungry: I read of one of them, who when he was lifted out of his Bath and put on his Cushion, asked his attendants, whether he sat or stood, and was so buried in sloth, that he could not tell it without Witnesses: Such another we have in Stobaeus that was want to demand of his men, if he had washed, and whether he had dined or no? 'Twere endless to proceed with the like instances of retired Persons, and who seem to be so full of self-enjoyment, and yet whose very pleasures are of the lowest and the sordid'st actions of our life: What shall we than say of our lazy Gamesters, who sit long at the Cards, the Wine and the smoke, without a grain of Sense from dinner to midnight? because they are all of them slothful diversions, inactive, and opposed to Public Employment; since those who are qualified with Business, and have any thing to do in the world, cannot part with such portions of their time to so little purpose: By all which we see, that Ease and Solitude presents us with some pleasures that are not altogether so fit for our recreation, and as little suitable to our reason and stoical indifferency; nor seldom lesle dangerous and ridiculous in their objects than the most Public Employment: For I found that one of the chief Prerogatives of our happyman (and whom by a contradiction to his Argument, he thinks ill defined by being termed a little World) is by the advantage of his recess to mould Idëas of a thousand Species, never yet in being; and to use his own expression, produce more Monsters than Africa itself, more Novelties than America; to fancy Building, Navies, Courts, Cities, and Castles in the Air.  
On the other side, do we think that men of Business never vacate to admire the Works of Nature, because they possess so many Works of Art? I have sufficiently showed how competent Philosophy is with Public Employment; and instanced in as great Persons as ever the World produced; and yet I said nothing of Moses, learned in all that Egypt knew; 
Acts 7. 22.  nor of Solomon, to whom God gave Wisdom and Understanding exceeding much; 
1 Reg. 4. 29, 33.  that spoke of Trees and Plants; of Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, and Reptiles; those fruitful subjects of natural experience: And as to that of Astrology, and those other parts of Mathematics which he mentions, we have derived to us more Science from Princes, Chaldean, Arabian, and Egyptians, than from all the World besides. The great Caesar was so skilful, that with admirable success he reform the Year, when to perfect that sublime knowledge, he was want (even when his Army lay in the Field) to spend so much of his time in studious pernoctations. 
— media inter praelia semper  
Stellarum, 
Lucan.  Coelique plagis, superisque vacarit.  Alphonsus the tenth King of Spain was Author of those Tables which adorn his memory to this day: And Charles the Second, Emperor of Germany, was both a profound Astronomer and great Mathematician; Arts which have been so conspicuous and lucky in Princes, and men of the most Public Employment; as if those high and lofty Studies did indeed only appertain to the highest, and most sublime of men.  
But if the unmeasurable pursuit of Richeses have plunged so many great Ones into Vices, and frequently become their ruin; we may found more private Persons, who neither Built, Feasted, nor Gamed, as greedy and oppressive; defrauding even their own bellies, and living in steeples, squalid Cottages and sordid Corners to gratify an unsatiable avarice; and that have no other testimony to prove they have lived long, besides their Ease, their avarice, and the number of their Years: None to appearance more Wise and Religious than these Wretches, whose Apology is commonly their declining of power, and contempt of worldly vanities: The sole difference which seems to be between them, is, that the great Richman disposes of his Estate in building some august Fabric or Public Work, which cultivates, Art, and employs a world of poor men that earn their bread; and that the other unprofitably hoards it up: Besides, that Covetousness seldom goes unaccompanied with other secret and exterminating Vices. But the wisest of men has said so much, and so well concerning this Evil under the Sun, 
Eccles.  that I shall only need address you to his Book of Vanities: As for the Recreative part of Solitude, which he again resolves here into Hunting, Hawking, Angling, and the like: Would any man think it in earnest when he undertakes to oppose them to an useful and active life? But even as to these also, who is it more enjoy them than those that can best support them? whereas they are Pleasures which for the most part undo private Persons, and draw expenses along with them, to the ruin of some no inconsiderable Families.  
For the rest which he mentions as sinful and of so ill report, I cannot suppose that all Great men affect them, because I know of many who detest them; nor that all private Persons use them not, because I know of too many which do.  
