PASSION. 



dcr the influence of uncontrolled pas- 

 sions, and the other completely master 

 of them ; the former exclaims with terror, 

 and shuns the presence of the ill-favour- 

 ed mortal; the latter receives the same 

 alarm from the soul, but giving 1 the 

 reins to reason, a cool examination takes 

 place, and by reading the mind of the 

 terrific abject, he finds nothing to fear, 

 but probably much to admire and es- 

 teem, and perhaps secures a friend, 

 which the other loses by absurd precipi- 

 tation. 



The passion of fear has evidently been 

 implanted in us, in order to preserve the 

 extremely frail and delicate organs which 

 compose our bodies ; but such js the per- 

 verseuess of our education, that this very 

 passion is frequently the immediate cause 

 of our destruction. This certainly never 

 could have been the case, had we been 

 taught from our infancy to govern it by 

 reason : the prescience of the soul shows 

 instantaneously the extent of the clanger 

 to be apprehended; were the impulse less 

 arbitrary, it would be disregarded; the 

 alarm given, reason is always at hand to 

 suggest the means of preservation ; nor 

 can her dictates frequently fail, though it 

 must be admitted circumstances do some- 

 limes exist which preclude a possibility 

 of extrication. 



In reasoning upon this subject, facts 

 ought to supersede theory, and it should 

 be our endeavour, at least, to be of ser- 

 vice to the community, by showing the 

 public their errors from their own con- 

 duct. In this particular it is, unhappily, 

 in our power to cite a recent instance of 

 the fatal effects of uncontrolled fear. We 

 allude to the loss of eighteen lives, in Oc- 

 tober, 1807, at Sadler's Wells, where the 

 brutal conduct of two persons in a state 

 of intoxication, insulting every person 

 near them, excited alarm in some weak 

 females, seated above them in the boxes ; 

 which natural and necessary emotion 

 was suffered, by indulgence, to confound 

 their senses of seeing, hearing, and smell- 

 ing, to such a degree as to derange their 

 ideas even to madness. In this state of 

 fear they exhibited the most frantic ges- 

 tures, exclaimed fire in their delirium, 

 and soon lost the power of delivering 

 themselves from the supposed danger. 

 The horror of being burned to death 

 immediately spread; all ranks of persons, 

 from the pit to the gallery, obeyed the 

 dictates of fear, and each endeavouring 

 to escape, pressure, and suffocation, and 

 death followed. The performers, in full 



VOL. V. 



possession of their faculties, terrified at 

 the scene before them, joined with the 

 managers, by signs and intreaties, to ob- 

 tain quiet and silence, in vain. In vain 

 did they urge that the stage could not be 

 on fire and they not be sensible of it; in 

 vain did thcv exclaim, even with speak- 

 ing trumpets, that the audience them- 

 selves mig'ht perceive that smoke or 

 flame appeared in no part of the theatre. 

 Still they fled tc certain suffocation, still 

 they precipitated themselves from the 

 gallery to the pit, till the place was near- 

 ly emptied. 



Such is the simple narrative of this 

 dreadful scene; but how is it to be ac- 

 counted for ? 



Were we to argue from the precise oc- 

 currences of the scene just described, 

 we must suppose that the perceptions of 

 the soul are greatly confined or limited ; 

 that confused or imperfect sounds, strik- 

 ing upon the drum of the ear, convey 

 ideas to the former which it is incapable 

 of separating and appropriating-; but that, 

 being rouzed to a sense of some sort of 

 danger, resemblances are taken for origi- 

 nals. Thus, perhaps, some of the exe- 

 crations uttered by the rioters may have 

 sounded like the word fire, to the female 

 or females who repeated it, whose weak- 

 ness and want of resolution deprived 

 them of the power of ascertaining, from 

 every surrounding object, that the con- 

 ceptions of their fears were utterly un- 

 supported by facts. Nor was their facul- 

 ty of recollection sufficiently strenuous 

 to remind them, that the passages from 

 the boxes of the theatre they were in 

 were so capacious as to admit of the exit 

 of every individual in ten minutes, in a 

 manner that would not injure an infant; 

 that the whole of the stage being a vast 

 tank of water, it was impossible that the 

 engines behind the scenes should want a 

 supply ; besides the total absence of alarm 

 in the countenances of the performers, it 

 might be supposed sufficiently indicated, 

 that, the only place concealed from their 

 view was entirely free from danger. The 

 fears of those who sat in the back part of 

 the gallery were far more justly excited; 

 they saw nothing but the stage, and might 

 suppose that the boxes or pit beneath 

 them was on fire, and their own screams 

 prevented their hearing the intreaties for 

 silence from the stage ; it is, therefore, 

 not altogether to be wondered at that 

 they endeavoured to escape. 



Dr. Cogan very truly observes, that an 

 idea is the grand exciting cause of every 



