when its gratification is far off and at a distance; but renders the whole offenfive, when described as what is immediately poffeffed. The happy paffion, upon this account, interests us much less than the fearful and the melancholy. We tremble for whatever can disappoint fuch natural and agreeable hopes: and thus enter into all the anxiety, and concern, and diftrefs of the lover.

Hence it is, that, in fome modern tragedies and romances, this paffion appears so wonderfully interefting. It is not fo much the love of Caftalio and Monimia which attaches us in the Orphan, as the diftrefs which that love occafions. The author who fhould introduce two lovers, in a scene of perfect fecurity, expreffing their mutual fondness for one another, would excite laughter and not fympathy, If a scene of this kind is ever admitted into a tragedy, it is always, in fome measure, improper, and is endured, not from any fympathy with the paffion that is expressed in it, but from concern for the dangers

and

and difficulties with which the audience foresee that its gratification is likely to be attended.

The referve which the laws of society impose upon the fair fex, with regard to this weakness, renders it more peculiarly diftressful in them, and, upon that very account, more deeply interefting. We are charmed with the love of Phædra, as it is expreffed in the French tragedy of that name, notwithstanding all the extravagance and guilt which attend it. That very extravagance and guilt may be faid, in fome measure, to recommend it to us. Her fear, her shame, her remorfe, her horror, her despair, become thereby more natural and interefting. All the fecondary paffions, if

I

may be allowed to call them fo, which arife from the fituation of love, become neceffarily more furious and violent; and it is with these fecondary paffions only that we can properly be faid to sympathize.

Of all the paffions, however, which are fo extravagantly difproportioned to the value of their objects, love is the only one that appears, even to the weakest minds, to have any thing in it that is either graceful or agreeable. In itself, first of all, though it may be ridiculous, it is not naturally odious; and though its confequences are often fatal and dreadful, its intentions are seldom mischievous. And then, though there is little propriety in the paffion itself, there is a good deal in some of those which always accompany it. There is in love a strong mixture of humanity, generosity, kindness, friendship, esteem ; paffions with which, of all others, for reafons which fhall be explained immediately, we have the greatest propensity to fympathize, even notwithstanding we are fenfible that they are, in fome measure, exceffive. The fympathy which we feel with them, renders the paffion which they accompany less disagreeable, and fupports it in our imagination, notwithstanding all the vices. which commonly go along with it; though in the one fex it neceffarily leads to the laft

ruin and infamy; and though in the other, where it is apprehended to be leaft fatal, it is almost always attended with an incapacity for labour, a neglect of duty, a contempt of fame and even of common reputation. Notwithstanding all this, the degree of fenfibility and generosity with which it is fuppofed to be accompanied, renders it to many the object of vanity; and they are fond of appearing capable of, feeling what would do them no honour if they had really felt it.

It is for a reason of the fame kind, that a certain reserve is neceffary when we talk of our own friends, our own ftudies, our own profeffions. All these are objects which we cannot expect should interest our companions in the fame degree in which they intereft us. And it is for want of this referve, that the one half of mankind make bad company to the other. A philofopher is company to a philofopher only; the member of a club to his own little. knot of companions.

CHA P. III.

Of the unfocial Paffions.

HERE is another fet of paffions, which,

THERE

though derived from the imagination, yet before we can enter into them, or regard them as graceful or becoming, muft always be brought down to a pitch much lower than that to which undisciplined nature would raise them. These are, hatred and refentment, with all their different modifications. With regard to all fuch paffions, our sympathy is divided between the person who feels them, and the person who is the object of them. The interests of these two are directly oppofite. What our fympathy with the person who feels them would prompt us to wish for, our fellow-feeling with the other would lead us to fear. As they are both men, we are concerned for both, and our fear for what

the