understandings unfit for bufinefs. When they examine with the greatest accuracy all the poffible confequences of a step they are to make in life, they difcover fo many difficulties and chances against them, which ever way they go, that they become flow and Hluctuating in their refolutions, and undetermined in their conduct. But as the bufinefs of life is only a conjectural art, in which there is no guarding against all poffible contingencies, a man that would be useful to the public or to himself, muft acquire a quickness in perceiving where the greateft probability of good lies, muft be decifive in his refolutions, fteady and fearless in putting them in ex

écution.

We fhall mention, in the last place, among the inconveniencies attendant on fuperior parts, that folitude in which they place a perfon on whom they are beltowed, even in the midft of fociety.

Condemn'd in business or in arts to drudge; Without a fecond, and without a judge.

To the few, who are judges of his abilities, he is an object of jealoufy and envy. The bulk of mankind confider him with that awe and diftant regard that is inconfiftent with confidence and friendship. They will never unbofom themselves to one they are afraid of, nor lay open their weaknefs to one they think has none of his own. For this reafon we commonly find men of genius have the greateft real affection and

• Pope.

friendship for fuch as are very much their inferiors in point of understanding; good-natured, unobferving people, with whom they can indulge all their peculiarities and weakneffes without referve. Men of great abilities, therefore, who prefer the sweets of focial life and private friendship to the vanity of being admired, muft carefully conceal their fuperiority, and bring themselves down to the level of thofe they converfe with. Neither muft this feem to be the effect of a defigned condefcenfion; for this is ftill more mortifying to human pride than the other.

Thus we have endeavoured to point out the effects which the Faculty of reafon, that boafted characteristic and privilege of the human fpecies, produces among thofe who poffefs it in the mont eminent degree; and from the lit tle influence it feems to have in promoting either public or private good, we are tempted to fufpect, that Providence purpofely blafts thofe great fruits we naturally expect from it, in order to preferve a certain balance and equality among mankind.-Certain it is, that virtue, genius, beauty, wealth, power, and every natural advantage one can be poffeffed of, are ufually mixed with fome alloy, which difappoints the fond hope of their raifing the poffeffor to any uncommon degree of eminence, and even in fomé measure brings him down to the common level of his fpecies.

The next diftinguishing princi ple of mankind, which was mentioned, is that which unites them into focieties, and attaches them to Q3

ope

one another by fympathy and affection. This principle is the fource of the moft heart felt plea fure which we ever taste.-

It does not appear to have any natural connection with the underftanding It was obferved formerly, that perfons of the best under ftanding poffeffed it frequently in a very inferior degree to the reft of mankind; but it was at the fame time noticed, that this did not proceed from lefs natural fenfibility of heart, but from the focial principle languishing for want of proper exercife.-It must be acknowledged, that the idle, the diffipated, and debauched, draw most pleafure from this fource.

Not only their pleasures but their vices are often of the focial kind. This makes the focial principle warm and vigorous, and hence perhaps there is more friend fhip among them than among men of any other clafs, though, confidering the flightnefs of its foundation, fuch friendship cannot be fuppofed to be very lafting. Even drinking, if not carried to excefs, is found favourable to friendship, especially in our northern climates, where the affections are naturally cold; as it produces an artificial warmth of temper, opens and enlarges the heart, and difpels the referve natural perhaps to wife men, but inconfiftent with friendship, which is entirely a connection of the heart.

All thofe warm and elevated defcriptions of friendship, which fo powerfully charm the minds of young people, and reprefent it as the height of human felicity, are really romantic among us.-When we look round us into life, we

meet with nothing correfponding to them, except among an happy few in the fequeftered fcenes of life far removed from the pursuits of intereft or ambition.-These fentiments of friendship are original and genuine productions of warmer and happier climes, and adopted by us merely out of vanity.-The fame obfervation may be applied to the more delicate and intereftiug attachment between the fexes.-The wife and learned of our fex generally treat this attachment with great ridicule, as a weaknefs below the dig nity of a man, and allow no kind of it but what we have in common with the whole animal creation. They acknowledge that the fair fex are useful to us, and a very few will deign to confider fome of them as reafonable and agreeable companions.-But it may be queftioned, whether this is not the language of an heart infenfible to the most refined and exquifite pleasure human nature is capable of enjoying, or the language of difappointed pride, rather than of wisdom and nature.

