an object for my refentment: Lam violently incited to crush it to atoms. The paffion indeed in this cafe can be but a fingle flath; for being en→ tirely irrational, it must vanish with the first re flection. Nor is this irrational effect confined to bodily pain: inward diftrefs, when exceffive, may be the occafion of effects equally irrational: when a friend is in danger, and the event uncertain, the perturbation of mind occafioned thereby, will, in a fiery temper, produce momentary fits of anger against this very friend, however in nocent: thus Shakespear, in the Tempest,

Alonzo.

Sit down and reft.

Ev'n here I will put off my hope, and keep it
No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd
Whom thus we stray to find,
Our fruftrate fearch on land.

and the fea mocks
Well, let him go.

Act 3. fc. 3.

The final words, Well, let him go, are an expreffion of impatience and anger at Ferdinand, whofe abfence greatly diftreffed his father, dreading that he was loft in the storm. This nice operation of the human mind, is by Shakespear exhibited upon another occafion, and finely painted. In the tragedy of Othello, Iago, by dark hints and fufpicious circumftances, had roufed Othello's jealoufy; which, however, appeared too flightly founded to be vented upon Defdemona, its proper object. The perturbation and distress of mind thereby occafioned, produced a momen

tary

1

tary refentment against lago, confidered as occa

fioning the jealoufy, though innocent:

Othello. Villain, be fure thou prove my love a whore; Be fure of it give me the ocular proof.

Or by the wrath of man's eternal foul

Thou hadst been better have been born a dog,

Than anfwer my wak'd wrath.

lago. Is't come to this?

Othello. Make me fee't; or, at the leaft, fo prove it,

That the probation bear no hinge or loop

To hang a doubt on: or wo upon thy life!

lago. My Noble Lord

Othello. If thou doft flander her, and torture me,

Never pray more; abandon all remorse;

On horrors head horrors accumulate;

Do deeds to make heav'n weep, all earth amaz'd:
For nothing canft thou to damnation add

Greater than that.

Othello, at 3. fc. 8.

This blind and abfurd effect of anger, is more gaily illustrated by Addison, in a story, the dramatis perfona of which are, a cardinal, and a spy retained in pay for intelligence. The cardinal is represented as minuting down every thing that is told him. The fpy begins with a low voice, "Such an one the advocate whispered to one of "his friends within my hearing, that your Emi" nence was a very great poltroon;" and after having given his patron time to take it down, adds, "That another called him a mercenary "rascal in a public converfation." The cardinal

replies,

replies, "Very well," and bids him go on. The fpy proceeds, and loads him with reports of the fame nature, till the cardinal rifes in great wrath, calls him an impudent fcoundrel, and kicks him

out of the room *.

We meet with inftances every day of refentment raised by lofs at play, and wreaked on the cards or dice. But anger, a furious paffion, is fatisfied with a connection ftill flighter than that of cause and effect; of which Congreve, in the Mourning Bride, gives one beautiful example:

Gonfalez. Have comfort.

Almeria. Curs'd be that tongue that bids me be of comfort,

Curs'd my own tongue that could not move his pity, Curs'd thefe weak hands that could not hold him here, For he is gone to doom Alphonfo's death.

Act 4. fc. 8.

I have chosen to exhibit anger in its more rare appearances, for in these we can beft trace its nature and extent. In the examples above given, ît appears to be an abfurd paffion, and altogether irrational. But we ought to confider, that it is not the intention of nature to fubject this paffion, in every inftance, to reafon and reflection: it was given us to prevent or to repel injuries; and, like fear, it often operates blindly and inftinctively, without the leaft view to confe

*Spectator, N° 439.

quences:

quences: the very firft apprehenfion of harm, fets it in motion to repel injury by punishment. Were it more cool and deliberate, it would lofe its threatening appearance, and be infufficient to guard us against violence and mifchief. When fuch is and ought to be the nature of the paffion, it is not wonderful to find it exerted irregularly and capriciously, as it fometimes is where the mifchief is fudden and unforeseen. All the harm that can be done by the paffion in this ftate, is inftantaneous; for the shortest delay fets all to rights; and circumftances are feldom fo unlucky as to put it in the power of a paffionate man to do much harm in an instant.

Social paffions, like the selfish, sometimes drop their character, and become inftinctive. It is not unufual to find anger and fear respecting others fo exceffive, as to operate blindly and impetuously, precifely as where they are selfish.

SECT.

VI.

Emotions caufed by fiction.

HE attentive reader will observe, that hi

THE

therto no fictions of the imagination have been affigned as caufes of paffions or emotions: whether it be a being, action, or quality, that moveth us, it is fuppofed to be really exifting.

ifting. This obfervation shows that our subject is not yet completed; because paffions, as all the world know, are moved by fiction as well as by truth. In judging beforehand of man, fo remarkably addicted to truth and reality, one should little dream that fiction can have any effect upon him: but man's intellectual faculties are not fufficiently perfect to dive far even into his own nature. I fhall take occafion afterward to fhow, that the power of fiction to generate paffion is an admirable contrivance fubfervient to excellent purposes in the mean time, we must try to unfold the means that give fiction fuch influence on the mind.

That the objects of our external fenfes really exift in the way and manner we perceive, is a branch of intuitive knowledge: when I fee a man walking, a tree growing, or cattle grafing, I cannot doubt but that these objects are really what they appear to be: if I be a fpectator of any tranfaction or event, I have a conviction of the real existence of the perfons engaged, of their words, and of their actions. Nature determines us to rely on the veracity of our fenfes; and indeed, if our fenfes did not convince us of the reality of their objects, they could not in any degree anfwer their end.

By the power of memory, a thing formerly feen may be recalled to the mind with different degrees of accuracy. We commonly are fatisfied with aflight recollection of the chief circumstances;

and,