truly, that the writer is the very humble and most obedient servant of him to whom the letter is addressed. Joy, then,that is to say, the appearance of joy,-may be regarded as the common dress of society, and real complacency is thus as little remarkable, as a well-fashioned coat in a drawing room. Let us conceive a single ragged coat to appear in the brilliant circle, and all eyes will be instantly fixed on it. Even Beauty itself, till the buzz of astonishment is over, will, for the moment, scarcely attract a single gaze, or Wit a single listener. Such with respect to the general dress of the social mind, is grief. It is something, for the very appearance of which we are not prepared. A face of smiles is what we meet constantly; a face of sorrow, the fixed and serious look, the low, or faltering tone, the very silence, the tear,--are foreign, as it were, to the outward scene of things in which we exist. We see evidence, in this case, that something has happened, to change the general aspect; while the look, and the voice of gaiety, as they are the look and the voice of every hour, indicates to us only the presence of the individual, and not any peculiar affection of his mind. It is not wonderful, therefore, that the appearance of grief, as the more unusual of the two, should absorb to itself, in common language, a name, which may originally have been significant alike of the participation of grief and joy. It must be remembered, too, that joy, though delighting in sympathy, does not stand in need of this sympathy, so much as sorrow. In diffusing cheerfulness, we seem rather to give to others, than to receive; while, in the sympathy of grief, which we excite, we feel every look and tone of kindred sorrow, as so much given to us. It is, as if we were lightened of a part of our burthen'; and we cannot feel the relief, without feeling gratitude to the compassionate heart, that has lessened our affliction, by dividing it with us. It is not merely, therefore, because the appearance of grief is more unusual, that we have affixed to this appearance a peculiar language, or at least apply to it more readily the terms, that are significant also of other appearances, --but, in some degree, also, because the sympathy of those who sorrow with us, is of far more value, than the sympathy of those who merely share our rejoicing, and therefore dwells more readily and lastingly in our remembrance.

It is not more true, however, that we weep with those who weep, than that we rejoice with those who rejoice. There is a charm in general gladness, that steals upon us without our perceiving it; and, if we have no cause of sorrow, it is sufficient for our momentary happiness, that we be in the company of the happy. Who is there, of such fixed melancholy, as not to

have felt, innumerable times, this delight that arises, without any cause, but the delight which has preceded it; when we are happy for hours, and on looking back on these hours of happiness, can discover nothing, but our own happiness, and the happiness of others, which have been reflected back, and again, from each to each. So strong is this sympathetic tendency, that we not merely share the gaiety of the gay, but rejoice also with inanimate things, to which we have given a cheerfulness, that does not, and cannot belong to them. There are, in the changeful aspects of nature, so many analogies to the emotions of living beings, that in animating poetically, what exhibits to us these analogies, we scarcely feel, till we reflect, that we are using metaphors; and that the clear and sunny sky, for example, is as little cheerful, as that atmosphere of fogs and darkness, through which the sun shines only enough to shew us, how thick the gloom must be, which has resisted all the penetrating splendours of his beams. When nature is thus once animated by us, it is not wonderful, if we sympathize with the living, that we should, for the moment, sympathize with it too, as with some living thing. It is this sympathy, with a cheerfulness which we have ourselves created, that constitutes a great part of that "moral delight and joy," which is so well described, as "able to drive all sadness but despair." In the poem of The Seasons, accordingly, the influence of Spring is, with not less truth than poetic beauty, supposed to be felt chiefly by those, whose moral sympathies are the most lively.

"When Heaven and Earth, as if contending, vie
To raise his being, and serene his soul,
Can man forbear to join the general smile
Of Nature?-Can fierce passions vex his breast,
When every gale is peace, and every grove

Is melody?-Hence from the bounteous walks
Of flowery Spring, ye sordid sons of earth,
Hard and unfeeling of another's woe,

Or only lavish to yourselves :-away!

But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thought,
Of all his works, creative Bounty burns
With warmest beam; and on your open front,
And liberal eye, sits,-from his dark retreat,
Invoking modest Want.-Nor, till invoked,
Can restless Goodness wait; your active search
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored;
Like silent-working Heaven, surprising oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good.
For you the roving spirit of the wind

Blows Spring abroad: for you the teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world ;—
And the Sun sheds his kindest rays for you,
Ye flower of human race? In these green days,

1

Reviving sickness lifts her languid head,
Life flows afresh, and young-eyed Health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss
Spring o'er his mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Pure serenity apace

Induces thought, and contemplation still.
By swift degrees, the love of Nature works
And warms the bosom till at last, sublimed
To rapture, and enthusiastic heat,

We feel the present Deity, and taste

The joy of God, and see a happy world.”*

In the very pleasing Ode to May, which forms one of the few relics of the genius of West, there is a thought, in accordance with this general sympathy of nature, which expresses, with great force, that animating influence of which I speak After invoking the tardy May to resume her reign,

"With balmy breath and flowery tread,
Rise from thy soft ambrosial bed,
Where, in Elysian slumber bound,
Embowering myrtles veil thee round,"

he describes the impatience of all nature for her accustomed presence, and concludes with an image, which his friend Gray justly termed "bold, but not too bold,"-

"Come then, with Pleasure at thy side,
Diffuse thy vernal spirit wide;

Create, where'er thou turn'st thine eye,
Peace, plenty, love, and harmony;-
Till every being share its part,

Till heaven and earth be glad at heart."

