.179^' "''' delicacy of setitiment. 203 



contributed rather to harden, than to mollify their 

 hearts. Politics and war were the sole general ob- 

 jects. Ambition, it is well known, renders all other 

 pifsions subservient to itself ; and the youth who 

 had been accustomed to military discipline, and had 

 endured the hardihips of a campaign, though he 

 jTiight yield to the allurements of pleasure, would 

 not have time to attend to the refinements of deli- 

 cacy. But the modern soldier, in the present mode 

 of conducting war, is not compelled to undergo many 

 personal hardihips, either in the preparation for his 

 profefsion, or in the exercise of it. Commerce, but 

 little known to many ancient nations, gives the mo- 

 derns an opportunity of acquiring opulence without 

 much difficulty or danger ; and the infinite numbers 

 who inherit, this opulence, in order to pafs away life 

 • with ease, have recourse to the various arts of ex- 

 citing pleasure. The profefsions of divinity and 

 law, leave sufficient time, opportunity, and inclina- 

 tion to most of their profefsors, to pursue every 

 amusement and gratification. The general plan of 

 modern education, which, among the liberal, consists 

 of the study of the poets and sentimental writers, 

 contributes, perhaps more than all other causes, to 

 humanise the heart and refine the sentiments : for,, 

 at the period when education is commenced, tlis 

 heart is most susceptible of imprefsion.. 



Whatever disposition, tends to soften, v/ithout 

 weakening the mind, must.be cheriffied ; and it must 

 be allowed that delicacy of sentiment, on this side 

 the extreme, ^ adds greatly to the happinefs of man- 

 kind, by diffusing an. universal benevolence. It- 



