from contemplating Scenes of Dlftrefs. .149 
fenfations: and prayer and filence declare, more 
loudly than any language could, the interefl: 
they feel in his didrefs. Should .a reprieve 
come to refcue him from death, how great is the 
general triumph and congratulation ! And, pro¬ 
bably, in this multitude you will find, not the 
mere vulgar herd alone, but the man of fuperior 
knowledge, and of more refined fenfibility; who, 
led by feme drong principle, which we wifh to 
explain, feels a pleasure greater than all the pain, 
great and exquifite as one Ihould imagine it to be, 
from fuch a fpedtacle. 
T. he man who condemns, many of the feenes 
we have already mentioned, as barbarous and 
(hocking, would, probably, run with the greateft 
eagernefs to fome high cliff, overhanging the 
ocean, to fee it lwelled into temped, though 
a poor vefiel, or even a fleet of vefiels, were 
to appear as one part of the dreadful feenery, 
now lifted to the heavens on the foaming furge, 
now plunged deep into the fathomlefs abyfs, 
and now dafhed upon the rocks, where they are, 
in a moment, fhivered into fragments, and, with 
all their mariners, entombed in the wave. Or, to 
vary the quefiion a little j Who would not be 
forward to (land fafe, on the top of fome moun¬ 
tain or tower, adjoining to a field of battle, in 
which two armies meet in defperate conflict, 
though, probably, thoufands may foon lie before 
him proflrate on the ground, and the whole field 
L- 3 prefent 
