where amidst affected fmoothness and complaifance, fufpicious looks and fudden ftarts of paffion betray the mutual jealoufies which burn within them, and which are every moment ready to burft out through. all the reftraints which the prefence of the company imposes?

Those amiable paffions, even when they are acknowledged to be exceffive, are never regarded with averfion. There is fomething agreeable even in the weakness of friendship and humanity. The too tender mother, the too indulgent father, the too generous and affectionate friend, may fometimes, perhaps, on account of the softness of their natures, be looked upon with a species of pity in which, however, there is a mixture of love, but can never be regarded with hatred and averfion, nor even with contempt, unless by the most brutal and worthless of mankind. It is always with concern, with fympathy and kindness, that we blame them for the extravagance of their attachment. There is a helpneffness in the character of extreme humanity which more than any thing interefts our pity. There is nothing in itself which renders us either ungraceful or difagreeable. We only regret that it is unfit for the world, because the world is unworthy of it, and because it must expose the perfon who is endowed with it as a prey to the perfidy and ingratitude of infinuating falfhood, and to a thousand pains and uneafinesses, which, of all men, he the leaft deferves to feel, and which generally too he is, of all men, the leaft capable of fupporting. It is quite otherwise

with hatred and refentment. Too violent a propensity to those deteftable paffions, renders a perfon the object of univerfal dread and abhorrence, who, like a wild beaft, ought, we think, to be hunted out of all civil fociety.

CHAP. V.

Of the felfifh Paffions.

BESIDES thofe two opposite sets of paffions, the

focial and unfocial, there is another which holds a fort of middle place between them; is never either fo graceful as is fometimes the one fet, nor is ever fo odious as is fometimes the other. Grief and joy, when conceived upon account of our own private good or bad fortune, conftitute this third fet of paffions. Even when exceffive, they are never fo difagreeable as exceffive refentment, because no opposite sympathy can ever intereft us against them and when most suitable to their objects, they are never fo agreeable as impartial humanity and just benevolence; because no double fympathy can ever intereft us for them. There is, however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are generally moft difpofed to fympathize with small joys and great forrows. The man who, by fome fudden revolution of fortune, is lifted up all at once into a condition of life, greatly above what he had formerly lived in, may be affured that the congratulations of his best friends are not

all of them perfectly fincere. An upftart, though of the greatest merit, is generally disagreeable, and a fentiment of envy commonly prevents us from heartily fympathizing with his joy. If he has any judgment, he is fenfible of this, and instead of appearing to be elated with his good fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to fmother his joy, and keep down that elevation of mind with which his new circumftances naturally inspire him. He affects the fame plainness of drefs, and the fame modefty of behaviour, which became him in his former ftation. He redoubles his attention to his old friends, and endeavours more than ever to be humble, affiduous, and complaifant. And this is the behaviour which in his fituation we moft approve of; because we expect, it feems, that he fhould have more fympathy with our envy and averfion to his happiness, than we have with his happiness. It is feldom that with all this he fucceeds. We fufpect the fincerity of his humility, and he grows weary of this constraint. In a little time, therefore, he generally leaves all his old friends behind him, fome of the meaneft of them excepted, who may, perhaps, condefcend to become his dependents: nor does he always acquire any new ones; the pride of his new connexions is as much affronted at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had been by his becoming their fuperior and it requires the moft obftinate and perfevering modefty to atone for this mortification to either. He generally grows weary too foon, and is provoked, by the fullen and fufpicious pride of

:

the one, and by the faucy contempt of the other, to treat the firft with neglect, and the second with petulance, till at last he grows habitually infolent, and forfeits the esteem of all. If the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved, as I believe it does, thofe fudden changes of fortune feldom contribute much to happinefs. He is happiest who advances more gradually to greatnefs, whom the public deftines to every step of his preferment long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that account, when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and with regard to whom it cannot reafonably create either any jealousy in those he overtakes, or any envy in

thofe he leaves behind.

Mankind, however, more readily fympathize with those smaller joys which flow from lefs important causes. It is decent to be humble amidst great prosperity; but we can fcarce exprefs too much fatisfaction in all the little occurrences of common life, in the company with which we spent the evening last night, in the entertainment that was set before us, in what was faid and what was done, in all the little incidents of the prefent converfation, and in all those frivolous nothings which fill up the void of human life. Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness, which is always founded upon a peculiar relifh for all the little pleasures which common occurrences afford. We readily fympathize with it: it infpires us with the fame joy, and makes every trifle turn up to us in the fame agreeable aspect in which it prefents itself to

the person endowed with this happy difpofition. Hence it is that youth, the feafon of gaiety, fo eafily engages our affections. That propenfity to joy which feems to animate the bloom, and to sparkle from the eyes of youth and beauty, though in a perfon of the fame fex, exalts, even the aged, to a more joyous mood than ordinary. They forget, for a time, their infirmities, and abandon themfelves to thofe agreeable ideas and emotions to which they have long been strangers, but which, when the prefence of so much happiness recals them to their breast, take their place there, like old acquaintance, from whom they are forry to have ever been parted, and whom they embrace more heartily upon account of this long separation.

It is quite otherwise with grief. Small vexations excite no fympathy, but deep affliction calls forth. the greateft. The man who is made uneafy by every little difagreeable incident, who is hurt if either the cook or the butler have failed in the leaft article of their duty, who feels every defect in the higheft ceremonial of politeness, whether it be fhown to himfelf or to any other perfon, who takes it amifs that his intimate friend did not bid him good-morrow when they met in the forenoon, and that his brother hummed a tune all the time. himself was telling a flory; who is put out of humor by the badnefs of the weather when in the country, by the badnefs of the roads when upon a journey, and by the want of company, and dulnefs of all public diverfions when in town; fuch a person, I say, though he should have some