No man ever defpifed the fex who was a favourite with them; nor did any one ever speak contemptuously of love, who was confcious of loving and being beloved by a woman of merit.

If we examine into the other pleafures we enjoy as focial beings, we fhall find many delicacies and refinements admired by fome, which others who never felt them treat as vifionary and romantic. It is no difficult matter to account for this.-There is certainly an original difference in the conftitutions both of men apd nations; but this is not fo

gre at

great as at firft view it feems to be. Human nature confifts of the fame principles every-where. In fome people one principle is naturally ftronger than it is in others, but exercife and proper culture will do much to fupply the deficiency. The inhabitants of cold climates, having lefs natural warmth and fenfibility of heart, enter but a little way into thofe refinements of the focial principle, in which men of different temper delight. But if fuch refinements are capable of affording to the mind innocent and fubftantial pleasure, it should be the bufinels of philofophy to fearch into the proper methods of cultivating and improving them. -This study, which makes a confiderable part of the philofophy of life and manners, has been furprisingly neglected in Great Britain. Whence is it that the English, with great natural genius and acuteness, and ftill greater goodnefs of heart, bleffed with riches and liberty, are rather a melancholy and unhappy people? Why is their neighbouring nation, whom they defpife for their fhallowness and levity, yet awkwardly imitate in the moft frivolous accomplishments, happy în poverty and flavery? We own the one poffeffes a native chearfulness and vivacity beyond any people upon earth, but ftill much is owing to their cultivating with the greatest care all the arts which enliven and captivate the imagination, foften the heart, and give fociety its highest polith; while the other is immerfed in a fevere and fupercilious philofophy, which feems to make them too wife to be happy. In confequence of this,

we generally find in Britain men of fenfe and learning fpeaking in a contemptuous manner of all writings addreffed to the imagination and the heart, even of fuch as exhibit genuine pictures of life and manners. But befides the additional vigour which thefe give to the powers of the imagination, and the influence they have in rendering the affections warmer and more lively, they are frequent-, ly of the greatest fervice in communicating a knowledge of the world; a knowledge the most important of any to one who is to live in it, and would wish to act his part with propriety and dignity. Moral painting is undoubtedly the highest and most ufeful fpecies of painting.-The execution may be, and generally is, very wretched, and fuch as has the worst effects in mifleading the judgement, and debauching the heart; but if this kind of writing continues to come into the hands of men of genius and worth, no room will be left for this complaint.

There is a remarkable difference between the English and French in their taste of the focial life. The gentlemen in France, in all periods of life, and even in the most advanced age, never affociate with one another, but spend all the hours that can be fpared from bufinefs or ftudy with the ladies, with the young, the gay, and the happy.-It is obferved that the people of this rank in France live longer, and, what is of much greater confequence, live more happily, and enjoy their faculties of body and mind more entire, in old age, than any people in Europe. In Great Britain we