The greatest Persons of Employment are frequently the simplest and plainest in their Apparel, and enjoy that prerogative above the meaner sort, that they make their Ease indeed their Mode, and can adopt it into Fashion without any note of singularity: Herein therefore they are worthy of imitation; for I suppose he will not rank the Gallants of the Antichambers and Hectors of the Town amongst the Garbati and Men of Fashion in the sense of his Essay: For my part, I take not more notice of these gay things, than of so many feathers & painted Kix's that the giddy air tosses about; and therefore cannot so much as consider them in a Paragraph. The same may I affirm of Food, as of clothes: For though great men keep nobler Tables (or at lest should do) yet no man constrains them to intemperance; and if they be persons of real employment indeed, they will procure as good an appetite to their meat, as those who Thrash, and do the most laborious exercise: And the affairs of many are so methodical and regular, that there is nothing more admirable than their excellent Oeconomy; 
Rom. 12. 13.  besides the honour of their hospitality, 
1 Tim. 3. 2.  which I take to be an Evangelical and shining Virtue; 
Tit. 1. 8  not to praetermit the benefit which even a whole Country receives by liberal Tables; 
1 Pet. 4  for so the Grazier and the Farmer are made able to pay their Rents, assist the Public and support their Families.  
So that when he has done all, and run through all the topics of his promising Frontispiece; turned it to all sides and lights, he is at last, I found, obliged to acknowledge, that Public Employment and an active life is at lest necessary, nay preferable even in his own estimation of it. For, if (as he says) it be the object of our duty, it is undoubtedly to be preferred before our choice; since the depravedness of our Nature, tenders that (for the most part) amiss. We seldom elect the best.  
He would have men in Employment, only he would have them drawn to it (like Bears to the stake) or never to serve their Country, till it were sinking; as if a Statesman or a Pilot could be made on an instant, and emerge a Politician, a Secretary of State or a Soldier like Cincinnatus from the Plough: But no man certainly is made an artificer so soon: Nemo repentè says the Proverb; and I suppose there is required as much dexterity, at lest, to the making of a Statesman, as to the making of a Shoe, and yet no man sets up that mystery without a an Apprenticeship: The truth is, and I confess, this petulant and hasty pretending of men to places of Charge in the Commonwealth, without a natural aptitude, a praevious and solid disposition to business is the bane of States; Men should not immoderately press into employment; 'tis a sacred thing, and concerns the well-being of so great a body, as nothing can be more prejudicial to it than the ignorant experiments of State Emperics, and raw Counsellors; though I do not deny that some young persons are of early hopes, and have in all Ages been admitted to no mean degrees of access; Augustus, Tiberius and Nero entered very young into affairs, and Pompey we know Triumphed betimes: Let men be early Great on God's name, if men be early fit for it; they shall have my vote, and 'twas wittily said of one of the Scipios (who was another young Gentleman of early maturity) see sat annorum habiturum, si P. Ro. voluerit, that he should soon be old enough, if the people pleased: and accordingly the people thought fit to sand him General into Spain, which he reduced into a Roman Prov●nce by his valour and discretion, when so many older men refused the charge for the difficulty of the enterprise, and the miscarriage of their predecessors: Great men therefore should not like overgrown Trees, too much shade the subnascent plants, and young Imps, who would grow modestly under their influence; but receive, protect and encourage them by inductive opportunities & favourable entrances to inform and produce their good parts, preserving the more arduous difficulties to the Aged and more Experienced. This noble and worthy Comity of Great men in place, Plutarch has much commended in that excellent discourse of his, Anseni gerenda sit Repub. But as I said, it became not every one to aspire; so I cannot but pronounce it glorious to those, who are accomplished for it, and can be useful to their generation in the most important affairs, and aleviation of the common burden: But if all Wise persons who have qualified Geniu's, cannot attain to be (as it were) Intelligences in these sublimer Orbs of public administration; let them gratify themselves yet with this, that (as the Philosopher says) every virtuous man is a Magistrate; and that Seneca, Zeno, Chrysippus and infinite others, have done as much for the public by their Writings and Conversation only, as the greatest Politicians of their times; and withal consider, how difficult a Province he assumes, who does at all engage himself in public business; since if he govern ill, he shall displease God, if well, the people: At lest call to mind that prudent answer of Antisthenes, who being demanded quomodo ad Rempub. accedendum? how he should address himself to Public Affairs; replied, as to the Fire; neither too near for fear of scorching, nor yet too far of, jest he be starved with cold: And I confess the suffrage is so Axiomatical with me, that I know no mediocrity I would sooner recommend to a person whom I loved, whilst as to an absolute and final retreat, though it appear indeed great in story, provided the resignation be not of compulsion, I should in few cases approve the action; 'tis (as Seneca has it) Ex vivorum numero exire antequam morieris, to die even before death, and as afterwards he adds, ultimum malorum: Counsel is with the gray-head; 
Job. 12. 12.  & for men whom Experience in public Affairs has ripened and consummated, to withdraw aside, praesages ill: With reverence be it spoken; No man putting his hand to that Blow, 
Luk. 9 62.  and looking back is fit for so high a Service.  
