NEW BOOK S. Elements of the Science of Ethics, on the principles of Natural Philofophy. By John Bruce, A. M. Concluded, p. 29. MR BRUCE having particularly defcri bed the scale of the virtues and vices which marks the moral obligation to probity and juftice, proceeds with equal ability to exemplify those adapted to benevolence. "BENEVOLENCE, or the difpofition to improve the rights of mankind, in its effects, difcovers a scale of virtues with fpecific degrees of pleasure, and of oppolite vices with proportioned pains. The pleasures and the pains fum up the obligation to the practice of that conduct which the moral faculty approves. The virtues and vices comprehended in this branch of the law, difcover one specific circumftance diftinct from the preceding branches. Each of them is accompanied with the influence of the paffions. 1. Compaffion fignifies attention to the fufferings of human nature, accompanied with a wish to relieve them. There is a fympathy or fellow-feeling, when we reflect that in the fame fituation other men ought to enter into our sufferings. We cannot call the virtue felfish, though we wish to relieve ourselves from a pain which we experience in viewing fufferings; the pain is evidently for another, not for ourfelves. If the diftrefs be a common one to our nature, we fhrink from it as if by inftinct. Though it should even arife from vice, we liberally forget the vice, and feel for the fufferings of the object. We pity a criminal at his execution, tho' our paffions were engaged, as well as our feufe of duty, in bringing him to juftice. Compaffion thus, which from sympathy wishes to improve the fituations of mankind, is followed by gratitude from the objects to whom it has been directed, and by the pleasure which the heart experiences in having felt for and alleviated diftrefs. 2. Charity rifes on compaffion; it both feels for the fufferings of mankind, and relieves them. It is benevolence restoring the common birthrights of man: it is the union of the paffions with the probity which allows, the juftice which maintains, and the benevolence which improves the fights of our nature: it confifts not in the actual diftribution of gifts, for then the rich only could be charitable; but in the uniform difpofition to improve the fituaVOL. XLIX. 1 tions of mankind. When the feelings of the heart smooth over the embarraffments which attend humble merit; when they feek out objects to the industry of the deferving; when they bring forward talents to their place in fociety, they improve the rights of human nature. The approbation of the mind, and the deferved efteem and gratitude of mankind, accompany the virtue. 3. Generofity fhews the advancing dispofition to improve the rights of mankind. The paffions which accompany this virtue are not only ftrong, but rendered habitual by indulgence. The compaffionate feel for the fuffering, the charitable relieve them, whether the objects are friends or fellow citizens; but the generous fcorn these common motives, as fitted only to rouse our instincts, and are benevolent to human nature. "He is my enemy (faid a Celtic chief), and he fhall bang on the oak under which I wor fhip the god of war." The paffions of this barbarian discovered no generofity. "I fcorn the services which my fword can command," said the great Tamerlane; "my grave shall be strewed with the tears, not with the spoils of my enemies;" a with which could only fpring from the generofity which deferved its accomplishment. A confcious dignity of mind, which the viciffitudes of fortune cannot alter, and the approbation and confidence, not only of friends, but of enemies, accompany this virtue. 4. Patriotism is the marked tendency of the mind to improve the rights of a people, in confiftency with the common rights of nations. Ambition may address. the patriotic mind with offers of power; avarice may spread out her treasures to entangle it, tyranny may hold up the whip and the rack to deter it, but elevation and wealth are as ineffectual to feduce, as cruelty and fufferings are to intimidate or deprefs it. History affords not a finer example than in the character of Ariftides. If Athens was preserved, it was to him indifferent, whether by himfelf, his friends, or his rivals. A mo ment's difcontent would have ruined the Athenians-he yielded the command to Miltiades. When Themiftocles, his enemy, conducted the Athenian army, it was enough to Ariftides if they conquered; he therefore promoted the schemes of Themiftocles. He was equally compliant in peace as in war. When he submitted any propofal to the fenate, or to the af L fembly fembly of the people, he used the name of fome other perfon, that jealoufy of himfelf might not interfere with the interests of his country. When he became too old for the dangers of the field, or the buftle of politics, he faid he ftill could be of fome service to his country, for he could teach the young Athenians to be in love with virtue and their laws. With the treasures of Greece in his hands, he left not money of his own to defray the expences of his burial; but he left the memory of his virtues; and the tears with which the Athenians bedewed his urn, formed at once his eulogy and reward. 