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For those who could speak slow and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,

To seem like him.-Second part, Henry IV. act 2. sc. 6.

The same communication of passion obtains in the relation of principal and accessory. Pride, of which self is the object, expands itself upon a house, a garden, servants, equipage, and every accessory. A lover addresseth his mistress's glove in the following

terms:

Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine.

Veneration for relics has the same natural foundation; and that foundation with the superstructure of superstition, has occasioned much blind devotion to the most ridiculous objects; to the supposed milk, for example, of the Virgin Mary, or the supposed blood of St. Janivarius.* A temple is in a proper sense an accessory of the deity to which it is dedicated: Diana is chaste, and not only her temple, but the very isicle which hangs on it, must partake of that property:

The noble sister of Poplicola,

The moon of Rome; chaste as the isicle

That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,

And hangs on Dian's temple.-Coriolanus, act 5. sc. 3.

Thus it is, that the respect and esteem which the great, the powerful, the opulent, naturally command, are in some measure communicated to their dress, to their manners, and to all their connexions; and it is this communication of properties, which, prevailing even over the natural taste of beauty, helps to give currency to what is called the fashion.

The sen

By means of the same easiness of communication, every bad quality in an enemy is spread upon all his connexions. tence pronounced against Ravaillac for the assassination of Henry IV. of France, ordains, that the house in which he was born should be razed to the ground, and that no other building should ever be erected on that spot. Enmity will extend passion to objects still less connected. The Swiss suffer no peacocks to live, because the Duke of Austria, their ancient enemy, wears a peacock's tail in his crest. A relation more slight and transitory than that of enmity, may have the same effect; thus the bearer of bad tidings becomes , an object of aversion:

Fellow, begone; I cannot brook thy sight:
This news hath made thee a most ugly man.

King John, act 3. sc. 1.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office: and his tongue
Sounds ever after, as a sudden bell
Remember'd, tolling a departed friend.

Second part, Henry IV. act 1. sc. 3.

* But why worship the cross which is supposed to be that upon which our Saviour suffered? That cross ought to be the object of hatred, not of veneration. If it be urged, that as an instrument of Christ's suffering it was salutary to mankind, I answer, Why is not also Pontius Pilate reverenced, Caiaphas the highpriest, and Judas Iscariot?

In borrowing thus properties from one object to bestow them on another, it is not any object indifferently that will answer. The object from which properties are borrowed, must be such as to warm the mind and enliven the imagination. Thus the beauty of a mistress, which inflames the imagination, is readily communicated to a glove, as above mentioned; but the greatest beauty a glove is susceptible of, touches the mind so little, as to be entirely dropped in passing from it to the owner. In general, it may be observed, that any dress upon a fine woman is becoming; but that ornaments upon one who is homely, must be elegant indeed to have any remarkable effect in mending her appearance.*

The emotions produced as above may properly be termed secondary, being occasioned either by antecedent emotions or antecedent passions, which in that respect may be termed primary. And to complete the present theory, I must add, that a secondary emotion may readily swell into a passion for the accessory object, provided the accessory be a proper object for desire. Thus it happens that one passion is often productive of another examples are without number; the sole difficulty is a proper choice. I begin with selflove, and the power it hath to generate love to children. Every man, beside making part of a greater system, like a comet, a planet, or satellite only, hath a less system of his own, in the centre of which he represents the sun darting his fire and heat all around; especially upon his nearest connexions: the connexion between a man and his children, fundamentally that of cause and effect, becomes, by the addition of other circumstances, the completest that can be among individuals; and therefore self-love, the most vigo rous of all passions, is readily expanded upon children. The secondary emotion they produce by means of their connexion, is sufficiently strong to move desire even from the beginning; and the new passion swells by degrees, till it rival in some measure self. love, the primary passion. To demonstrate the truth of this theory, I urge the following argument. Remorse for betraying a friend, or murdering an enemy in cold blood, makes a man even hate himself: in that state, he is not conscious of affection to his children, but rather of disgust or ill-will. What cause can be assigned for that change, other than the hatred he has to himself, which is expanded upon his children. And if so, may we not with equal reason derive from self-love some part at least of the affection a man generally has to them?

The affection a man bears to his blood-relations, depends partly on the same principle: self-love is also expanded upon them; and the communicated passion is more or less vigorous in proportion to the degree of connexion. Nor doth self-love rest here it is, by the force of connexion, communicated even to things inanimate;

:

* A house and garden surrounded with pleasant fields, all in good order, bestow greater lustre upon the owner than at first will be imagined. The beauties of the former are, by intimacy of connexion, readily communicated to the latter, and if it have been done at the expense of the owner himself, we naturally transfer to him whatever of design, art, or taste, appears in the performance. Should not this be a strong motive with proprietors to embellish and improve their fields?

and hence the affection a man bears to his property, and to every thing he calls his own.

Friendship, less vigorous than self-love, is for that reason, less apt to communicate itself to the friend's children, or other relations. Instances however are not wanting of such communicated passion, arising from friendship when it is strong. Friendship may go higher in the matrimonial state than in any other condition and Otway, in Venice Preserved, takes advantage of that circumstance in the scene where Belvidera sues to her father for pardon, she is represented as pleading her mother's merit, and the resemblance she bore to her mother:

Priuli. My daughter!

Belvidera. Yes, your daughter, by a mother
Virtuous and noble, faithful to your honour,
Obedient to your will, kind to your wishes,
Dear to your arms. By all the joys she gave you
When in her blooming years she was your treasure,
Look kindly on me; in my face behold

The lineaments of hers y'have kiss'd so often,
Pleading the cause of your poor cast-off child.

