misfortune of the great Porson, and the elaborate Parr, men with whom I
blush to find myself included in the same sentence."

"My friend," said I, "I wish neither to wound your modesty, nor to impugn
your pursuits; but think you not that it would be better, both for men
and for yourself, that, while you are yet in the vigour of your age and
reason, you occupy your ingenuity and application in some more useful and
lofty work, than that which you suffered me to glance at in your library;
and moreover, as the great object of him who would perfect his mind, is
first to strengthen the faculties of his body, would it not be prudent in
you to lessen for a time your devotion to books; to exercise yourself in
the fresh air--to relax the bow, by loosing the string; to mix more with
the living, and impart to men in conversation, as well as in writing,
whatever the incessant labour of many years may have hoarded? Come, if
not to town, at least to its vicinity; the profits of your living, if
even tolerably managed, will enable you to do so without inconvenience.
Leave your books to their shelves, and your flock to their curate, and--
you shake your head--do I displease you?"

"No, no, my kind and generous adviser--but as the twig was set, the tree
must grow. I have not been without that ambition which, however vain and
sinful, is the first passion to enter the wayward and tossing vessel of
our soul, and the last to leave its stranded and shattered wreck; but
mine found and attained its object at an age, when in others it is, as
yet, a vague and unsettled feeling; and it feeds now rather upon the
recollections of what has been, than ventures forward on a sea of untried
and strange expectation. As for my studies! how can you, who have, and in
no moderate draught, drank of the old stream of Castaly, how can you ask
me now to change them? Are not the ancients my food, my aliment, my
solace in sorrow--my sympathizers, my very benefactors, in joy? Take them