AND CHARACTER OF THE PASSIONS. 



413 



Come, but keep tliy wonted state, 

 With even step, and musing gaif, 

 And looks commercing witii tlie skies, 

 Thy l apt sonl setting in tiiine eyes. 

 There ht>ld in holy passion, still 

 Forget thyself to marble, till 

 With a sad, leaden, downward cast, 

 Thou fix them on the earth at last. 



Despair or distraction bring-s np the rear of the miserable and tumultuous 

 group before us. This passion has generally been contemplated as a 

 mingled emotion ; but it is perhaps far less so than most of the rest. It is a 

 concentration of pure, unmitig-ated horror, equally void of hope, fear, and all 

 moral feeling — an awful type of the torments of the lower world. The sen- 

 sorial power is hurried forward towards a single outlet, and with'^a rushing 

 violence that threatens its instantaneous exhaustion from the entire frame, 

 like the discharge of electricity accumulated in a Leyden jar when touched 

 by a brass rod. The eye is fixed ; the limbs tremble ; upon the countenance 

 hangs a wild and unutterable suilenness. The harrowed and distracted soul 

 shrinks at nothing, and is attracted by nothing : the deepest danger and the 

 tenderest ties have equally lost their command over it. 



Despair is, hence, the most selfish of all the passions. In its overwhelming 

 agony, and its pressing desire of gloom and solitude, it approaches to what 

 is ordinarily called heart-ache ; but, generally speaking, the emotion is far 

 more contracted and personal, and the action far more precipitous and daring. 

 Despair, as it commonly shows itself, is either hopelessness from mortified 

 pride, blasted expectations, or a sense of personal ruin. 



The gamester, who cares for no one but himself, may rage with all the 

 horror of despair; but the heart-ache belongs chiefly to the man of a warmer 

 and more generous bosom, stung to the quick by a wound he least expected, 

 or borne down not by the loss of fortune, but of a dear friend or relation, in 

 whom he had concentrated all his hopes. The well-known picture of Be- 

 verley is drawn by the hand of a master, and he is represented as maddened 

 by the thought of the deep distress into which his last hazard had plunged his 

 wife and family; but if his selfish love of gaming had not triumphed over 

 his relative love for those he had thus ruined, he would not have been in- 

 volved in any such reverse of fortune ; nor, without the same selfishness, 

 would he farther have added to their blow by a deed that was sure to withdraw 

 him for ever from all share in their misery, and overwhelm them with an 

 accumulated shock. While Beverley was in despair, it was his wife who 

 was broken-hearted.* 



The picture which Spenser has drawn of despair, as seated in his own 

 wretched cave, has been praised by every one from the time of Sir Philip 

 Sidney; but it has always appeared to me that his description of Sir Tre- 

 visan, who was fortunate enough to escape from the enchantment of this 

 demon-power, is still more forcibly drawn in the passage where, on the com- 

 mencement of his flight, he is represented as accidentally meeting with the 

 Red Cross Knight : 



He answered naught at all : hut adding new 

 Feare to his first amazement, staring wyde 

 With stony eyes, and hai tless, hollow vew, 

 Astonisht stood, as one that had as[)yde 

 Infcrnall furies with tlieir chaines untyde. 

 Him yctt againe, and yelt againe, bespake 

 The gentle Knight, who naught to him replyde; 

 But, trembling every ioynt, did inly quake. 

 And foltring tongue at last these words seem'd forth to shake — 



" For God's dear love, sir Knight, doe me not stay ; 

 For loe ! he comes, he comes fast after mee!" 

 Eft looking back, would faine have runne away ; 

 But he him forst to stay, and tellen free. 

 The secrete cause of liis perplexitie.f 



* Study of Medicine, vol. iv. p. J33, 2d edit. 1825 



t Faerie dueene, b. i c. ix. 24, 25. 



