224 The Duchess of Newcastle 



trust, gratitude, constancy, and many the like. Next 

 I answer, that it is not out of a fantastic humour, that 

 I Hve so much retired, which is to keep my house 

 more than go abroad, but out of self-love, and not 

 out of self-opinion, and it is just and natural for any 

 one to love himself. Wherefore, for my pleasure and 

 delight, my ease and peace, I live a retired life, a 

 home life, free from the intanglements, confused 

 clamours, and rumbling noise of the world; for I by 

 this retirement live in a calm silence, wherein I have 

 my contemplations free from disturbance, and my 

 mind hves in peace, and my thoughts in pleasure; 

 they sport and play, they are not vext with cares nor 

 worldly desires, they are not covetous of worldly 

 wealth, nor ambitious of empty titles. They are not 

 to be catched with the baits of sensual pleasures, or 

 rather I may say, sensual folHes, for they draw my 

 senses to them, and run not out to the senses; they 

 have no quarrelling disputes amongst them; they 

 live friendly and sociably together; their onely de- 

 light is in their own pastimes and harmless recrea- 

 tions; and though I do not go personally to masks, 

 balls, and playes, yet my thoughts entertain my mind 

 with such pleasures, for some of my thoughts make 

 playes, and others act those playes on the stage of 

 imagination, while my mind sits as a spectator. Thus 

 my mind is entertained both with poets and players, 

 and takes as much delight as Augustus Ccesar did to 

 have his Mecsenas, the patron of poetry, sit and hear 

 Virgil and Horace read their works unto them. So 

 my mind takes delight in its dear Mecaenas, which is 

 contemplation, and to have its poetical thoughts, 

 although not like Virgil or Horace, yet such as they 

 are, it is pleased to have them repeat their poems and 

 other works which they make; and those my mind 



