and a general charity or benevolence to all mankind; that they considered it as a duty, arising from our very nature, not to neglect the welfare of public society, but to be ever ready, according to our rank, to act either the magistrate or the private citizen; that their apathy was no more than a freedom from perturbation, from irrational and excessive agitations of the soul; and consequently, that the strange apathy commonly laid to their charge, and in the demolishing of which there have been so many triumphs, was an imaginary apathy, for which they were no way accountable." 26. LOVE, HOPE, and Joy, fair PLEASURE's smiling train; HATE, FEAR, and GRIEF, the family of PAIN. This beautiful group of allegorical personages, so strongly contrasted, how do they act? The prosopopeia is unfortunately dropped, and the metaphor changed immediately in the succeeding lines: These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd, 27. On different senses different objects strike.* A didactic poet, who has happily indulged himself in bolder flights of enthusiasm, supported by a more figurative style than our author used, has thus nobly illustrated this very doctrine: - Diff'rent minds Incline to diff'rent objects: one pursues And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires The nations tremble, Shakespeare looks abroad All on the margin of some flow'ry stream To spread his careless limbs, amid the cool We have here a striking example of that poetic spirit, that harmonious and varied versification, and * Ver. 128. and that strength of imagery, which conspire to excite our admiration of this beautiful poem.* 28. Proud of an easy conquest all along, She but removes weak passions for the strong.t This is from the Duke de la Rochefoucault : "Whenever we get the better of our passions, it is more owing to their weakness than our own strength. And again, there is in the heart of man a perpetual succession of passions, insomuch, that the ruin of one is always the rise of another."+ 29. Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please, An acute observation, plainly taken from La Rochefoucault. ""Tis a mistake to believe that none but the violent passions, such as ambition and love, are able to triumph over the other passions. Laziness, as languid as it is, often gets G 3 *The Pleasures of Imagination, Book iii. v. 546. the the mastery of them all, usurps over all the designs and actions of life, and insensibly consumes, and destroys, both passions and virtues."* 30. Virtuous and vicious ev'ry man must be; A fine reflection, and calculated to subdue that petulant contempt, and unmerited aversion, which men too generally entertain against each other, and which diminish and destroy the social affections. "Our emulation, (says one of the bestnatured philosophers,) our jealousy, or envy, should be restrained, in a great measure, by a constant resolution of bearing always in our minds the lovely side of every character. * Max. CCLXVI. The completely + Ver. 231. Hutcheson's Nature and Conduct of the Passions, p. 190. Ο ουν αδελφος εαν αδικη εντευθεν αυτο 8 λαμβάνης, ότι αδικει αύτη λαβη 85No aule 8 φορητη αλλ' εκείθεν μάλλον, ότι αδελφος, ότι συντρόφος. See Epicteti Enchiridion. Also, Many completely evil are as rare as the perfectly virtuous; there is something amiable almost in every one, as Plato observes in his Phædon." This charitable doctrine of putting candid constructions on those actions that appear most blameable, nay, most detestable, and most deformed, is illustrated and enforced, with great strength of argument and benevolence, by KING, in his fifth chapter on the Origin of Evil;* where he endeavours to evince the prevalence of moral good in the world, and teaches us to make due allowances for men's follies and vices. 31. What crops of wit and honesty appear, From spleen, from obstinacy, hate or fear !† Many lessons on this useful species of humanity, tending to soften the disgust that arises from a prospect of the absurdity and wickedness of human nature, are to be found in Marcus Antoninus and many noble precepts in the New Testament, rightly understood, have the same tendency, but are delivered with more dignity and force, and demand certainly a deeper attention, and more implicit regard. * See also to this purpose a sensible Conduct of the Passions, page 183. passage in Hutcheson's + Ver. 185. |