Note 34 — DIALOGUE II. ON RETIREMENT.

The writer of the Dialogue has thought fit to soften the misanthropy of Mr. Cowley in this instance. In one of his Essays he talks strangely. “It is the great boast,” says he, “of eloquence and philosophy, that they first congregated men dispersed, united them into cities, and built up the houses and the walls of cities. I wish they could unravel all they had woven, that we might have our woods and our innocence again, instead of our castles and our policies.”