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also, on the habits and discernment of the mind which considers it; and we are thus in a great measure, creators of our own happiness,-not in the actions merely which seem more strictly to depend on our will, but on those foreign events which might have seemed at first to be absolutely independent of us.

If even simple gladness and regret, however, depend in some measure on the peculiar tendencies of the mind, the emotions, which we are next to consider, depend on them still more.

These are the emotions which attend our moral retrospects of our past actions, the remorse which arises on the thought of our guilt, the opposite emotion of delight, which attends the remembrances of what is commonly termed a good consci

ence.

I have already treated of the emotions which are distinctive to us of vice and virtue in general; but the emotions with which we regard the virtues and vices of others, are very different from those with which we regard the same vices and virtues as our own. There is the distinctive moral feeling, indeed, in both cases, whether the generous sacrifice, or the malignant atrocity which we consider, be the deed of another, or our own heroic kindness or guilty passion; but, in the one case, there is something far more than mere approbation, however pleasing, or mere disapprobation, however disagreeable. There is the dreadful moral regret arising from the certainty, that we have rendered ourselves unworthy of the love of man, and of the approbation of our God; or the most delightful of all convictions, that, but for our life, the world would have been less virtuous and happy, and that we are not unworthy of that highest of privileges, the privilege of fearlessly adoring Him, whom, if we worship truly with that gratitude which looks beyond the moment of suffering to the happiness of every world and of every age, it matters but little though the place of our adoration should be a dungeon or a scaffold.

When we look to some oppressor in the magnificence of his unjust power, surrounded with those inferior tyrants, that while they execute their portion of delegated guilt, tremble at the very glance of him whose frown can make them nothing, -with armies, whom victory after victory has rendered as illustrious, as slaves that carry slavery with them, and spread it wherever their arms prevail, can hope to be ;-when we enter the chambers of state, in which he gives himself to public view, and see only the festival, and listen only to voices that are either happy, or seem to be happy,--does all this splendour impose upon our heart, as it would half-seduce our senses

into momentary admiration? Do we think, that God has reserved all punishment for another world, and that wickedness has no other feelings but those of triumph in the years of earthly sway which consummate its atrocities? There are hours in which the tyrant is not seen, the very remembrance of which, in the hours in which he is seen, darkens, to his gloomy gaze, that pomp, which is splendour to every eye but his; and that, even on earth, avenge, with awful retribution, the wrongs of the virtuous. The victim of his jealous dread, who, with a frame wasted by disease, and almost about to release his spirit to a liberty that is immortal, is slumbering and dreaming of heaven on the straw that scarcely covers the damp earth of his dugeon,-if he could know at that very hour, what thoughts are present to the conscience of him who doomed him to this sepulchre, and who is lying sleepless on his bed of state, though, for a moment, the knowledge of the vengeance might be gratifying, would almost shrink the very moment after from the contemplation of horror so hopeless, and wish that the vengeance were less severe. "Think not," says Cicero, "that Guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds, their crimes, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future, these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious."-" Nolite enim putare, quemadmodum in fabulis sæpenumero videtis, eos, qui aliquid impie scelerateque commiserint, agitari et perterreri Furiarum tædis ardentibus; sua quemque fraus, et suus terror, maxime vexat; suum quemque scelus agitat, amentiaque afficit; suæ malæ cogitationes, conscientiæque animi, terrent. Hae sunt impiis assiduæ domesticæque Furiæ."*

The instance which I have now chosen, is that of a species of guilt with the conscious remembrance of which few of the great multitude of mankind can be agitated. But those who cannot oppress kingdoms, may yet oppress families and individuals. There is a scale of iniquity, that descends from the imperial tyrant to the meanest of the mob; and there are feelings of remorse, that correspond, not with the extent of the power, but with the guilty wishes of the offender. In the obscurest hovel, on the most sordid bed, there are sleepless hours of the same sort of agony, which is felt, in his palace, by him who has been the scourge, perhaps, of half the nations of the globe. There are visions around that pillow, which, in the drama or romance, indeed, would form no brilliant picture, but which are not the less horrible to him, whose means,

Orat. pro Sex. Roscio Amerino, Sect. 24. (Gruter,) or 67 of others.

but not whose wishes of iniquity, have been confined to the little frauds, that have swallowed up the pittance of some widow, or seduced into the same career of guilt with himself, the yielding gentleness of some innocent heart. To the remorse of such a mind, there are not even the same consolations, if I may apply the term of consolation to that dreadful relief, which in rendering horror less felt for the instant, truly aggravates its ultimate amount. The power of making armies march, though it be only to new desolation,-of altering, in an instant, the fate of kingdoms, though it be only to render kingdoms more wretched, has yet something in it, which, by its greatness, occupies the mind; and the tumult of war, and the glory of victory, and the very multitude of those, who bow the knee and tremble, as they solicit favour, or deprecate wrath, afford at least a source of distraction to the mind, though they can afford no more. These sources of distraction the petty villain cannot share. His villanies present to him no other images than those of the insignificant profits which he has perhaps already squandered, and the miseries which he has made. There are no crowds of flatterers to aid the feeble efforts with which he strives to forget the past. He is left with nothing more than his conscience, and his power of doing still more evil; and he has recourse to this desperate expedient, which, desperate as it is, is still less dreadful than his horror of the past. He adds villany to villany, not so much for any new profit, as to have something which may occupy him, producing wretchedness after wretchedness around him, as far as his little sphere extends, till his sense of remorse is at last almost stupified; and he derives thus a sort of dreadful mitigation of suffering, from the very circumstances which are afterwards to be the aggravation of his misery.