5. Love to mankind is, as it were, the laft ftep in the fcale of benevolence, and fignifies habitual affection for the rights of human nature. It is the virtue of Ariftides transferred from Greece to mankind. Where-ever a fpark of this virtue kindles in the breast, it holds up to view the dignity of human nature. When the hero led out his army, marfhalled and formed to conquer, reflecting on the incidents which might fully his glory, he felt for the fufferings which his ambition was about to bring on thoufands. "How many forrows does ambition produce? How many mothers and widows fhall deplore my victory or my fall? How few funs fhall fet, when the world fhall hardly remember whether I conquered or fell?" The trumpet founded the alarm, the foldiers called for battle: the paflion for glory veiled from the eye the wounds and mangled carcaffes over which he had wept in imagination, and darkened thofe fine feelings which were changing the hero into the god. Hiftory perhaps affords no example of this virtue, but imagination can picture it, and hold it up as the finest rudiment of education; and even in fancy, it is accompanied with almoft the idolatry of mankind. The fum of the pleafures from the fcale of benevolence, form however but one part of the moral obligation to its practice; we must look therefore to the confequences of the oppofite scale of vices. 1. Natural Infenfibility, the oppofite of compaffion, seems to be either a defect in, or a neglect of the finer fenfations of the heart; and it arises from the habit of counteracting them. The former admits of obfervation, but not of explanation; the latter is the fruit of a vicious educa tion. "It is the wifh of a wife man (faid Epicurus) to fly from the pains which are not his; he has enough to fuffer from thofe he cannot avert." The habit of avoiding the fufferings of others makes us indifferent to them. Moral sceptics argue, that the infenfible are the most happy. An eye ftruck with a palfy is infenfible to pain, but its poffeffor is not so happy as when all the beauties of nature broke in upon his fight. The objects of our feelings may give us pain, but they lead to difpofitions and actions which produce the most refined enjoyment. Infentibility always procures the contempt of mankind, and when it is accompanied with power, their hatred. 2. Hard-heartedness is infenfibility to the fufferings of human nature, accompanied with malignant paffions. When the mind can dwell on the fufferings of an enemy, it is training to look on thofe of a friend with indifference. Though Philip the Second was a bigot in religion, he was infenfible to its duties: he heard of the executions of Egmont and Hoorne with one regret only, that he had not feen their bodies mangled and burned; he was always prefent at an Auto de fe, and was never feen to fmile with fuch complacency as when he heard of the murder of the Prince of Orange. The fame vice appears in private life. The Roman mothers, after the establishment of defpotism, were fo corrupted, that they abandoned their children to the care of their flaves. They wished to teach them to forget that their fathers had been free. When their fons fell by the order of the tyrant, they attended the court as if the life of a courtier had not been subjected to viciffitudes. If fuch a mind be too vicious to know remorfe, the fcorn and deteftation of mankind mark their disapprobation of it. 3. Cruelty is the union of ftrong paffions, with the habit of deftroying the rights of mankind. In the rude ages of fociety, cruelty is fometimes viewed as a virtue; in civilized ages, uniformly as a vice. When the American Indians take a prifoner, they try to difcover whether his character is like their own; they tie him to a tree, and, dancing in a circle, spit on him, to fee whether he can be indifferent to insults; they then run round him and cut him with their knives; if he bears the pain without a fhrink, they allow that he has fortitude: they next burn his wounds with lighted faggots; if he ftands this rack, the old men pronounce that he has the foul of a Cherokee, and may become a a warrior. The women fing a song of joy; his wounds are tied up and healed; he attends the headmen and warriors. If he can bear cold and fatigue, and be brave, he gets a hatchet, and is adopted by fome warrior to replace a fon he has loft in battle. Though there is a mixture of manly virtue in this cruelty, infenfibility, perverted by habits, could only produce it. This vice in polished ages, though blamed, is practifed. The most civilized European nations discover it in the tortures of criminals, though the scene is only fitted to train the fpectators to infenfibility, not to make them in love with virtue. When the Romans made no law against parricide, because the remorfe which followed it exceeded in duration the most studied punishments, they described the fufferings which form the obligation to avoid the vice. 4. Public Perfidy is the decided tendency of the mind to fubvert the rights of a people. If the oppofite virtue of patriotism marked a regard to the rights of our country, in preference to felfish confiderations of every kind, public perfidy difcovers itself by a preference of felfish confiderations to the rights of our country. Such a character fprings not from any effort of reafon examining the degrees of enjoyment which a particular fituation can afford, but from the perverfion of reason, which concludes, that riches, power, or rank, can give happinefs, though the fentiments of the heart and the rights of mankind fhould be equally violated in the attainment of them. This vice is affected in practice by the characters of individuals, and by the fi tuations in which they are placed. Sometimes it is bold and desperate, sometimes it is cautious, but decided. The unfufpecting mind of Edward led him to intruft the guardianship of his