tends every conception of human happiness or mi fery. When I was twenty, fays a FRENCH poet, OVID was my favourite: Now I am forty, I declare for HORACE. We enter, to be fure, more readily into fentiments which resemble those we feel every day : but no paffion, when well reprefented, can be entirely indifferent to us; because there is none of which every man has not, within him, at least the feeds and first principles. It is the bufinefs of poetry to bring every affection near to us by lively imagery and representation, and make it look like truth and reality: A certain proof, that wherever that reality is found, our minds are disposed to be strongly affected by it. Any recent event or piece of news, by which the fate of ftates, provinces, or many individuals is affected, is extremely interefting even to thofe whose welfare is not immediately engaged. Such intelligence is propagated with celerity, heard with avidity, and enquired into with attention and concern. The intereft of fociety appears, on this occafion, to be, in fome degree, the intereft of each individual, The imagination is fure to be affected; though the paffions excited may not always be so strong and fteady as to have great influence on the conduct and behaviour. The perufal of a hiftory feems a calm entertainment; but would be no entertainment at all, did not our hearts beat with correfpondent movements to thofe which are defcribed by the hiftorian. THUCYDIDES and GUICCIARDIN fupport with difficulty our attention; while the former defcribes the trivial rencounters of the fmall cities of GREECE, and the latter the harmless wars of PISA. The few perfons interested, and the fmall intereft, fill not the imagination, and engage not the affections. The deep diftrefs of the numerous ATHENIAN army before SYRACUSE, the danger which fo nearly threatens VENICE; these excite compaffion, these move terror and anxiety. The indifferent, uninteresting style of SUETONIUS, equally with the masterly pencil of TACITUS, may convince us of the cruel depravity of NERO or TiBERIUS: But what a difference of fentiment! While the former coldly relates the facts, and the latter sets before our eyes the venerable figures of a SORANUS and a THRASEA, intrepid in their fate, and only moved by the melting forrows of their friends and kindred. What fympathy then touches every human heart! What indignation against the tyrant, whose causeless fear or unprovoked malice gave rise to fuch deteftable barbarity! If we bring thefe fubjects nearer; if we remove all fufpicion of fiction and deceit; what powerful concern is excited, and how much fuperior, in many inftances, to the narrow attachments of felf-love and private intereft! Popular fedition, party zeal, a devoted obedience to factious leaders; these are fome of the moft vifible, though lefs laudable, effects of this focial sympathy in human nature. The frivoloufnefs of the fubject too, we may obferve, is not able to detach us entirely from what carries an image of human fentiment and affection. When a person ftutters, and pronounces with difficulty, we even fympathize with this trivial uneafinefs, and fuffer for him. And it is a rule in criticifm, that every combination of fyllables or letters, which gives pain to the organs of speech in the recital, appears also, from a fpecies of fympathy, harsh and difagreeable to the ear. Nay, when we run over a book with our eye, we are fenfible of such unharmonious compofition; because we still imagine that a perfon recites it to us, and fuffers from the pronunciation of these jarring founds. So delicate is our fympathy. Eafy and unconstrained poftures and motions are always always beautiful: An air of health and vigour is a greeable; cloaths which warm without burdening the body, which cover without imprisoning the limbs, are well-fashioned. In every judgment of beauty, the feelings of the perfon affected enter into confideration, and communicate to the fpectator fimilar touches of pain or pleasure *. What wonder, then, if we can pronounce no judgment concerning the character and conduct of men, without confidering the tendencies of their actions, and the happiness or mifery which thence arifes to fociety? what affociation of ideas would ever operate, were that principle here totally unactive †? If any man, from a cold infenfibility or narrow felfishness of temper, is unaffected with the images of human happiness or mifery, he must be equally indifferent to the images of vice and virtue: As, on the other hand, it is always found, that a warm concern for the interefts of our fpecies is attended with a delicate feeling of all moral diftinctions; a ftrong refentment of injury done to men; a lively approbation of their welfare. In this particular, though great fuperiority is obfervable