SIR HUMPHREY DAVY. 143 



nobler passion. When it originates from love and 

 esteem, is strengthened by habit, and mellowed by 

 time, it yields infinite pleasure, ever new and 

 ever growing. It is the best support amongst the 

 numerous trials and vicissitudes of life, and gives 

 a relish to most of our enjoyments. What can be 

 imagined more comfortable than to have a friend to 

 console us in afflictions, to advise ^with us in doubt- 

 ful cases, and share our felicity ? ... It exalts our 

 nobler passions, and weakens our evil inclinations ; 

 it assists us to run the race of virtue with a steady 

 and undeviating course. From loving, esteeming, 

 and endeavoring to felicitate particular people, a 

 more general passion will arise for the whole of 

 mankind." 



He finishes this essay with an allegory. God is 

 described as deliberating with the angels on the pro- 

 priety of creating woman. Justice, Peace, and Vir- 

 tue plead against her creation, as through her Adam 

 will be driven out of Paradise. Then Divine Love 

 stands before Jehovah, her countenance covered 

 with smiles. "Create her," she says, " for Paradise 

 itself will afford no delight to man without woman. 

 She will be the" cause of his misery, but she will 

 likewise be the cause of all his happiness. She will 

 console him in affliction; she will comfort and har- 

 monize his soul ; she will wipe the tears from his 

 eyes, and compose the fury of his passions. Her 

 friendship shall make him virtuous, and her love 

 shall make him happy ; and, lastly, the tree of their 

 transgression, and the plant of immortality, nour- 