In a fine morning of that delightful season, amid sunshine and fragrance, and the thousand voices of joy, that make the air one universal song of rapture, who is there that does not feel, as if heaven and earth were truly glad at heart, and who does not sympathize with Nature, as if with some living being diffusing happiness, and rejoicing in the happiness which it diffuses?

We sympathize, then, even with the imaginary cheerfulness, which ourselves create in things, that are as incapable of cheerfulness, as of sorrow; and still more do we sympathize with living gladness, when it does not arise from a cause so

V. 866-900.

Stanza ii. v. 3-6, and Stanza v. preserved in Letter V. of Sect. iii. of Memoirs of Gray.-MATTHIAS' EDIT.

VOL. II.-3 E

disproportioned to the violence of the emotion, as to force us to pause and measure the absurdity. I have already said, that we seem to sympathize less with the pleasures of others, than we truly do; because the real sympathy is lost in that constant air of cheerfulness, which it is a part of good manners to assume. If the laws of politeness required of us to assume, in society, an appearance of sadness as they now require from us an appearance of some slight degree of gaiety, or, at least, of a disposition to be gay, it is probable, that we should then remark any sympathy with gladness, as we now remark particularly any sympathy with sorrow; and we should certainly, then, use the general name, to express the former of these, as the more extraordinary,—in the same way, as we now use it particularly to express the feelings of commiseration.

Whatever may be the comparative tendencies of our nature, however, to the participation of the gay and sad emotions of those around us, there can be no doubt as to the double tendency. We rejoice with those who rejoice, merely because they are rejoicing;-and, without any misfortune of our own, we feel a sadness, at the very aspect of affliction in those around us, and shrink and shudder, on the application to them of any cause of pain, which we know cannot reach ourselves.

Many of the phenomena of sympathy, I have little doubt, are referable to the laws, to which we have traced the common phenomena of suggestion or association. It may be considered as a necessary consequence of these very laws, that the sight of any of the common symbols of internal feeling, should recall to us the feeling itself, in the same way as a portrait or rather, as the alphabetic name of our friend, recalls to us the conception of our friend himself. Some faint and shadowy sadness we undoubtedly should feel, therefore, when the external signs of sadness were before us,-some greater cheerfulness on the appearance of cheerfulness in others,--even though we had no peculiar susceptibility of sympathizing emotion, distinct from the mere general tendencies of suggestion. To these general tendencies, I am inclined, particularly, to refer the external involuntary signs of our sympathy,-the shrinking of our own limbs, for example, when we see the knife in any surgical operation, about to be applied to the limb of another, the contortions of body with which the mob regard the feats of a rope-dancer, when they throw themselves into the postures that would be necessary for counteracting their own tendency to fall, if they were in the situation observed by them. Whatever state of mind, in the direction of our muscular movements, may be necessary for producing these instant postures, is associated with the feeling of peril,

which the mind would have in the situation observed; and this feeling is suggested by the attitude in others, that may be considered as an external sign of the feeling. That the mere conception is sufficient for producing these muscular movements, without the actual presence of any one with whose movements our own may be thought to accord, by some mysterious harmony, is shown by cases, in which etherial communications, and vibrations, and every foreign cause of sympathy that can be imagined by the most extravagant lover of hypothesis, must be allowed to be absent, because there is no foreign object of sympathy whatever; in which we may be said, almost without absurdity, to sympathize with ourselveswhen we shudder, indeed, as if sympathizing, but shudder at a mere thought. Thus, in looking down from a precipice, we shrink back as we gaze on the dreadful abyss which would receive us if we were to make a single false step, or if the crumbling soil on which we tread were to betray our footing. The notion of our fall is readily suggested by the aspect of the abyss, and of the narrow spot which separates us from it, -this notion of our fall, of course, suggests the feelings which would arise at such a dreadful moment; and these again produce, in the same manner, that consecutive state of mind, whatever it may be, on which the bodily movements of shrinking depend. We first have the simple conception of the fall, -we then have, in some degree, the feelings that would attend the beginning to fall,-we then, having this lively image of peril shrink back to save ourselves from that which seems to us more real, because in harmony with the whole scene of terror before us, which presents to us the same aspect that would be present to us, if what we merely imagined were actually at that very moment taking place. Such is the series of phenomena that produce one of the most uneasy states in which the mind can exist; a state, which I may suppose you all to have experienced in some degree, before the repetition of these giddy views, with impunity, has counteracted the giddiness itself, by rendering the feeling of security so habitual, as to rise instantly, and be a constant part of the whole complex state of mind.

But, though I conceive that a great part of what is called sympathy, is truly referable to the common laws of suggestion, that, by producing certain conceptions, produce also, indirectly, the emotions that are consequent on thesc,-and, though it is possible that not the chief part only, but the whole, may flow from these simple laws, I am far from asserting, that all its phenomena depend upon these alone.

the contrary, I am inclined to think, that there is a peculiar