I know whose advice it is; That since Governors of States, and men of Action, 
Plutarch prac. de Rep. regend  Favourites,. and Prime Ministers cannot always secure themselves of Envy and Competifion, they should so order Circumstances, as sometimes to hold the People in kind of appetite for them; by letting them a little feel the want of their influence and addresses, to solve and dispatch the weighty and knotty affairs of State. For thus did the African Scipio retire into the Country to allay his emulous delators, and some others have more voluntarily receded; but frequently without success: For as Envy never makes Holiday; so, nor does distance of place protect men from her malignity; and therefore Seneca, 
De Tranq. c. 3.  does some some where describe with what flying colours Men of business (even in the greatest infelicities of times, and when it may be there is a kind of necessity of more caution) should manage their retreat from action. But in the mean time let those who desire to take their turns, attend, in the name of God, till it fairly invites them; I am not for this praepostrous rotation suggested in our Essay; 'twas born to Oceana, and I hope shall never manage sceptre, save in her Romantic Commonwealth since, should great men foresee their Employments were sure to determine in so short a space; the temptation to rapine, and injustice (which he there instances in) would prove infinitely more prejudicial: Frequent changes of Officers, are but like so many thirsty sponges, which affect only to be filled, and invite to be squeezed; and therefore 'twas wittily insinuated by the Apologue, That the Fox would not suffer the Hedgehog to chase away the Flies, and Ticks that sucked him, jest when those were replete, more hungry ones should succeed in their places. But the rest is closed with a florid Aplogy for Ease (not to give it a lesle tender adjunst) in the specious pretences of Contemplation and Philosophy, opposed to those little indifferent circumstances, which the vainer people, who yet converse with the world without any considerable design, are obnoxious to; whilst there's no notice taken of the vanity of some men's Contemplations, the dangers and temptation of Solitude, which has no other occupation superior to that of Animals, but that it thinks more, and acts lesle, and cannot in his estimate be wise or happy without being morose and uncivil: Doubtless Action is the enamel of virtue; and if any instance produced in that large Paragraph merit the consideration, it is when it exerts itself in something profitable to others; since those who have derived knowledge the most nicely, according to the Philosophy he so amply pleads for, to degrade man of his most political capacity, 
●Eth. c. 2.  (ranking him beneath Bees, Aunts, and Pigeons, who affect not company more passionately than man;) allow him Society as one of the main ingredients of his definition: and 'tis plain immanity says Cicero to fly the congress and the conversation of others, when even Timon was not able to endure himself alone; not, though man had all that Nature could afford him to tender him happy, Society only denied him; quis tam esset ferreus? who could have the heart to support it? Solitude alone would embitter the fruits of all his satisfactions: And verily Solitude is repugnant to Nature; and whilst we abandon the Society of others, we many times converse with the worst of men, ourselves. But neither is the life and employment of our Sociable Creature taken up (as has sufficiently been showed) in those empty impertinencies he reckons; nor as a Christian in Idëas only, but in useful practice; and Wisdom is the result of experience; experience of repeated acts.  
Let us therefore rather celebrated Public Employment and an Active Life, which renders us so nearly allied to Virtue, defines and maintains our Being, supports Societys', preserves Kingdoms in peace, protect them in War; has discovered new Worlds, planted the Gospel, increases Knowledge, cultivates Arts, relieves the afflicted; and in sum, without which, the whole Universe itself had been still but a rude and indigested Cäos: Or if (to vie Landscapes with our Celador) 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 Embattailing his Forces and vanquishing an 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 the 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 Churchyard, or sits poring on a book whiles 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 rock an Anchorite at his beads: There one picking daisies, another playing at push-pin, and abroad the young Potcher with his dog and kite breaking his neighbour's hedges, or trampling o'er 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 his Discourse, 
Seraphic Love.  confute him by his Example; since I am confident, there lives not a Person in the World, whose moments are more employed than Mr. Boyles, 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's always doing.  
How happy in the mean time were it for this ingenious Adventure, could it produce us more such examples; were they but such as himself; for I cannot imagine, but that he who. Writes so well, must Act well; and that he who declames against Public Employment in Essay, would refuse to Essay a Public Employment that were worthy him. These Notices are not the result of inactive contemplation only, but of a public, refined and generous spirit: Or if in truth I be mistaken, I wish him store of Proselytes, and that we had more such solitary Gentlemen that could tender an account of their Retirements, and whilst they argue against Conversation (which is the last of the Appanages he disputes against) prove the sweetest Conversation in the World.  
FINIS.