as tending to promote the general order and happiness of the whole that the vices and follies of mankind, therefore, made as neceffary a part of this plan as their wisdom or their virtue; and by that eternal art which educes good from ill, were made to tend equally to the profperity and perfection of the great fyftem of nature. No fpeculation of this kind, however, how deeply foever it might be rooted in the mind, could diminish our natural abhorrence for vice, whofe immediate effects are fo deftructive, and whofe remote ones are too diftant to be traced by the imagination.

It is the fame cafe with thofe paffions we have been just now confidering. Their immediate effects are fo difagreeable, that even when they are most justly provoked, there is ftill something about them which disgufts us. Thefe, therefore, are the only paffions of which the expreffions, as I formerly obferved, do not difpofe and prepare us to sympathize with them, before we are informed of the cause which excites them. The plaintive voice of mifery, when heard at a distance, will not allow us to be indifferent about the perfon from whom it comes. As foon as it ftrikes our ear, it interefts us in his fortune, and, if continued, force us almost involuntarily to fly to his affiftance. The fight of a smiling countenance, in the fame manner, elevates even the penfive into that gay and airy mood, which difpofes him to fympathize with, and share the joy which it expreffes;

and he feels his heart, which with thought and care was before that shrunk and depreffed, inftantly expanded and elated. But it is quite otherwife with the expreffions of hatred and refentment. The hoarfe, boiftèrous, and discordant voice of anger, when heard at a diftance, infpires us either with fear or averfion. We do not fly towards it, as to one who cries out with pain and agony. Women, and men of weak nerves, tremble and are overcome with fear, though fenfible that themselves are not the objects of the anger. They conceive fear, however, by putting themfelves in the fituation of the person who is fo. Even thofe of ftouter hearts are difturbed; not indeed enough to make them afraid, but enough to make them angry; for anger is the paffion which they would feel in the fituation of the other perfon. It is the same case with hatred. Mere expreffions of fpite infpire it against no body, but the man who ufes them. Both these paffions are by nature the objects of our averfion. Their difagreeable and boisterous appearance never excites, never prepares, and often difturbs our sympathy. Grief does not more powerfully engage and attract us to the perfon in whom we obferve it, than these, while we are ignorant of their cause, disgust and detach us from him. It was, it seems, the intention of nature, that those rougher and more unamiable emotions, which drive men from one another, fhould be less easily and more rarely communicated.

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When

When mufic imitates the modulations of grief or joy, it either actually infpires us with thofe paffions, or at least puts us in the mood which difpofes us to conceive them. But when it imitates the notes of anger, it infpires us with fear. Joy, grief, love, admiration, devotion, are all of them paffions which are naturally mufical. Their natural tones are all foft, clear, and melodious; and they naturally exprefs themselves in periods which are diftinguished by regular paufes, and which upon that account are easily adapted to the regular returns of the correspondent airs of a tune. The voice of anger, on the contrary, and of all the paffions which are akin to it, is harsh and discordant. Its periods too are all irregular, fometimes very long, and fometimes very fhort, and diftinguished by no regular paufes. It is with difficulty, therefore, that mufic can imitate any of those paffions; and the mufic which does imitate them is not the most agreeable. A whole entertainment may confift, without any impropriety, of the imitation of the focial and agreeable paffions. It would be a strange entertainment which confifted altogether of the imitations of hatred and refentment.

If thofe paffions are disagreeable to the spectator, they are not lefs fo to the perfon who feels them. Hatred and anger are the greatest poison to the happiness of a good mind. There is, in the very feeling of thofe paffions, fomething harth, jarring, and convulfive, fome

thing that tears and distracts the breast, and is altogether destructive of that compofure and tranquillity of mind which is fo neceffary to happinefs, and which is beft promoted by the contrary paffions of gratitude and love, It is not the value of what they lofe by the perfidy and ingratitude of thofe they live with, which the generous and humane are most apt to regret. Whatever, they may have loft, they can generally be very happy without it. What most disturbs them is the idea of perfidy and ingratitude exercised towards themfelves; and the difcordant and disagreeable paffions which this excites, conftitutes, in their own opinion, the chief part of the injury which they suffer.

How many things are requifite to render the gratification of refentment compleatly agreeable, and to make the fpectator thoroughly fympathize with our revenge? The provocation must first of all be fuch that we Thould become contemptible, and be expofed to perpetual infults, if we did not, in fome measure, refent it. Smaller offences are always better neglected; nor is there any thing more defpicable than that froward and captious humour which takes fire upon every flight occafion of quarrel. We fhould refent more from a sense of the propriety of resentment, from a sense that mankind expect and require it of us, than because we feel in ourfelves the furies of that difagreeable paffion. There is no paffion, of which the human mind is capable, concerning whofe juftness

we

;

we ought to be fo doubtful, concerning whose indulgence we ought fo carefully to confult our natural sense of propriety, or fo diligently to confider what will be the fentiments of the cool, and impartial spectator. Magnanimity, or a regard to maintain our own rank and dignity in fociety, is the only motive which can ennoble the expreffions of this difagreeable paffion. This motive must characterize our whole ftile and deportment. These must be plain, open, and direct; determined without pofitiveness, and elevated without infolence not only free from petulance and low fourrility, but generous, candid, and full of all proper regards, even for the person who has offended us. It must appear, in fhort, from our whole manner, without our labouring affectedly to exprefs it, that paffion has not extinguished our humanity; and that if we yield to the dictates of revenge, it is with reluctance, from neceffity, and in confequence of great and repeated provocations. When refentment is guarded and qualified in this manner, it may be admitted to be even generous and noble,

A

CHA P. IV.

Of the focial paffions.

S it is a divided fympathy which renders the whole fet of paffions just now mentioned, upon moft occafions, fo ungraceful

and