infant fons to his brother Richard. Their youth, their beauty, their helpless dependence, had no attractions for his hard and cruel heart; they ferved only to roufe his perfidy and ambition. With talents he deluded the public, with art he drew the infants into his power; by his power he procured ruffians to murder them. The public vengeance awaited but the moment of a call, and the people lamented only that the fate of the tyrant was too honourable for his crimes, The Romans brought forward Auguftus to avenge the death of Cæfar, who had fubverted their liberties. With a cautious and deliberate eye he turned the prejudices of the people against his rivals, accepted of the public offices under the pretext of preferving them, habituated the citizens to confider his favour as the fource of their fafety, till at laft the Senate, which had appeared an affembly of gods, funk in the gaudy pageant of a defpot. If Auguftus was not that defpot, he formed the defpotifm, in which age, fex, rank, all pro mifcuoufly fell before the unguided and unprincipled violence of tyrants. This vice fhews perhaps the highest link in the chain, for the remaining one feems to go beyond examples. 5. Hatred to mankind fignifics a perpetual violation of their rights, accompanied with the moft malignant paffions. It feems to fum up all the preceding vices, infenfibility of heart, hardened by habits, become cruel in deeds, and confirmed by public perfidy, till at laft all the objects which virtuous men efteem, all the rights on which they reft their happiness, all the fcenes in which they receive approbation and confidence, become matters of abhorrence and detefta. tion. When Nero became infenfible to the fufferings of the Romans; when his hard heart could force a mother to curfe the hour in which he had given him life; when his cruelty became fo habitual, that friends and country left it unfated; when his public perfidy could fcheme the burning of Rome, and his violence delight in feeing it in flames, he affords an example of hatred almoft to mankind. The confequences of his vices ftrongly mark the obligation to avoid them. Every foot feemed the speedy harbinger of affaffination. The looks of the prætorian bands piefaged his approaching punifh. ment, till the wretch who had been infenfible, hard-hearted, cruel, and perfi. dious, to foes, to friends, to country, and to mankind, could not even obtain the mercy of his own flave to kill him. Trembling he awaited the fury of the Romans to drag his bleeding carcafe over thofe ftreets which he had fo often ftain. ed with their blood, that the Tyber might carry off an object which vengeance no longer could purfue. This vice feems rather, like the oppo. fite virtue, to be an object of imagination L2 than than to exift in examples, but even in fancy it can be held up for the paffions to deteft and execrate. The effects or confequences of male volence fhew the obligation to the practice of the conduct which benevolence prescribes." Ancient Scottish Poems, never before in print; These manufcripts were always preferved in the family of the original colJector, till the Duke of Lauderdale prefented them to Mr Pepys, fecretary to the admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; who, at his death, bequeathed them, with his other curious manufcripts, to Magdalen College, Cambridge. The editor's curiofity having been excited by the accounts given of the Maitland Collection by feveral writers, and particularly by Dr Percy, he went to Cambridge, and obtained permiffion to copy any part of the manufcripts that he judged worthy of publication. Of the pieces now prefented for the first time to the public, we fhall give a brief account in the editor's own words. The firft is a long allegorical poem on human life, called King Hart, and writ ten by the celebrated Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. "The poem deferves prefervation as a curiofity, though it will not highly entertain the reader.” The next piece is a Tale, by Dunbar. It is in a fingular kind of blank verfe, ufed by the old romancers, and after them by the author of Pierce Plowman's Vifions. It is full of knowledge of life, and rich defcription; and is alfo much tinctured with immodefty; which Fontaine, indeed, looks upon as effential to this kind of writing :"-and for which, we may add, our editor fcruples not to ftand forward as an advocate; pleading for its excufe, that it must "ever delight every mind that is not callous to nature's beft and fineft fenfibilities;" justifying it by the practice of the Greek and Roman tion of the modern French ladies,-who, writers, and, above all, by the converfa it is faid by Mr Pinkerton, "indulge themfelves upon all occafions with every liberty of fpeech." Having confirmed his argument by fuch truly refpectable authorities, he concludes with observing, that it is undoubtedly a falfe idea to look on immodefty as a mark of an unpolished age." The other piece in this collection is intitled, "The Friars of Berwick, a Tale.” This is only fuppofed to be written by Dunbar. It is in his manner, and worthy of his immodeft mufe. The editor difcovers more wit and beauty in it, than we have the good fortune of finding out. "For nature," fays he, "it is admirable; but for contrivance, the rarest quality of this fpecies of writing, it is the firft that I have ever read; and very few ancient or modern tales have escaped my reading." Perhaps we may, in fome measure, account for the editor's peculiar tafte and judgement, from the manner in which