pleading her mother's merit, and the refemblance the

bore to her mother:

Priuli. My daughter!

Belvidera. Yes, your daughter, by a mother
Virtuous and noble, faithful to your honour,
Obedient to your will, kind to your wishes,

Dear to your arms.

By all the joys he gave you
When in her blooming years the was your treasure,
Look kindly on me; in my face behold

The lineaments of her's y'have kiss'd so often,
Pleading the caufe of your poor catt-off child.

And again,

Belvidera. Lay me, I beg you, lay me

By the dear afhes of my tender mother :
She would have pitied me, had fate yet spar'd her.
A& 5. fc. 1.

This explains why any meritorious action, or any illuftrious qualification, in my fon or my friend, is apt to make me over-value myfelf: if I value my friend's wife or fon upon account of their connection with him, it is ftill more natural that I fhould value myfelf upon account of my connection with hiin.

Friendship, or any other focial affection, may, by changing the object, produce oppofite effects. Pity, by interefting us ftrongly for the perfon in diftrefs, muft of confequence inflame our refentment against the author of the diftrefs: for, in general, the affection we -have for any man, generates in us good-will to his friends, and ill-will to his enemies. Shakespear fhows great art in the funeral oration pronounced by Antony over the body of Cæfar. He first endeavours to excite grief in the hearers, by dwelling upon the deplorable lofs of fo great a man: this paflion, interesting them ftrongly in Cæfar's fate, could not fail to produce a lively fenfe of the treachery and cruelty of the confpirators;

et

confpirators; an infallible method to inflame the res fentment of the people beyond all bounds:

Antony. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now, You all do know this mantle. I remember

The first time ever Cæfar put it on;

"Twas on a fummer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii-

Look! in this place ran Caffius' dagger through ;-
See what a rent the envious Cafca made.-
Through this the well-beloved Brutus ftabb'd;
And, as he pluck'd his curfed fteel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæfar follow'd it!
As rufhing out of doors, to be refolv❜d,
If Brutus fo unkindly knock'd or no :
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæfar's angel.
Judge, oh you God's! how dearly Cæfar lov'd him!
This, this, was the unkindeft cut of all;

For when the noble Cæfar faw him ftab,
Ingratitude, more ftrong than traitor's arms,

Quite vanquish'd him; then burft his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Which all the while ran blood, great Cæfar fell,
Even at the base of Pompey's ftatue.

O what a fall was there, my countrymen ! --
Then I and you, and all of us, fell down,
Whilft bloody treafon flourish'd over us.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; thefe are gracious drops.
Kind fouls! what! weep you when you but behold
Our Cæfar's vefture wounded? look you here!
Here is himself, marr'd, as you fee, by traitors.
Julius Caefar, act 3. fc. 6.

Had Antony endeavoured to excite his audience to
vengeance, without paving the way by raifing their
grief, his fpeech would not have made the fame im
preffion.

Hatred, and other diffocial paffions, produce effects directly oppofite to those above mentioned. If I hate a man, his children, his relations, nay his property, become to me objects of averfion: his enemies on the other hand, I am difpofed to esteem.

The

The more flight and tranfitory relations are not favourable to the communication of paffion. Anger, when fudden and violent, is one exception; for, if the perfon, who did the injury be removed out of reach, that paffion will vent itself against any related object, however flight the relation be. Another exception makes a greater figure: a group of beings or things, becomes often the object of a communicated paffion, even where the relation of the individuals to the percipient is but flight. Thus, though I put no value upon a single man for living in the fame town with myfelf; my townfmen, however, confidered in a body, are preferred before others. This is still more remarkable with refpect to my countrymen in general: the grandeur of the complex objects fwells the paffion of felf-love by the relation I have to my native country; and every paffion, when it fwells beyond its ordinary bounds, hath a peculiar tendency to expand itself along related objects. In fact, inftances are not rare, of perfons, who upon all occafions are willing to facrifice their lives and fortunes for their country. Such influence upon the mind of man hath a complex object, or, more properly speaking, a general term*.

The fenfe of order hath influence in the communication of paffion. It is a common obfervation, that a man's affection to his parents is lefs vigorous than to his children the order of nature in defcending to children, aids the tranfition of the affection: the afcent to a parent, contrary to that order, makes the tranfition more difficult. Gratitude to a benefactor is readily extended to his children; but not fo readily to his parents. The difference, however, between the natural and inverted order, is not fo confiderable, but that may be balanced by other circumftances. Plinyt gives

it

ཧཱུྃ་ཏི

an

* See Essays on morality and natural religion, part 1. eff, 2, ch. . + Lib. 7. cap. 36.

an account of a woman of rank condemned to die for a crime; and, to avoid public fhame, detained in prifon to die of hunger her life being prolonged beyond expectation, it was difcovered, that fhe was nourished by fucking milk from the breafts of her daughter. This inftance of filial piety, which aided the transition, and made afcent no lefs eafy than defcent is common-: ly, procured a pardon to the mother, and a penfion to both. The ftory of Androcles and the lion* may be ac-. counted for in the fame manner: the admiration, of which the lion was the object for his kindness and gratitude to Androcles, produced good will to Androcles, and a pardon of his crime.

not my

And this leads to other obfervations upon communicated paffions. I love my daughter lefs after fhe. is married, and my mother lefs after a fecond marriage: the marriage of my fon or of my father diminishes affection fo remarkably. The fame obfervation holds with refpect to friendship, gratitude, and other paffions: the love I bear my friend is but faintly! extended to his married daughter: the refentment I have against a man is readily extended against children who make part of his family; not fo readily against children who are foris-familiated, efpecially by mar riage. This difference is alfo more remarkable in daugh ters than in fons. Thefe are curious facts; and, in order to discover the caufe, we must examine minutely that operation of the mind by which a paffion is extended to a related object. In confidering two things. as related, the mind is not stationary, but paffeth and repaffeth from the one to the other, viewing the relation from each of them perhaps oftener than once;" which holds more especially in confidering a relation between things of unequal rank, as between the caufe

* Aulus Gellius, lib. 5. cap. 14.

and

and the effect, or between a principal and an acceffory, in contemplating, for example, the relation between a building and its ornaments, the mind is not fatisfied with a fingle tranfition from the former to the latter; it must also view the relation, beginning at the latter, and paffing from it to the former. This vibration of the mind in paffing and repaffing between things related, explains the facts above mentioned: the mind paffeth eafily from the father to the daughter; but where the daughter is married, this new relation attracts, the mind, and obstructs, in fome measure, the return from the daughter to the father; and any circumftance that obftructs the mind in pafïing and repafling between its objects, occafions a like obftruation in the communication of pallion. The marriage of a male obftructs lefs the eafinefs of tranfition: because a male is lefs funk by the relation of marriage than a female.

The foregoing inftances are of paflion communicated from one object to another. But one paflion may be generated by another, without change of object. It in general is obfervable, that a paffion paves the way to others fimilar in their tone, whether directed to the fame or to a different object; for the mind, heated by any paffion, is, in that state, more fufceptible of a new impreffion in a fimilar tone, than when cool and quiefcent. It is a common obfervation, that pity generally produceth friendship for a perfon in diftrefs. One reason is, that pity interests us in its object, and recoinmends all its virtuous qualities: female beauty accordingly fhows beft in distress; being more apt to infpire love, than upon an ordinary occafion. But the chief reafon is, that pity, warming and melting the fpectator, prepares him for the reception of other tender affections; and pity is readily improved into love or friendship, by a certain tenderness and concern for the object, which is the tone of both paffions. The aptitude