[ r^ ] 



one united charity. We hnve here a combination of concurring, 

 not the perplexity of contending paffions. Mingled tears and 

 fmilcs arc often marks of the afiedionate feehng, thougli on 

 moft occafions they denote contrary paffions. A more appHcable 

 inftance may be found in the Odyffy, (19 Odyf. 471 ) where the 

 great poet defcribes, with exquifite force and truth of colouring, 

 the efFed which the fudden recognition of her old mafler pro- 

 duced in his nurfe Eurycleia. 



iTjv auLO. ^apuK Kai ot,Kyoq £ a6 <p|5£ vot,. Tu oi 01 o<r(re 

 A«xpuo<piv TrXtj^ev. SaXepv] oe ol ea-^iro (puivvi. 



The celebrated pidure by Timomachus, in which Medea is 

 reprefented meditating the murder of her children, has often 

 with propriety been quoted as exhibiting a fituation in which a 

 conflid of paffions muft have arifen : 



Ira fubeft lachrymis ; miferatio nee caret ira. 



And it may be here obferved, that this expreffion of rage, con- 

 trouled by fofter feelings, muft be more impreffive and affeding 

 than that of the frenzy which would diftort the afped of Medea 

 in the ad of infanticide ; and which, becaufe incapable of being 

 heightened, would leave no room to the produdive power of 

 imagination, which it is the office of painting rather to excite 

 than to faturate. Perhaps above all others the following is the 

 moft appofite inftance : Junius Brutus Is graphically defcribed by 

 Livy as prefiding at the capital punifhment of his fons, whom 



he 



1 



