I praise the Frenchman [La Bruyère], his remark was shrewd—
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat
Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet.

These lines occur in William Cowper’s long poem *The Task* (1785), in the opening book where he reflects on domestic retirement, rural life, and the mind’s need for society even when it professes to love seclusion. Cowper invokes the French moralist Jean de La Bruyère as an authority on human character, then turns the “praise of solitude” into a gently ironic confession: the speaker enjoys retreat, but only on condition that a trusted companion is near enough to share the sentiment. The passage fits Cowper’s broader preoccupation in *The Task* with balancing contemplative withdrawal against the social and moral claims of friendship and community.

Cowper playfully qualifies the commonplace praise of solitude. He agrees that being alone can be “passing sweet,” but insists that the pleasure of retirement is heightened—almost completed—by the presence of a single trusted companion. The final line turns the sentiment into a witty paradox: solitude is sweetest when there is someone near enough to confide in about it. The allusion to La Bruyère (the French moralist known for epigrammatic observations on social life) frames the thought as a polished, worldly maxim, while Cowper’s couplets gently expose the human need for fellowship even in withdrawal from society.