have certain notions of propriety and decorum, which lead us to think the French manner of fpending their hours of freedom from bufinels extremely ridiculous. But if we examine very attentively into thefe fentiments of propriety, we fhall not perhaps find them to be built on a very folid foundation. We believe that it is proper for perfons of the fame age, of the fame fex, of fimilar difpofitions and pursuits, to affociate together. But here we feem to be deceived by words. If we confult nature and common fenfe, we fhall find that the true propriety and harmony of focial life depends upon the connection of peo ple of different difpofitions and characters, judicioufly blended together.-Nature has made no individual nor no clafs of people independent of the rest of their fpe. cies, or fufficient for their own happiness. Each fex, each character, each period of life, have their feveral advantages and difadvantages; and that union is the happiest and moft proper, where wants are mutually fupplied. The fair fex fhould naturally expect to gain from our converfation, knowledge, wifdom, and fedatenefs; and they fhould give us in exchange, humanity, polite. nefs, chearfulness, talte, and fentiment. The levity, the rafhnefs and folly of early life, is tempered with the gravity, the caution, and the wisdom of age; while the timidity, coldness of heart, and langour incident to declining years, are fupported and affified by the courage, the warmth, und the vivacity of youth.-Old people would find great advantage in affociating rather with the young than

with thofe of their own age.Many caufes contribute to deftroy chearfulness in the decline of life, befides the natural decay of youthful vivacity. Their few furviving friends and companions are then drapping off apace; the gay profpects, that fwelled the imagination in more early and more happy days, are then vanished, and along with them the open, generous, unfufpicious temper, and that warm heart which dilated with benevolence to all mankind. These are fucceeded by gloom, difguft, fufpicion, and all the felfifh paffions which four the temper and contract the heart. When old people affociate only with one another, they mutually increase thefe unhappy difpofitions, by brooding over their difappointments, the degeneracy of the times, and fuch-like chearless and uncomfortable subjects.-The converfation of young people difpels. this gloom, and communicates a chearfulness, and fomething elfe perhaps which we do not fully understand, of great confequence to health and the prolongation of life. There is an universal principle of imitation among mankind, which difpofes them to catch inftantaneously, and without being confeious of it, the refemblance of any action or character that prelents itself. This difpofition we can often check by the force or reafon, or the affiftance of oppofite impreffions: at other times, it is infurmountable. We have numberless examples of this in the fimilitude of character and manners introduced by people living much together, in the fudden com munications of terror, of melancholy, of joy, of the military ar

dor,

dor, when no caufe can be affigned for these emotions. The communication of nervous disorders, efpecially of the convulfive kind, is often fo aftoni thing, that it has been referred to fafcination or witchcraft. We will not pretend to explain the nature of this mental infection; but it is a fact well established, that fuch a thing exists, and that there is fuch a principle in nature as an healthy fympathy, as well as a morbid infection.

An old man who enters into this philofophy, is far from envying or proving a check on the innocent pleafures of young people, and particularly of his own children. On the contrary, he attends with delight to the gradual opening of the imagination and the dawn of reafon; he enters by a fecret fort of fympathy into their guiltless joys, that revive in his memory the tender images of his youth, which, as Mr. Addifon obferves, by length of time have contracted a softness inexpreffibly agreeable; and thus the evening of life is protracted to an happy, honourable, and unenvied old age.

On dramatic unity, especially as obferved by Shakespeare; from Mr. Fehnson's preface to his edition of Shakespeare's plays.

O the unities of time and place, he has fhewn no regard; and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they stand will diminish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they have very generally received, by

difcovering that they have given more trouble to the poet, than pleafure to the auditor.

The neceffity of obferving the unities of time and place arifes from the fuppofed neceffity of making the drama credible. The critics hold it impoffible, that an action of months or years can be poffibly believed to pafs in three hours; or that the fpectator can fuppofe himfelf to fit in the theatre, while ambaffadors go and return between diftant kingdoms, while armies are levied and towns befieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they faw courting his miftress, shall lament the untimely fall of his fon. The mind revolts from evident falfehood; and fiction lofes its force, when it departs from the resemblance of reality.

From the narrow limitation of time neceffarily arifes the contraction of place. The fpectator, who knows that he saw the firft act at Alexandria, cannot fuppofe that he fees the next at Rome, at a distance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in fo fhort a time, have tranfported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itself; that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Persepolis.

Such is the triumphant language with which a critic exults over the mifery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without refiftance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare, that he affumes as an unquestionable principle, a pofition, which, while his

breath