he hath employed his time. Such are the larger pieces in this collection. Thofe which follow are of lefs bulk, of various measures, on a great variety of fubjects, and written by different hands. They are alfo of various merits. A few are very beautiful; and we obferve, here and there, an elegance of fentiment and expreffion, rarely to be met with in writings of that period. The smaller poems of Dunbar follow the tales. "They begin with bis youthful and light pieces, and end with thofe written in his old age. The fole merit of fome is their curiofity; but others [in the editor's opinion] have every intrinfic merit." The next divifion is of Poems by various Authors; viz. Quintin, Schaw, Arbuthnot, Lord Thiriitane, James VI. &c &c. Then follow Poems by unknown Authors; which form the most numerous affortment, amounting to upwards of thirty. The collection ends with Poems by Sir Richard Maitland. "They have," fays the editor, "confiderable merit in every view, and fhew him to have been a good man, man, as well as a great ftatefman. His lighter pieces have a delightful gaiety and garrulity of old age, for he doth not feem to have written a line of poetry till he had reached his fixtieth year." The preface to this felection of Scottish poems is followed by an Effay on the Origin of Scottif Poetry, in which the writer discovers a confiderable degree of hiftorical knowledge, mixed with affectation, and difgraced by infidelity; but when he confines himself to hiftory, he is much more fortunate than when his wayward fancy tempts him to rove in the wild regions of fpeculation. His remarks on the origin of the Britons, Picts, and Scots, are ingenious and inftructive; and his account of poetry in Scotland, under its different periods, and in its different languages and dialects, is particularly entertaining, as well as full of curious information. Our readers will be pleafed with the following extracts, which may be confi. dered as a brief analysis of the whole effay: Mr Pinkerton brings the most ancient Britons from the Cimbric Cherfonefus (now Denmark); and fuppofes, that they were afterwards fupplanted by the Belgic Gauls, who inhabited the island at the time of Cæfar's invafion. The Cimbro-Celtic Britons (or those we now call Welsh) never appear to have extended their poffeffions beyond the Forth and Clyde. All the northern tract beyond these rivers was called Caledonia by the Romans, on account of its vaft woods, from Kaled, a British word, fig nifying a wood, the plural of which is Kaledon. Calydon in Etolia of Greece, and the famous Calydonian foreft there, feem to be of the fame Celtic origin; for the Celtic language was the original fpeech of all Europe. This is Mr Whitaker's ingenious conjecture. The Picts inhabited Caledonia, or the provinces beyond Clyde and Forth. Thefe barbarous people came originally from Scandinavia. According to Scandinavian antiquaries, the Goths were led into the northern parts of Europe from Afia by Odin and his heroes, thence called Afæ, many centuries before Chrift. From their new fettlements, they afterwards fpread over great part of Europe; and Scandinavia became the grand storehouse of nations. But from Scandinavia to the ifles between it and Scotland, and thence to the north of Scotland, was the eafieft and nearest of their colonifations: and we may therefore fuppofe it one of the firft. Samuel Infans [frequently confounded with Nennius] informs us, that the Picts were fettled in the Orkneys about 200 years before Chrift; and Eumenius fays, that in the time of Julius Cæfar, fifty-three years before Chrift, they had been the accustomed enemies of Britain. About the Chriftian epoch they feem to have feized on the northern parts of Caledonia; and in less than a century to have peopled the whole spaces, then free from woods, down to the friths of Forth and Clyde, either driving the firft inhabitants before them, or, what is more probable, finding the country uninhabited. Thus it is manifeft that the Caledonians were of a distinct race from the other Britons. Tacitus fays, that their red hair and large joints prove them to be of German extraction: whereas he gives quite different origins to the fouthern nations. The Scots are acknowledged by Mr Pinkerton (notwithstanding the prejudi ces of his countrymen in favour of the oppofite hypothefis) to have been traufported originally from Ireland. This is clear from the pofitive and repeated affertions of Bede and other hiftorians. Ireland was the first Scotia: and Usher goes fo far as to fay, that Scotia always implies Ireland, in every writer down to the eleventh century. Others, however, think it clear from Eginhart, that Scotland began to be called Scotia about the year 800. The reafon of this confufion is, that both countries were inhabited by Scots; Ireland first, and Caledonia afterward. The inhabitants of the weft of Scotland, north of Clyde, and of the Western Ifles, are univerfally Irish; they have only Irish cuftoms, and speak only the Irish tongue. That the Scots, a nation far inferior to the Picts in the extent of their poffeffions and antiquity of their fettlement, thould have had the chance to give their name to the country, is no more to be wondered at, than that the Angles, the fmalleft tribe of all the Saxon fettlers in England, fhould give their name to that kingdom. Our author fuppofes, that when the Belgic Gauls invaded Britain, the aboriginal Celts fled to Ireland, and first peopled that country; and he attempts to fupport this conjecture by the meaning of |