But I much question, whether we derive more pleasure from this superabundance of beauties, than if they were more limited in number. We should visit them oftener, and have more correct, definite, and stronger impressions. I shall leave the description of the Palais Doria, Giustiniani, Bar berini, Aldobrandini, Medicis, and Ludovis, till my return, and shall now take my leave of Rome, to introduce you to wonders of another species; to smoaking moun tains, and flowing lava; to boiling springs, and excavated hills; to sulphurous exhalations, and meph. itick vapours. You will pardon me,if my letters smell too strongly of these topicks, for I consider myself writing upon volcanoes, and rambling over subterraneous fires. Adieu. For the Anthology. REMARKER, No. 29. And if a sigh would sometimes intervene, THE expressions, applied to particular classes of our sentiments and emotions, have the form of solecism. The effect of certain objects and representations upon the feelings is described in phrases of a paradoxical structure. It is called melancholy satisfaction, and soothing melancholy, pleasurable pain and painful pleasure, the joy of grief, agreeable sadness, and delightful woe. By those, who are unused to the melting mood,' or who think it worthy of their wisdom and dignity to guard themselves, and of their benevolence to guard others,against the weaknesses of fancy and feeling, this language is not heard with any great respect or sympathy. They are inclined to suspect it, as delusive or hurtful, or deride it, as a species of refined jargon. It cannot be denied, that phraseology of this kind is frequently the vehicle rather of vanity, than of tenderness; the cant of an ill-directed, ill-governed, and factitious sensibility, and wayward imagination, rather than Vol. V. No. 1. D the dictate of unadulterated nature, or the mirrour of just perception. On the other hand, it must be admitted that these and similar expressions allude to real phenomena of human nature. They are not ill chosen to picture those states of the mind, which have a tinge of sadness, and are yet agreeable; in which pleasure and pain are blended, but in which pleasure prevails. They indicate something, to which the soul is conscious, solemnized, and affected by the objects of religion, softened by contrition, and bowed by humility, but cheered by hope, and exalted by the spirit of devotion. They answer to that grief for departed loveliness and worth, which is mellowed by time,and chastened by resignation,but which delights to hold in affectionate remembrance the buried friend or child. The heartaches, that belong to the tender passion in its less violent symptoms, are thought to be rightly denominated pleasing pains. There is a luxury in the indulgence of representation of fellow beings affected. We suffer to a certain extent in their sufferings. It cannot be supposed that exhibitions of misery are in themselves grateful; that sobs and groans regale our ears, and spectacles of woe feast our eyes. If this ever happen with any, it must be with those only, who are under the operation of the most dark and malignant passions. Yet experience and observation prove, that men in general have some disposition to converse with misfortune, and find a pleasure in being moved with objects of distress. I shall remark on the fact,and the cause; shall sketch the natural history of our sensibility to the sufferings of others; and trace the origin of the pleasure apparently found in compassionate, sympathetick feelings, excited by the presence or the representation of human beings in situations difficult, trying, and calamitous. The expressions, we have recited, have respect to our sympathies with distress, real or imagined. It is believed to be a law of our mental frame, that in certain circum- The aptitude to be moved by stances we shall derive pleasure the emotions, and to suffer with from affecting objects and repre- the sufferings of our fellow beings, sentations. The origin of this is expressed in a variety of terms pleasure has been a subject of spe- and phrases. It is called rejoicing culation; for curiosity is necessa- with those who rejoice, and weeprily interested to disentangle it ing with those who weep. Symfrom its apparent complications; pathy is used to indicate the state and the moral character of human of our feelings, when we enter innature is in some measure involv- to their painful sensations. We ed in the result of the inqui- are inclined to feel for all that feels, ry. The Remarker invites his or that is intimately associated with readers to join him in a brief ex- what is sensitive. An inanimate amination of this part of our con- object is regarded with interest stitution. They may find that on account of its connexion with light is reflected from one of the something animated. A staff, dark sides of our nature; and see which has been long a companion a new proof of benevolence in the of our walks, is prized with a senauthor of our frame; who has timent like affection. A dwelling, placed an ally of the unfortunate which has been a home, the seat in the strong holds of self-love, of our best enjoyments, is forsaken and ordained that 'pleasure shall with regret. Ruins, are objects of be raised from the bosom of un- sentiment, calling back the mind casiness.' to the days of other years, and We are affected at the sight or seeming conscious to the actions of the mighty dead. The power of strong passion to convert things inanimate into sympathising beings, is evinced by the personifications of poetry. In elegiack verses the trees, and fountains, and rocks are described as sharing the griefs, which the muse bewails. Few persons are wholly indifferent to the sufferings of the brute creation. The joy of the chase, celebrated with so much enthusiasm in hunting songs, is not espoused by the pitiful so strongly, as the fear and anguish of the animal flying from its pursuers. Many an eye has been moistened at the catastrophe of the high mettled racer,' and all readers of Virgil and Lucretius enter with fellow feeling into those passages, where they describe, the one the sorrow of a steer for the loss of his fellow, and the other the affliction of a cow deprived of her calf.