of one man above another, yet none are fo entirely indifferent to the intereft of their fellow-creatures, as to perceive no diftinctions of moral good and evil, in confequence of the different tendencies of actions and principles. How, indeed, can we fuppofe it poffible in any one, who wears a human heart, that if there be fubjected to his cenfure, one character or fyftem of conduct which is beneficial, and another which is pernicious, to his fpecies or community, he will not fo much as give a cool preference to the former, or afcribe to it the fmalleft merit or regard? Let us fuppofe fuch a perfon *Decentior equus cujus aftricta funt ilia; fed idem velocior. "Pulcher afpectu fit athleta, cujus lacertos exercitatio expreffit "idem certamini paratior. Nunquam enim fpecies ab utilitate di"viditur. Sed hoc quidem difcernere modici judicii eft." QUINTILIAN Inft. lib. viii. cap. 3. See NOTE [CC.] perfon ever fo selfish; let private intereft have ingroffed ever fo much his attention; yet in inftances where that is not concerned, he muft unavoidably feel fome propenfity to the good of mankind, and make it an object of choice, if every thing else be equal. Would any man who is walking along, tread as willingly on another's gouty toes, whom he has no quarrel with, as on the hard flint and pavement? There is here furely a difference in the cafe. We furely take into confideration the happiness and mifery of others, in weighing the feveral motives of action, and incline to the former, where no private regards draw us to feek our own promotion or advantage by the injury of our fellow-creatures. And if the principles of humanity are capable, in many inftances, of influencing our actions, they must, at all times, have fome authority over our fentiments, and give us a general approbation of what is useful to fociety, and blame of what is dangerous or pernicious. The degrees of these fentiments may be the fubject of controverfy; but the reality of their exiftence, one should think, must be admitted in every theory or fyftem. A creature, abfolutely malicious and spiteful, were there any fuch in nature, muft be worse than indifferent to the images of vice and virtue. All his fentiments must be inverted, and directly oppofite to those which prevail in the human fpecies. Whatever contributes to the good of mankind, as it croffes the conftant bent of his wifhes and defires, muft produce uneafiness and disapprobation; and on the contrary, whatever is the fource of diforder and mifery in fociety, muft, for the fame reafon, be regarded with pleasure and complacency. TIMON, who, probably from his affected fpleen, more than any inveterate malice, was denominated the manhater, embraced ALCIBIADES with great fondnefs. Go on, my boy! cried he, acquire the confidence of the people: You will one day, I forefee, be the caufe of great ca lamities lamities to them*. Could we admit the two principles of the MANICHEANS, it is an infallible confequence, that their fentiments of human actions, as well as of every thing elfe, must be totally oppofite; and that every inftance of juftice and humanity, from its neceffary tendency, must please the one deity and displease the other. All mankind fo far resemble the good principle, that, where intereft or revenge or envy perverts not our difpofition, we are always inclined, from our natural philanthropy, to give the preference to the happiness of fociety, and confequently to virtue, above its oppofite. Abfolute, unprovoked, difinterefted malice, has never, perhaps, place in any human breaft; or if it had, muft there pervert all the fentiments of morals, as well as the feelings of humanity. If the cruelty of NERO be allowed entirely voluntary, and not rather the effect of conftant fear and refentment; it is evident, that TIGELLINUS, preferably to SENECA OF BURRHUS, must have poffeffed his fteady and uniform approba→ tion. A statesman or patriot, who ferves our own country, in our own time, has always a more paffionate regard paid to him, than one whofe beneficial influence operated on diftant ages or remote nations; where the good, refulting from his generous humanity, being lefs connected with us, feems more obfcure, and affects us with a lefs lively fympathy. We may own the merit to be equally great, though our fentiments are not raised to an equal height in both cafes. The judgment here corrects the inequa lities of our internal emotions and perceptions; in like manner, as it preferves us from error in the feveral variations of images prefented to our external fenfes. The fame object, at a double distance, really throws on the eye a picture of but half the bulk; yet we imagine that it appears of the fame size in both fituations; because we know that, on our approach * PLUTARCH in vita ALc. |