OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. 29 lion. Now we should almost as soon. have expected that a philosopher would have imagined a supernumerary eclipse of the sun for the same period, and then have brought it to account for the late dreariness of the natural world, and the inclemency of the seasons. She laments that the manner in which these absentees from the source and cen- tre of intellectual enjoyment spend their time in the country, not a little disqua- lifies them for the charms of society. With all due deference to this able reasoner, from whom it is hazardous to differ, we should have really thought, that the long leisure for reading, to which this supposed solitude must be at least as favourable to some, as that indolence, sleeping, and drinking, which she too indiscriminately ascribes to most, would have been generally seized on for the former purpose by men, who are all scholars by education, and frequently stu- dious from taste. Thus, instead of starv- ing the intellect, would not this leisure c
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