$0 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



nightly as fo many others, with which their Works 

 abound, Firlt, our foul takes pieafure in reft as 

 much as in commotion. It is a harmony very 

 gentle, and very eafily difturbed by violent emo- 

 tions J and granting it to be, in it's own nature, a 

 movement, 1 do not fee that it ought to take piea- 

 fure in thofe which threaten it with it's own de- 

 ftruftion. Lucretius has, in my opinion, come 

 much nearer to the truth, when he fays that taftes 

 of this fort arife from the fentiment of our own 

 fecurity, which is heightened by the fight of dan- 

 ger to which we are not expofed. It is a pleafant 

 thing, fays he, to contemplate a ftorm from the 

 fhore. It is, undoubtedly, from this reference to 

 felf, that the common people take delight in re- 

 lating, by the fire-fide, colledted in a family way, 

 during the Winter evenings, frightful ftories of 

 ghofts, of men lofing themfelves by night in the 

 woods, of highway robberies. From the fame fen- 

 timent, likewife, it is, that the better fort take piea- 

 fure in the reprefentation of tragedies, and in read- 

 ing the defcription of battles, of (hipwrecks, and 

 of the cra(h of empire. The fecurity of the fnug 

 tradefman is increafed by the danger to which the 

 foldier, the mariner, the courtier is expofed. Piea- 

 fure of this kind arifes from the fentiment of our 

 mifery, which is, as has been faid, one of the in- 

 ftinds of our melancholy. 



But 



