not poffefs. There is the moft perfect correspondence 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 usual weakness of human nature, we could not reasonably have expected he should be able to maintain. We wonder with furprise and astonishment at that ftrength of mind which is capable of fo noble and generous an effort. The fentiment of complete fvmpathy and approbation, mixed and animated with wonder and furprise, 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 resist them, disdaining to submit to them, and reduced, by the proud maxims of that age, to the neceffity of deftroying himself; yet never fhrinking from his misfortunes, never supplicating with the lamentable voice of wretchedness, those miferable sympathetic 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 spectacle 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 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 laft potion, while he himself expreffed the gayeft and most 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 pleased with the fenfibility of his own heart, and gives way to it with complacency 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 so 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 disagreeable in his fituation. Too ferious an attention to those circumstances, 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 complete fympathy and approbation of the fpectators. He fixes his thoughts, therefore, upon those only which are agreeable, the applause 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 fill act as he would defire to act, animates and tranfports 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 himfelt, and what, perhaps, we should feel for ourfelves if in his fituation: we, therefore, despise him; unjustly, perhaps, if any fentiment could be regarded as unjuft, to which we are by nature irresistibly determined. The weakness of forrow never appears in any refpect 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 himself 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 moft dreadful dangers, if he fhould even be led out to a public execution, and there shed one single tear upon the scaffold, he would disgrace 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 still fall short of this exceffive weakness, they would have no pardon for the man who could thus expose himself in the eyes of the world. His behaviour would affect them with shame rather than with forrow; and the dishonor which he had thus brought upon himself would appear to them the most lamentable circumftance 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 state to which he was fallen, and remembered the favor and the glory from which his own rashness had fo unfortunately thrown him?

CHA P. II.

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

IT is because mankind are disposed to sympathize 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. 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 buftle of this world? what is the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power, and pre-eminence? Is it to fupply the neceffities of nature? The wages of the meaneft laborer can fupply them. We fee that they afford him food and clothing, the comfort of a house, and of a family. If we examine his economy with rigor, we fhould find that he spends a great part of them upon conveniencies, which may be regarded as fuperfluities, and that, upon extraordinary occafions, he can give fomething even to vanity and diftinction. What then is the caufe of our averfion to his fituation, and why fhould those who have been educated in the higher ranks of life, regard it as worse than death, to be reduced to live, even without labor, upon the fame fimple fare with him, to dwell under the fame lowly roof, and to be clothed in the fame humble attire? Do they imagine that their stomach is better, or their fleep founder in a palace than in a cottage? The contrary has been so often observed, and indeed, is fo very obvious, though it had never been observed, that there is nobody ignorant of it. From whence, then, arises that emulation which runs through all the different ranks of men, and what are the advantages which we propose by that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with fympathy, complacency,

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