* The dead, considered as cut off from every agreeable appearance of nature, every loved connexion of life, and shut up in the cold and dreary tomb, are viewed with pity, though reflection teaches us that these sad associations exist only in our minds. We feel for those, who are insensible to the circumstances that raise our emotion. The dubious prospects of the unconscious infant, deprived of its parents; the gaiety of the maniack, laughing wild,' excite compassion. The sympathy, of which we are treating, is the fellow feeling, which we have with a being like ourselves, in situations of distress or under painful perturbations of mind. We are said to harmonise with his condition and feelings; to make his sensations in a greater or less degree our own; to adopt his emotions. We see, hear, or im * Beattie's Essays, p. 182. agine his misery, and our souls are attuned to correspondent vibrations. The mode, the expressions, the degree, and the attractiveness of this sympathy, are diversified by a multitude of causes within and without us. The effect is much determined by the manner,in which the suffering is presented to our attention; whether by sight, by the report of an eye-witness, by the plain narrative of the historian, or the high-wrought fiction of the novelist; whether it appear in the tones of musick, in painting, sculpture, and statuary; in the descriptions of poetry, the pathetick addresses of eloquence, or in dramatick writings and exhibitions. In the efforts of art to raise emotion the success must vary with the skill and dexterity, which are exerted; and depends on the conformity of the characters, the incidents, the sentiments,and language; the intonations, looks, gestures, and attitudes to nature and truth. Numerous other circumstances are known to influence the direction and force of the sympathetick affections. The activity of the imagination, and sensibility of the heart, and delicacy of the temperament, are concerned in the impression made by scenes of woe. Some persons are too stupid to comprehend any sorrows, but their own. They witness and learn disasters with serenity undisturbed,as Dutchmen hear of earthquakes in Calabria.' This dullness of the imagina. tion, which feels only what is presented to the senses or fixed in the memory, and makes no combinations of its own, is thought to 'account in part for the effect which exhibitions of fictitious distress produce on some persons, who do not discover much sensibility to the calamities of real life. In a novel or a tragedy the picture is completely finished in all its parts, and we are made acquainted, not ..only with every circumstance on which the distress turns, but with the sentiments and feelings of every character with respect to his situation. In real life we see, in general, only detached scenes of the tragedy; and the impression is slight, unless the imagination finishes the characters and supplies the incidents that are wanting.' There is a cold, unfeeling temperament, an icy hardness, whose pulse never throbs with tender sensations. Others are as much too easily moved. They have a morbid delicacy, which may well make them wish to avoid the sights and sounds of mise ry. A readiness to be affected by images of sorrow is a characteristick of the female heart. When was woman ever wanting in compassion? Connexion with ourselves, our private affections, our interests, and experience, has a necessary influence upon this class of feelings. He jests at scars, who never felt a wound.' He talks to me,' says the weeping mother, he talks to me, who never had a son.' In the near relations of life, our sympathy with others is often identified with personal suffering. What they feel we feel, perhaps without the miti gations and supports, which they experience, and in a greater degree than they. Selfishness, in its different forms, is an antagonist of compassion. Pride keeps us at a distance from vulgar and inelegant distress. Avarice hardens the mind against the compunctious visitings of nature,' though it will allow us to weep at artificial mis ery, which does not need a friend. The gaiety of disposition, or the selfishness of temper, that often accompany prosperous fortunes, or a dissipated life, are at variance with a sentimental, participating heart. Accustomed to live for selfgratification, their affections begin and end at home. They have few of those feelings, which prompt us to claim kindred with the fallen and the unhappy. Shall the tear of pity dim that eye, which is kindled with joy? Shall the gloom of sympathetick sorrow be allowed to gather on minds, which good fortune enables to dwell in the day-light of perpetual cheerfulness? Shall he, who is intent on pleasure, turn aside from his pursuit to behold a sight of distress? Shall the soft indolence of his mind be disturbed by images of misery; or the noise of his mirth be interrupted by the cries of affliction? If he must contract acquaintance with misfortune, let it be only the mimick sorrow and fictitious woe of tragedy and romance, which it will cost him no pain nor trouble to compassionate. There is a laughing tribe, who cannot be expected to be very pitiful. So long as they have no affliction of their own, they retain a constant disposition to wit, humour, and ridicule, to the comedy and farce of life. It has been said of this temper, 'that a certain degree of vanity, or light pride, is necessary to feed and support it; and though it is never, perhaps, allied to dark envy or atrocious malignity, it is never entirely free from a share of sordid selfishness; for as the perpetual smile of gaiety can only flow from the heart, which is perpetually at case, it can only flow from that, which carries the ingredients of perpetual ease always within itself; and these are affections, which never diverge far from its own centre.' Novelty, education, custom, fashion, habit exert their influence on this part of our constitution. When the revolutionary scaffold in Paris was daily smoking with the blood of its victims, the spectacle lost its interest with the people. The monster, Robespierre, who then governed, in the latter days of his power, is said to have procured the condemnation and execution of nine young and beautiful girls, who presented a chaplet to the Prussian commander at Verdun, merely to rouse the wearied attention of the populace by a more affecting exhibition.' The events of Europe, and especially in one country of it, for the last sixteen years, consisting of a succession of crimes and horrours, of civil massacres, and bloody wars, have operated by excess of stimulus to impair the sensibility of mankind. Age debilitates the feelings; and the professions, which occasion a familiarity with sufferings, tend to convert the humanity, which at first was instinct and emotion, into principle and habit. The rude vulgar know nothing of refinements of feeling, which belong to the cultivated. Customs and manners increase or diminish the susceptibility. Roman gentlemen and ladies enjoyed the fights of gladiators in the bloody arena. The opinion of merit and propriety always enters into our sympathies. Selfish, frivolous, and excessive sorrows, unbecoming the character of the subject, whether real or feigned, indicative of pusillanimity or atrocity, we refuse to partake. In real life we revere and love those persons, who appear to feel much for others, and little for themselves; who are at once affectionate and humane, patient and magnanimous. These are some of the properties and operations of our sympathetick feelings. Are. these feelings ever productive of pleasure? What is the cause of this pleasure? What is their value and use in respect to character and enjoyment? |