In these cases of fraud and cruelty, the progress of guilt, in every stage of it, might have brought to the mind of the guilty the evil on which he was entering, or the evil which he was aggravating. But what deep remorse arises often to minds originally of better hopes, that, on entering on the very career, which has plunged them in vice, saw no images but those of social pleasure; and that, after many years of heedless dissipation have elapsed, look back on the years which have been so strangely consumed, almost with the astonishment, though not with the comfort, of one who looks back on some frightful dream, and who scarcely knows whether he is awake.

"Soft as the gossamer, in summer shades,

Extends its twinkling line, from spray to spray,
Gently as sleep the weary lids invades,

So soft, so gently, Pleasure mines her way."

At the very suggestions of fraud and cruelty, the heart shrinks instantly, with a horror, which saves, from the guilt of injustice or oppression, all those, whose minds are not unworthy of better feelings; but the suggestions of pleasure present nothing to the mind, at least till indulgence have become excessive, with which any feelings of loathing and abhorrence can be associated. The corruption of the mind goes on silently, and gives no alarm, till the mind is already too corrupt, to be capable of the vigorous effort, which would be necessary, for shaking off a power, that shackles and debases it, -but which seems still rather to seduce, than to oppress, and which is scarcely hated by the unfortunate victim, even while it appears to him, to have destroyed his happiness forever.

"O, treacherous Conscience! While she seems to sleep
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with siren song;-
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite, the slacken'd rein,

And give us up to license, unrecall'd,

Unmark'd-See, from behind her secret stand,

The sly informer minutes every fault,

And her dread diary with horror fills.

Not the gross act alone employs her pen;

She reconnoitres Fancy's airy band,

A watchful foe.-The formidable spy

Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp,

Our dawning purposes of heart explores,

And steals our wishes of iniquity."

It is not, however, only when health, and fortune, and dignity, and the affection of those whom we love, have been completely sacrificed, that conscience comes boldly forward, and proclaims a guilt of which we were little dreaming. There are thoughts of higher objects, that rise to the mind, with an accusation which it is quick to feel, but which it hastens to forget, in a repetition of the idle and profitless, and worse than profitless, enjoyment. At length the accusation, which cannot be suppressed, is heard, with a more painful impatience, but with an impatience, which leads only to a wilder riot, in the hope of stilling murmurs, which are not to be stilled.

"The low

And sordid gravitation of his Powers

To a vile clod, so draws him, with such force
Resistless, from the centre he should seek,
That he at last forgets it. All his hopes
Tend downward; his ambition is to sink,-
To reach a depth, profounder still, and still
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death.-

* Young's Night Thoughts, B. II. v. 256–269.

But, ere he gain the comfortless repose
He seeks, and acquiescence of his soul
In heaven renouncing exile, he endures-
What does he not, from lusts opposed in vain
And threatening conscience?-Riot is not loud
Nor drunk enough to drown it. In the midst
Of laughter, his compunctions are sincere,-
And he abhors the jest by which he shines."+

On the happiness which attends the remembrance of a life of virtue, it would surely be unnecessary to enlarge. It is a happiness, of which even the guilty,-though they may be incapable of conceiving all its delight,-yet know sufficiently the value, to look to it, with wishes, that do not covet it the less, for coveting it hopelessly. Strange as it may seem, in a world in which vice is so abundant, there yet can be little doubt, that the only object of desire, which is truly universal, is the delight of a good conscience. The pleasures of power and splendour, and indolent luxury, strong as their sway is over the greater number of minds, find yet some minds, to which they are objects either of indifference or contempt. But who is there, who has ever said in his own soul, in forming plans of future life, let me live or die, without the remembrance of a single good action? There are crimes, indeed, conceived and perpetrated with little regard to that virtue, which is for the time abandoned. But there is still some distant vision of repentance, and better thoughts,-which are to be the happiness of old age at least,-that is present to the most profligate, when he ventures to look forward to old age, and to that event by which age must at last be terminated. It is not because virtue is wholly despised that guilt exists; but the great misery is, that the uncertain duration of life allows the guilty to look forward to years that are, perhaps, never to arrive, and to postpone every better purpose, till their heart has become incapable of shaking off the passions to which it is enslaved. still, repentance and virtue, at some period, are delightful objects, which they never wholly exclude from their prospects of the future; and if it were possible to be virtuous, without the sacrifice of vice, they would not delay the happiness for a single instant.

Yet

The happiness of having something in past years, on which to look back with delight, is then, a happiness, which is the wish of all; and if it were a thing that could be plundered, like mere wealth,-or invaded and usurped, like honour and dignities, it would probably be one of the first things on

Self-reproaching.-ORIG.

Cowper's Task, Book V. v. 587-600, and v. 614–617.

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