aptitude of pity to produce love, is beautifully illuftrated by Shakespear:

Othello. Her father lov'd me; oft invited me ;
Still question'd me the ftory of my life,
From year to year; the battles, fieges, fortunes,
That I have paft.

I ran it through e'en from my boyith days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it :
Wherein I spoke of moft difaftrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'fcapes in th' imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the infolent foe,`

And fold to flavery; of my redemption thence,
And with it all my travel's hiftory.

All these to hear

Would Defdemona feriously incline;

But ftill the houfe-afairs would draw her thence
Which, ever as the cold with hafte dispatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my difcourfe: Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels fhe had fomething heard,
But not diftinctively. I did confent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of fome diftressful stroke
That my youth fuffer'd. My ftory being done,

She gave me for

my pains a world of fighs:

She wore, in faith, 'twas ftrange, 'twas paffing strange-
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful—
She wifh'd fhe had not heard it

yet fhe wifh'd

That Heaven had made her fuch a man:

fhe thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I fhould but teach him how to tell my ftory,
And that would woo her. On this hint I fpake :
She lov'd me for the dangers I had past,
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them:
This only is the witchcraft I have us❜d.

Othello, a&t. 3.

In this inftance it will be obferved that admiration. concurred with pity to produce love.

SECT.

SECT. VI.

Caufes of the Paffions of Fear and Anger.
FEAR and anger, to answer the purposes of

nature, are happily fo contrived as to operate fometimes inftinctively, fometimes deliberately, according to circumftances. As far as deliberate, they fall in with the general fyftem, and require no particular explanation: if any object have a threatening appearance, reafon fuggefts means to avoid the danger: if a man be injured, the first thing he thinks of, is what revenge he fhall take, and what means he fhall employ. Thefe particulars are no lefs obvious than natural. But, as the paffions of fear and anger, in their inftinctive state, are lefs familiar to us, it may be acceptable to the reader to have them accurately delineated. He may alfo poffibly be glad of an opportunity to have the nature of inftinctive paffions more fully explained, than there was formerly opportunity to do. I begin with fear.

Self-prefervation is a matter of too great importance to be left entirely to the conduct of reafon. Nature hath acted here with her ufual forefight. Fear and anger are paffions that move us to act, fometimes deliberately, fometimes inftinctively, according to circumftances; and by operating in the latter manner, they frequently afford fecurity when the flower operations of deliberate reason would be too late we take nourishment commonly, not by the direction of reafon, but by the impulfe of hunger and thirft; and in the fame manner, we avoid danger by the impulfe of fear, which often, before there is time for reflection, placeth us in fafety. Here we have an illuftrious inftance of wisdom in the formation of

man;

man; for it is not within the reach of fancy, to conceive any thing more artfully contrived to answer its purpose, than the inftinctive paffion of fear, which, upon the firft furmife of danger, operates inftantaneously. So little doth the paffion, in fuch inftances, depend on reason, that it frequently operates in contradiction to it; a man who is not upon his guard cannot avoid fhrinking at a blow though he knows it to be aimed in sport; nor avoid clofing his eyes at the approach of what may hurt them, though conscious that he is in no danger. And it also operates by impelling us to act even where we are conscious that our interpofition can be of no fervice: if a paffage-boat, in a brisk gale, bear much to one fide, I cannot avoid applying the whole force of my shoulders to fet it upright; and, if my horfe ftumble, my hands and knees are inftantly at work to prevent him from falling.

Fear provides for felf-prefervation by flying from harm; anger, by repelling it. Nothing, indeed, can be better contrived to repel or prevent injury, than anger or refentment: deftitute of that paffion, men, like defenceless lambs, would lie conftantly open to mischief.* Deliberate anger caused by a voluntary injury, is too well known to require any explanation: if my defire be to resent an affront I must use means; and these means must be discovered by reflection: deliberation is here requifite; and in that cafe the paffion feldom exceeds juft bounds. But, where anger impels one fuddenly to return a blow, even without thinking of doing mifchief, the paffion is inftinctive; and it is, chiefly in fuch a cafe that it is rafh and ungovernable, because it operates blindly, without affording time for deliberation or forefight.

Inftinctive

*Brafidas being bit by a mouse he had catched, let it flip out of his fin. gers: "No creature, (favs he) is fo contemptible, but what may provide for its own fafety, if it have courage,” Plutarch, Apothegmata.

Instinctive anger is frequently raised by bodily pain, by a stroke, for example, on a tender part, which, ruffling the temper, and unhinging the mind, is in its tone fimilar to anger: and when a man is thus beforehand difpofed to anger, he is not nice nor fcrupulous about an object; the perfon who gave the ftroke, however accidentally, is by an inflammable temper held a proper object, merely for having occafioned the pain. It is ftill more remarkable, that a ftock or a stone by which I am hurt, becomes an object for my refentment: I am violently excited to crufh it to atoms. The paffion, indeed, in that cafe, can be but a fingle flafh; for being entirely irrational, it muft vanifh with the first reflection. Nor is that irrational effect confined to bodily pain internal diftrefs, when exceffive, may be the occafion of effects equally irrational: perturbation of mind occafioned by the apprehenfion of having loft a dear friend, will, in a fiery temper, produce momentary fparks of anger against that very friend, however innocent: Thus Shakespear, in the Tempest,

Ev'n here I will put off my hope, and keep it
No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd'
Whom thus we ftray to find, and the fea mocks
Our fruftrate search on land. Well, let him go.

Aa 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 ftorm. 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 diftrefs of mind thereby occafioned,

produced

produced a momentary refentment against Iago, con fidered as occafioning 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 hadft better have been born a dog,
Than answer 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!

Iago. My noble Lord

Othello. If thou doft flander her and torture me, Never pray more; abandon all remorfe;

On horror's 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, act 2. fc. 8.

This blind and abfurd effect of anger is more gaily illuftrated by Addison, in a story, the dramatis perfonae of which are, a cardinal, and a spy retained in pay for intelligence. The cardinal is reprefented as minuting down the particulars. The fpy begins with a low voice, "Such an one the advocate whispered to one of his friends within my hearing, that your Eminence was a very great poltroon ;" and after having given his patron time to take it down, adds, "That another called him a mercenary rafcal in a public converfation." The cardinal 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 a fury, 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 caufe and effect: