A^D CHARACTER OF THIi PASSIONS, 4(^5 



Come, and trip k as you go 



On the light fantastic toe. 



And in thy right hand lead with thee 



The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty. 



Possessing features in many respects similar, we meet with another iiveiy 

 tribe, which are equally the offspring of joy, but of joy in alhance with an 

 ardent imagination. These are sentimentahsm, characterized by romantic 

 views or ideas of real life ; chivalry, which is the sentimentahsm of gal- 

 lantry, caparisoned for action, and impatient to enter the burning list. 



Where throngs of knights and barons bold 

 In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, 

 With stores of ladies, whose bright eyes 

 Rain influence, and judge the prize. 



This extravagant passion had its use in the feudal times ; but it has for 

 ages become antiquated, and in modern warfare has certainly too much 

 gone out of fashion. 



To the same tribe belongs enthusiasm, the joyous or ecstatic devotion 

 of a high- wrought fancy to some particular cause or party, the chief of 

 "which are religion and patriotism : and under the influence of which, the 

 body is wound up to a display of almost preternatural exploits, and an 

 endurance of almost miraculous privations and labour. 



The sprightly passion of joy gives birth also to a third tribe, in conse- 

 quence of its union with novelty. It is a listening and attentive group, 

 and consists of admiration, surprise, wonder, and astonishment ; upon 

 _which I need not enlarge, except to remark that the word astonishment is, 

 at times, made use of to express a very different feeling, produced by no- 

 velty and terror ; and which is more accurately distinguished by the name 

 of amazement. These mixed passions, however, are very apt to run into 

 each other, as I shall have occasion to notice more at large in a subse- 

 quent study; and perhaps the most exquisite feehng a man can possess of 

 the purely mental kind, is derived from a contemplation of scenery, or a 

 perusal of history, where every thing around him is grand, majestic, and 

 marvellous, and the terrible keeps an equal, or rather nearly an equal pace 

 with the delightful. 



The opposite of Joy is sorrow — a fruitful mother of hideous and un- 

 welcome children ; fruitful I mean on earth, but shut out with a wall of 

 adamant from the purer regions of the skies. 



Sorrow is as much distinguished by different names as any of the pre- 

 ceding affections, according to the height it reaches in the general scale 

 of evil. And hence, at one point, it is sadness ; at another, wo or misery , 

 at a third, anguish ; and its extreme verge, distraction or despair. 



Connected with a sense of something lost, or beyond our reach, it 

 gives rise to regret and grief : and when in union with a feeling of guilt, 

 it becomes remorse and repentance. 



^ Its two besom companions, however, are fear and fancy. When allied 

 to the former alone, it produces the haggard progeny of care, anxiety, 

 vexation, and fretfulness ; the first of which is thus admirably described 

 by Hawkesworth, in his ingenious but melancholy piece, entitled Life, an 

 Ode ; in which care is directly stated, as in the present case, to be a mixed 

 breed of wo or sorrow and fear. 



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