We estimate their importance, not as they really are, but as they affect us in our present state; we undervalue and despise them.

Qu'en ses plus beaux habits l'Aurore au teint ver

meil,

Annonce à l'univers le retour du soleil,
Et, que devant fon char, ses legeres suivantes
Ouvrent de l'orient les portes eclatantes;
Depuis que ma bergere a quitté ces beaux lieux,
Le ciel n'a plus ni jour, ni clarté pour mes yeux.

SEGRAIS

We may also observe, that social and beneficent affections are in their own nature gay and exhilarating; and that, by extending their influence to other passions that are not opposed to them, they accelerate their motions and augment their vivacity. They animate, and even inflame the inferior appetites; and where reason, and other serious principles are not invested with fupreme authority, they expose us to the anarchy of unlawful paffions.

L3

4

4

sions. There are many instances of men betrayed into habits of profligacy and difsipation, by the influence of their social affections. These men, disappointed and chagreened with the world, and confequently, with every pleasure, to whose energy the love of society contributed, confider the enjoyments arising from inferior appetites, not as they really are, when governed and guided by reason, but immoderate and pernicious, agreeably to their own experience. Reformed profligates are in general the most eloquent teachers of abstinency and self-denial. Polemo, converted by Xenocrates from a course of wild extravagance, became eminent in the school of Plato. The wisdom of Solomon

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was, in like manner, the child of folly. And the melancholy Jaques would not have moralized so profoundly, had he not been, as we are told in the play, a diffipated and sensual libertine,

To To the foregoing observations, and to the confiftency of Jaques's character, one thing may be objected: He is fond of music. But furely music is an enjoyment of sense; it affords pleasure; it is admitted to every joyous scene, and augments their gaiety. How can this be explained?

Though action seems essential to our happiness, the mind never exerts itself, unless it be actuated by some paffion or defire. Thinking appears to be necessary to its existence; for surely that quality is neceffary, without which the object cannot be conceived. But the existence of thinking depends upon thoughts or ideas: And, consequently, whether the mind is active or not, ideas are present to the thinking faculty. The motions and laws observed by our thoughts in the impressions they make on us, vary according as the foul may be influenced by various passions. At one time, they move with incredible celerity; they seem to rush upon us in the

wildest disorder; and those of the most oppofite character and complexion unite in the fame assemblage. At other times, they are flow, regular, and uniform. Now, it is obvious, that their rapidity must be occafioned by the eagerness of an impelling paffion, and that their wild extravagance proceeds from the energies of various pafsions operating at once or alternately. Passions, appetites, and defires are the principles of action, and govern the motions of our thoughts: Yet they are themselves dependent: They depend on our present humour, or state of mind, and on our temporary capacity of receiving pleasure or pain. It is always to obtain fome enjoyment, or to avoid some pain or uneasiness, that we indulge the violence of defire, and enter eagerly into the hurry of thoughts and of action. But, if we are languid and desponding, if melancholy diffuses itself through the foul, we no

longer cherish the gay illufions of hope;

no

1

no pleasure seems worthy of our attention; we reject confolation, and brood over the images of our distress. In this state of mind, we are animated by no vigorous or lively paffion; our thoughts are quickened by no violent impulse: They resemble one another: We frequently return to the same images: Our tone of mind continues the same, unless a defire or wish intervenes, that our condition were some how different; and as this suggests to us a state of circumstances and events very different from what we suffer, our affliction is aggravated by the contrast, and we fink into deeper forrow. Precisely agreeable to this description, is the character of melancholy music. The founds, that is, the ideas it conveys to the mind, move slowly; they partake of little variety, or, if they are confiderably varied, it is by a contrast that heightens the expression. The idea of a sound has certainly no resemblance to that of a misfortune : Yet,