462 



ON THE ORIGIN, CONNEXION, 



Most of these are admirably described or allegorized by Spenser, in bis 

 Fairie Queene, which will be found to afford a most powerful illustration 

 of the general hints here offered. I would readily bring instances in proof 

 of this remark if our time would allow : as a single example of the force 

 of his imagination, let me especially direct your attention to his entire de- 

 lineation of avarice or mammon, and particularly the following picturesque 

 representation of his dwelling — 



Both roofe and fioore, and wails, were all of gold, 

 But overgrowne with dust and old decay, 

 And hid in darkness, that none could behold ^ 

 The hf w thereof : for vew of cherefuU day 

 Did never in that house itselfe display. 



But A FAINT SHADOW OF UNCERTAIN LIGHT : 



Such as a lamp, whose i ife does fade away ; 



Or as the moone, cloathed with clowdy night, 



Does shew to him that walkes in feare and sad affright.* 



Hope I have enumerated as the second mam stream that emanates from 

 the passion of dksire. Try the world, examine your own hearts, and you , 

 will agree with me that this is its source. Hope must spring from desire., 

 and cannot exist without it : as it rises in the scale, it becomes trust or 

 confidence, and confidence, according to the alliance it forms with other 

 feelings or affections, gives birth to two very different families. United 

 to a vigorous judgment and an ardent imagination, it produces courage, 

 magnanimity, patience, intrepidity, enterprise ; combined with vanity or 

 self-love, the complex and mischievous brood is self-opinion, impudence, 

 audacity, and conceit. 



Hope, however, is not produced singly. It is a twin passion, and its 

 congenital sister is Fear. This has not been sufficiently attended to by 

 pathogHomists ; but examine the general tenour and accompaniment of 

 the passions as they rise in your hearts, and you will find the present state- 

 ment correct. Hope and fear spring equally from desire — the hope of 

 gaining the desired objeet, and the fear of losing it. They run the same 

 race, though with varying degrees of strength, and terminate their joint 

 career in the antagonist extreme points of fruition or despair ; the powers 

 of hope growing gradually more intense as it approaches the former goal, 

 and those of fear as it approaches the latter. 



I have said that at these boundaries they terminate their respective 

 career ; but fear does not always cease with fruition. Uncertainty and 

 change are so strongly written on all earthly enjoyments, that even in the 

 firmest possession we have still some fear of losing them ; so that we can 

 seldom say, " what a man hath, why doth he yet fear for ?" though no- 

 thing is more pertinent than the opposite inquiry. what a man hath, 

 whv doth he yet hope for ?" Fruition without fear is reserved for, and 

 will be, the great prerogative of a higher state of b^Mncf. 



Fear, however, hke hope, in its progress through life, forms other al- 

 liances than that wliicb springs during its infancy . Combined with a sense 

 of failure or imperfection in our own poners, it takes a right direction, 

 and produces caution, timidity, bashfulness, diffidence, respect, and com- 

 plaisance : united to friendship, love, or complacency, it engenders grati- 

 tude, devotion, reverence, veneration, and awe, which are only different 

 degrees of the same feeling : and hence the term fear, in the sense 



* B. ii, cant, lii. xxix, 



