filled by light and wandering reading,-which, as a principal occupation, he found could scarcely amuse, much less give substantial satisfaction. The time hung equally heavy, under the desultory and unimportant employments with which less sensible, or less ardent minds can fill up the longest day. He once or twice, before the season closed, ventured upon shooting. He had the best dogs, but they knew and would obey nobody but the gamekeeper; and as they gave him, therefore, no sort of interest, their sagacity and courage afforded him little pleasure. He had the best gun: but as it had scarcely been used, it presented no associations, and he surveyed it as a mere tube of metal, which could inflict death at a distance. It had no tale to tell of well-hunted fields, of game manfully pursued, and skilfully brought down. He took it up, and laid it aside with indifference.

As to fishing, he had rods, nets, and harpoons without number: and what was more, he had read with delight in Walton's Angler. But he knew nothing of the art, or of the nature of the prey he was to seek; and when he did make two or three attempts to interest himself in the sport, he found that his thoughts were more in London, or at best with a book, than with his float. He therefore soon took leave of angling, not without wondering at his father's taste and disposition, which

could be charmed and satisfied by so monotonous a

pursuit.

Gardening, however, promised to furnish a rich fund of occupation. It was the appropriate amuse

ment, nay, often the support, of a true philosopher. There was nothing on which his fancy had ever fixed with truer pleasure. Besides, he knew all that had been ever said upon it by any body. Bacon, and Cowley, and Temple, and Lord Orford; the count, the chevalier, and the prior,* and the old Corycian of Virgil, were often quoted, and as often envied, whenever this natural and delightful art occurred to his imagination. Yet, in reality, of a garden Tremaine had no other idea than as a place to walk in, furnished with a terrace always ready for his steps, and full of sweet sights and sweet smells. But to watch, to assist, or even to understand the process of nature; to class roots and plants, to divide bulbs or gather seeds, to graft or to prune, never occurred to him, except as the troubles attendant on gardening. Botany was too finical for his full mind; and even Sir William Temple's pride in his peaches could never induce his attention to fruit trees. All this, he said, was more properly the province of servants, who were paid for it, and who must necessarily understand it better; it was the mechanical part, and he left * See the Spectacle de la Nature. 201

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it to mechanics. The consequence was, that he often lounged from walk to walk, with a glazed and unobserving eye; and as every thing about him arose from the labours of others, he surveyed it with that total want of interest which usually attends other men's labour.

It is to be recollected, that one of the motives for Tremaine's retiring was to render himself useful, and obtain influence in his county. This, if not a view to personal weight with his neighbours, of course placed him in the commission. To this he at first obliged himself to give some attention. But though Burn and Williams, and the Statutes, were always at hand, and were even sometimes consulted in a large and appropriate apartment, which he called the justice-room, their minutiæ discouraged and their forms teased, by requiring more of his attention than he had ever thought necessary. His mind was always upon other things; his clerk lived too far off; and he not only blundered, but, had he been ever so correct, correctness in such trifling points could confer no honour, and therefore no satisfaction. Melcombe beat him out of the field in the estimation of the neighbourhood; and as to joining in a petty sessions, and dining with little esquires at a country inn, it filled him with horror.

Once, and once only, he drove in his coach and four to the general quarter sessions, where he found

many of his inferiors who eclipsed, and much noisy jollity which disgusted him. He did not repeat the

visit.

And now behold Tremaine, with all the advantages of fortune, education, and birth-with various talents, and an inquiring, and in many respects a powerful mind-with a generous heart, a high sense of honour, and in the vigour of his age! And yet with all these, he not only was not, but could not be happy; and the causes of his unhappiness were not difficult to point out. An unbending, perhaps a too sensitive temper, had been originally left to itself, without any efforts being made to correct it; and a warm imagination had mistaken the ebullitions of fancy for the real and vivid impressions of natural disposition. He had indeed seen something almost like adversity; but it is not always true that adversity corrects:-too often it confirms our errors. And Tremaine, falling suddenly upon prosperity without having profited by experience, basked in it, until he grew more and more sophisticated, and lost whatever ideas he had once possessed of the simplicity of nature.

The only certainty he now felt was, that he was uneasy; and though he still told himself he loved retirement, and disliked the world as much as ever, it was evident that his life was irksome, and he wished to be relieved. Luckily, at this time he

began to be ill. A slow feverishness hung constantly upon him, and by degrees tended to jaundice all things to his natural vision, as his mistakes about himself had already misrepresented them to his mental. He felt that something must be done.

CHAP. XIV.

HE FLIES.

"Good Sir, I do in friendship counsel you

"To leave this place."

SHAKSPEARE...

It was now that soft season,

"When descending showers

"Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flowers,

"When opening buds salute the welcome day;

"And earth, relenting, feels the genial ray."

In more homely language, it was spring; and the spring is generally the signal for happiness. The birds, the animals, the lovely vegetation of the earth, obey with spontaneous gladness the pleasing call. But the spring brought no charms to Tremaine. Nine months had, in fact, languished on, without conferring upon him nine hours of that