BOCCACCIO has given an interesting account of the mode of life of the studious Petrarch, for on a visit he found that Petrarch would not suffer his hours of study to be broken into even, by the person whom of all men he loved most, and did not quit his morning studies for his guest, who during that time occupied himself by reading or transcribing the works of his master.  At the decline of day, Petrarch quitted his study for his garden, where he delighted to open his heart in mutual confidence.

But this solitude, at first a necessity, and then a pleasure, at length is not borne without repining.  To tame the fervid wildness of youth to the strict regularities of study, is a sacrifice performed by the votary; but even MILTON appears to have felt this irksome period of life; for in the preface to “Smectymnuus” he says:—­“It is but justice not to defraud of due esteem the wearisome labours and studious watchings wherein I have spent and tired out almost a whole youth.”  COWLEY, that enthusiast for seclusion, in his retirement calls himself “the Melancholy Cowley.”  I have seen an original letter of this poet to Evelyn, where he expresses his eagerness to see Sir George Mackenzie’s “Essay on Solitude;” for a copy of which he had sent over the town, without obtaining one, being “either all bought up, or burnt in the fire of London."[A]—­“I am the more desirous,” he says, “because it is a subject in which I am most deeply interested.”  Thus Cowley was requiring a book to confirm his predilection, and we know he made the experiment, which did not prove a happy one.  We find even GIBBON, with all his fame about him, anticipating the dread he entertained of solitude in advanced life.  “I feel, and shall continue to feel, that domestic solitude, however it may be alleviated by the world, by study, and even by friendship, is a comfortless state, which will grow more painful as I descend in the vale of years.”  And again:—­“Your visit has only served to remind me that man, however amused or occupied in his closet, was not made to live alone.”

[Footnote A:  This event happening when London was the chief emporium of books, occasioned many printed just before the time to be excessively rare.  The booksellers of Paternoster-row had removed their stock to the vaults below St. Paul’s for safety as the fire approached them.  Among the stock was Prynne’s records, vol. iii., which were all burnt, except a few copies which had been sent into the country, a perfect set has been valued in consequence at one hundred pounds.  The rarity of all books published about the era of the great fire of London induced one curious collector, Dr. Bliss, of Oxford, to especially devote himself to gathering such in his library.—­ED.]