1.] ]MELA^'CIIOLY HOUES. 329 



of vice, the sad tissue of wretchedness and woe, passes 

 in review before me, and I look down upon man with an 

 eye of pit j and commiseration. Though the scenes which 

 I survey be mournful, and the ideas they excite equally 

 sombre, though the tears gush as I contemplate them, and 

 my heart feels heavy with the sorrowful emotions they in- 

 spire, yet are they not unaccompanied with sensations of 

 the purest and most ecstatic bliss. 



It is to the spectator alone that melancholy is forbid- 

 ding ; in herself she is soft and interesting, and capable 

 of affording pure and unalloyed delight. Ask the lover 

 why he muses by the side of the purling brook, or plunges 

 into the deep gloom of the forest. Ask the unfortunate 

 why he seeks the still shades of solitude, or the man who 

 feels the pangs of disappointed ambition, why he retires 

 into the silent walks of seclusion, and he will tell you that 

 he derives a pleasure therefrom which nothing else can 

 impart. It is the delight of melancholy ; but the melan- 

 choly of these beings is as far removed from that of the 

 philosopher as are the narrow and contracted complaints 

 of selfishness from the mournful regrets of expansive 

 philanthropy ; as are the desponding intervals of insa- 

 nity from the occasional depressions of benevolent sensi- 

 bility. 



The man who has attained that calm equanimity which 

 qualifies him to look down upon the petty evils of life with 

 indifference, w^ho can so far conquer the weakness of na- 

 ture as to consider the sufferings of the individual of little 

 moment, when put in competition with the welfare of the 

 community, is alone the true philosopher. His melan- 

 choly is not excited by the retrospect of his own misfor- 

 tunes ; it has its rise from the contemplation of the mi- 

 series incident to life and the evils which obtrude them- 

 selves upon society and interrupt the harmony of nature. 

 It would be arrogating too much merit to myself to assert 

 that I have a just claim to the title of a philosopher, as 

 it is here defined ; or to say that the speculations of my 

 melancholy hours are equally disinterested ; be this as it 

 may, I have determined to present my solitary effusions 

 to the public : they will at least have the merit of novelty 