And again,

Belvidera. Lay me, I beg you, lay me
By the dear ashes of my tender mother:

She would have pitied me, had fate yet spar'd her.-Act. 5. sc. 1. This explains why any meritorious action, or any illustrious qualification, in my son or my friend, is apt to make me over-value myself: if I value my friend's wife or son upon account of their connexion with him, it is still more natural that I should value myself upon account of my connexion with him.

Friendship, or any other social affection, may, by changing the object, produce opposite effects. Pity, by interesting us strongly for the person in distress, must of consequence inflame our resentment against the author of the distress; for, in general, the affection we have for any man generates in us good-will to his friends, and ill-will to his enemies. Shakspeare shows great art in the fu neral oration pronounced by Antony over the body of Cæsar. first endeavours to excite grief in the hearers, by dwelling upon the deplorable loss of so great a man: this passion, interesting them strongly in Cæsar's fate, could not fail to produce a lively sense of the treachery and cruelty of the conspirators; an infallible method to inflame the resentment of the people beyond all bounds:

Antony. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle. I remember

The first time ever Cæsar put it on;

'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,

That day he overcame the Nervii

Look! in this place ran Cassius's dagger through ;

See what a rent the envious Casca made.

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd:

And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it!
As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd,
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd or no

He

For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel.
Judge, ob you gods! how dearly Cæsar lov'd him!
This, this, was the unkindest cut of all;

For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him; then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell,
Even at the base of Pompey's statuc.

O what a fall was there, my countrymen !
Then I and you, and all of us, fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over ns.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? look you here!
Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, by traitors.

Julius Cæsar, acl 3. sc. 6.

Had Antony endeavoured to excite his audience to vengeance. without paving the way by raising their grief, his speech would not have made the same impression.

Hatred, and other dissocial passions, produce effects directly opposite to those above-mentioned. If I hate a man, his children, his relations, nay his property, become to me objects of aversion; his enemies, on the other hand, I am disposed to esteem.

The more slight and transitory relations are not favourable to the communication of passion. Anger, when sudden and violent, is one exception; for if the person who did the injury be removed out of reach, that passion will vent itself against any related object, however slight the relation be. Another exception makes a greater figure: a group of beings or things becomes often the object of a communicated passion, even where the relation of the individuals to the percipient is but slight. Thus, though I put no value upon a single man for living in the same town with myself, my townsmen, however, considered in a body, are preferred before others. This is still more remarkable with respect to my countrymen in ge, neral: the grandeur of the complex objects swells the passion of self-love by the relation I have to my native country; and every passion, when it swells beyond its ordinary bounds, hath a peculiar tendency to expand itself along related objects. In fact, instances are not rare, of persons who upon all occasions are willing to sa crifice their lives and fortunes for their country. Such influence upon the mind of man hath a complex object, or more properly speaking, a general term.*

The sense of order hath influence in the communication of passion. It is a common observation, that a man's affection to his parents is less vigorous than to his children: the order of nature, in descending to children, aids the transition of the affection; the ascent to a parent, contrary to that order, makes the transition more difficult. Gratitude to a benefactor is readily extended to his children, but not so readily to his parents. The difference however between the natural and inverted order, is not so considerable but

* See Essays on morality and natural religion, part 1. ess. 2. ch.5

that it may be balanced by other circumstances. Pliny gives an account of a woman of rank condemned to die for a crime; and to avoid public shame, detained in prison to die of hunger: her life being prolonged beyond expectation, it was discovered, that she was nourished by sucking milk from the breasts of her daughter. This instance of filial piety, which aided the transition, and made ascent no less easy than descent is commonly, procured a pardon to the mother, and a pension to both. The story of Androcles and the lion may be accounted for in the same manner; the admiration, of which the lion was the object for his kindness and gratitude to Androcles, produced good-will to Androcles, and a pardon of his crime.

And this leads to other observations upon communicated passions. I love my daughter less after she is married, and my mother less after a second marriage: the marriage of my son or of my father diminishes not my affection so remarkably. The same observation holds with respect to friendship, gratitude, and other passions: the love I bear my friend, is but faintly extended to his married daughter: the resentment I have against a man is readily extended against children who make part of his family; not so readily against children who are forisfamiliated, especially by marriage. This dif ference is also more remarkable in daughters than in sons. These are curious facts; and in order to discover the cause, we must examine minutely that operation of the mind by which a passion is extended to a related object. In considering two things as related, the mind is not stationary, but passeth and repasseth from the one to the other, viewing the relation from each of them perhaps oftener than once; which holds more especially in considering a relation between things of unequal rank, as between the cause and the effect, or between a principal and an accessory: in contemplating, for example, the relation between a building and its orna. ments, the mind is not satisfied with a single transition from the former to the latter; it must also view the relation, beginning at the latter, and passing from it to the former. This vibration of the mind in passing and repassing between things related, explains the facts above-mentioned: the mind passeth easily from the father to the daughter; but where the daughter is married, this new relation attracts the mind, and obstructs, in some measure, the return from the daughter to the father; and any circumstance that obstructs the mind in passing and repassing between its objects, occasions a like obstruction in the communication of passion. The marriage of a male obstructs less the easiness of transition; because a male is less sunk by the relation of marriage than a female.

The foregoing instances are of passion communicated from one object to another. But one passion may be generated by another. without change of object. It in general is observable, that a passion paves the way to others similar in their tone, whether directed to the same or to a different object; for the mind, heated by any passion, is in that state more susceptible of a new impression in a similar tone, than when cool and quiescent. It is a common observation, that pity generally produceth friendship for a person in dis*Lib. 7. cap. 36. + Aulus Gellius, lib. 5. cap. 14.

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