I.

PART it; how far are the languid emotions of our hearts from keeping time to the transports of theirs? We may be fenfible, at the fame time, that their paffion is natural, and no greater than what we ourselves might feel upon the like occafion. We may even inwardly reproach ourfelves with our own want of fenfibility, and perhaps, on that account, work ourfelves up into an artificial fympathy, which, however, when it is raised, is always the flightest and most tranfitory imaginable; and generally, as foon as we have left the room, vanishes, and is gone for ever. Nature, it feems, when the loaded us with our own forrows, thought they were enough, and therefore did not command us to take any further share in thofe of others, than what was neceffary to prompt us to relieve them.

It is on account of this dull fenfibility to the afflictions of others, that magnanimity amidst great distress appears always fo divinely graceful. His behaviour is genteel and agreeable who can maintain his cheerfulnefs amidft a number of frivolous difafters. But he appears to be more than mortal who can fupport in the fame manner the moft dreadful calamities. We feel what an immenfe effort is requifite to filence those violent emotions which naturally agitate and dif tract thofe in his fituation. We are amazed to find that he can command himself fo entirely. His firmness, at the fame time, perfectly coincides with our infenfibility. He makes no demand upon us for that more exquifite degree of fenfibility which we find, and which we are mor

III.

tified to find, that we do not poffefs. There is SEC T. the most perfect correfpondence between his fentiments and ours, and on that account the most perfect propriety in his behaviour. It is a propriety too, which, from our experience of the ufual weakness of human nature, we could not reasonably have expected he fhould be able to maintain. We wonder with furprise and astonishment at that strength of mind which is capable of fo noble and generous an effort. The fentiment of complete fympathy and approbation, mixed and animated with wonder and furprife, constitutes what is properly called admiration, as has already been more than once taken notice of. Cato, furrounded on all fides by his enemies, unable to refift them, disdaining to fubmit to them, and reduced, by the proud maxims of that age, to the neceffity of deftroying himself; yet never fhrinking from his misfortunes, never fupplicating with the lamentable voice of wretchednefs, thofe miferable fympathetic tears which we are always fo unwilling to give; but on the contrary, arming himself with manly fortitude, and the moment before he executes his fatal refolution, giving, with his ufual tranquillity, all neceffary orders for the fafety of his friends; appears to Seneca, that great preacher of infenfibility, a fpectacle which even the gods themselves might behold with pleasure and admiration.

Whenever we meet, in common life, with any examples of fuch heroic magnanimity, we are always extremely affected. We are more apt to weep and fhed tears for fuch as, in this manner,

feem

PART seem to feel nothing for themselves, than for

I.

those who give way to all the weakness of forrow: and in this particular cafe, the fympathetic grief of the fpectator appears to go beyond the original paffion in the perfon principally concerned. The friends of Socrates all wept when he drank the last potion, while he himself expreffed the gayeft and moft cheerful tranquillity. Upon all fuch occafions the fpectator makes no effort, and has no occafion to make any, in order to conquer his fympathetic forrow. He is under no fear that it will transport him to any thing that is extravagant and improper; he is rather pleafed with the fenfibility of his own heart, and gives way to it with complacence and felf-approbation. He gladly indulges, therefore, the moft melancholy views which can naturally occur to him, concerning the calamity of his friend, for whom, perhaps, he never felt fo exquifitely before, the tender and tearful paffion of love. But it is quite otherwife with the perfon principally concerned. He is obliged, as much as poffible, to turn away his eyes from whatever is either naturally terrible or disagreeable in his fituation. Too ferious an attention to those circumftances, he fears, might make fo violent an impreffion upon him, that he could no longer keep within the bounds of moderation, or render himself the object of the complete fympathy and approbation of the fpectators. He fixes his thoughts, therefore, upon thofe only which are agreeable, the applause and admiration which he is about to deferve by the heroic magnanimity of his behaviour. To feel

III.

that he is capable of fo noble and generous an SEC T. effort, to feel that in this dreadful fituation he can still act as he would defire to act, animates and transports him with joy, and enables him to support that triumphant gaiety which feems to exult in the victory he thus gains over his misfortunes.

On the contrary, he always appears, in fome measure, mean and despicable, who is funk in forrow and dejection upon account of any calamity of his own. We cannot bring ourselves to feel for him what he feels for himself, and what, perhaps, we should feel for ourselves if in his fituation: we, therefore, defpife him; unjustly perhaps, if any fentiment could be regarded as unjust, to which we are by nature irresistibly determined. The weakness of forrow never appears in any respect agreeable, except when it arifes from what we feel for others more than from what we feel for ourfelves. A fon, upon the death of an indulgent and refpectable father, may give way to it without much blame. His forrow is chiefly founded upon a fort of sympathy with his departed parent; and we readily enter into this humane emotion. But if he fhould indulge the fame weakness upon account of any misfortune which affected himself only, he would no longer meet with any fuch indulgence. If he should be reduced to beggary and ruin, if he fhould be expofed to the most dreadful dangers, if he should even be led out to a public execution, and there fhed one fingle tear upon the fcaffold, he would difgrace himself for ever in

the

I.

PART the opinion of all the gallant and generous part of mankind. Their compaffion for him, however, would be very strong, and very fincere; but as it would ftill fall fhort of this exceffive weakness, they would have no pardon for the man who could thus expofe himfelf in the eyes of the world. His behaviour would affect them with fhame rather than with forrow; and the difhonour which he had thus brought upon himself would appear to them the moft lamentable circumftance in his misfortune. How did it difgrace the memory of the intrepid Duke of Biron, who had fo often braved death in the field, that he wept upon the fcaffold, when he beheld the state to which he was fallen, and remembered the favour and the glory from which his own rashness had fo unfortunately thrown him?

CHAP. II.

Of the origin of Ambition, and of the diftinction of Ranks.

T is because mankind are difpofed to fympa

thize more entirely with our joy than with our forrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty. Nothing is fo mortifying as to be obliged to expofe our diftrefs to the view of the public, and to feel, that though our fituation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mortal conceives for us the half of what we

fuffer