did not command us to take any further share in those of others, than what was necessary to prompt us to relieve them.

It is on account of this dull fenfibility to the afflictions of others, that magnanimity amidft great diftrefs appears always fo divinely graceful. His behaviour is genteel and agreeable who can maintain his chearfulness amidst 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 thofe violent emotions which naturally agitate and distract those in his fituation. We are amazed to find that he can command himself fo intirely. 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 mortified to find, that we do not pofsess. There is 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 should be able to maintain. We wonder with surprise and astonishment at that ftrength of mind which is capable of so noble and generous an effort. The fentiment of compleat fympathy and approbation, mixed and animated with wonder and furprise, conftitutes what is properly called admiration,

as

as has already been more than once taken notice of. Cato, furrounded on all fides by his enemies, unable to refift them, difdaining to submit to them, and reduced, by the proud maxims of that age, to the neceffity of destroying 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, seem to feel nothing for themselves, than for those who give way to all the weakness of forrow and in this particular case, the sympathetic 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 gaieft and most chearful 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 un

Sect. 3.

Of P R O P R I E T Y.
PROPRIET

8r

der no fear that it will tranfport him to any thing that is extravagant and improper; he is rather pleased 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 otherwise with the perfon principally concerned. He is obliged, as much as poffible, to turn away his eyes from whatever is either naturally terrible or difagreeable in his fituation. Too ferious an attention to those circumftances, he fears, might make so violent an impreffion upon him, that he could no longer keep within the bounds of moderation, or render himself the object of the compleat fympathy and approbation of the fpectators. He fixes his thoughts, therefore, upon thofe only which are agreeable, the applaufe and admiration which he is about to deserve by the heroic magnanimity of his behaviour. To feel that he is capable of fo noble and generous an effort, to feel that in this dreadful fituation he can ftill act as he would defire to act, animates and transports him with joy, and enables him to fupport that triumphant gaiety which feems to exult in the victory he thus gains over his misfor

funes.

On the contrary, he always appears, in fome measure, mean and defpicable, who is

G

funk

funk in forrow and dejection upon account of any calamity of his own. We cannot bring ourfelves to feel for him what he feels for himself, and what, perhaps, we should feel for ourselves if in his fituation: we, therefore, despise him; unjustly, perhaps, if any fentiment could be regarded as unjuft, to which we are by nature irrefiftibly 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 ourselves. 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 fympathy 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 himfelf only, he would no longer meet with any fuch indulgence. If he fhould 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 shed one fingle tear upon the scaffold, he would difgrace himself for ever in 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 short of this exceffive weakness, they would have no pardon for the man who could thus expofe himself in the eyes of the world. His behaviour would affect them with shame rather than with for

row;

row; and the dishonour which he had thus brought upon himself would appear to them the most lamentable circumstance in his misfortune. How did it disgrace the memory of the intrepid Duke of Biron, who had fo often braved death in the field, that he wept upon the scaffold, when he beheld the ftate to which he was fallen, and remembered the favour and the glory from which his own rashness had so unfortunately thrown him.

CHA P. II.

Of the origin of ambition, and of the diftinction of ranks.

T is because mankind are difpofed to fympathise 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 expose our distress to the view of the public, and to feel, that though our fituation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mortal con⚫ceives for us the half of what we fuffer. Nay, it is chiefly from this regard to the fentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty. For to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? what is the end of avarice and ambition, of the purfuit of wealth, of power, and preheminence? Is it to fupply the neceffities of nature? The

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wages