And if it be true, that all mufic is originally fong, the moft poetical nation would feem to have the faireft chance to become the most musical. The Italian tongue, in ftrength and variety of harmony, is not fuperior, and perhaps not equal, to the English; but, abounding more in vowels and liquid founds, and being therefore more easily articulated, is fitter for the purposes of mufic: and it deferves our notice, that poetical numbers were brought to perfection in Italy two hundred years fooner than in any other country of modern Europe.

A

CHAP. VII.

Of Sympathy.

S a great part of the pleasure we derive from poetry depends on our Sympathetic Feelings, the philofophy of Sympathy ought always to form a part of the fcience of Criticifm. On this fubject, therefore, I beg leave to fubjoin a few brief remarks, that may poffibly throw light on fome of the foregoing, as well as fubfequent reafonings.

When we confider the condition of another perfon, efpecially if it seem to be pleafurable or painful, we are apt to fancy ourfelves

ourselves in the fame condition, and to feel in fome degree the pain or pleasure that we think we should feel if we were really in that condition. Hence the good of others becomes in fome measure our good, and their evil our evil; the obvious effect of which is, to bind. men more closely together in fociety, and prompt them to promote the good, and relieve the diftreffes, of one another. Sympathy with distress is called Compaffion or Pity: Sympathy with happiness has no particular name; but, when expreffed in words to the happy perfon, is termed Congratulation.

We fympathife, in fome degree, even with things inanimate. To lose a staff we have long worn, to fee in ruins a house in which we have long lived, may affect us with a momentary concern, though in point of value the lofs be nothing. With the dead we fympathife, and even with those circumftances of their condition whereof we know that they are utterly infenfible; fuch as, their being fhut up in a cold and folitary grave, excluded from the light of the fun, and from all the pleasures of life, and liable in a few years to be forgotten for ever.

-Towards the brute creation our sympathy is, and ought to be, ftrong, they being percipient creatures like ourfelves. A merciful man is merciful to his beaft; and that perfon would be deemed melancholy or hard-hearted, who fhould fee the frisking lamb,

Bb 2

lamb, or hear the chearful fong of the lark, or observe the transport of the dog when he finds the mafter he had loft, without any participation of their joy. There are few paffages of defcriptive poetry into which we enter with a more hearty fellow-feeling, than where Virgil and Lucretius paint fo admirably, the one the forrow of a steer for the lofs of his fellow, the other the affliction of a cow deprived of her calf *. But our fympathy exerts itself most powerfully towards our fellow-men: and, other circumftances being equal, is stronger or weaker, according as they are more or lefs nearly connected with us, and their condition more or lefs fimilar to our own.

We often fympathife with one another, when the perfon principally concerned has little fenfe of either good or evil. We blush for another's ill-breeding, even when we know that he himfelf is not aware of it. We pity a madman, though we believe him to be happy in his phrenfy. We tremble for a mafon ftanding on a high fcaffold, though we know that custom has made it quite familiar to him. It gives us pain to fee another on the brink of a precipice, tho' we be fecure ourfelves, and have no doubt of his circumfpection. In these cafes, it would feem, that our fympathy is raised,

355

Virgil, Georg. iii. verf. 519.; Lucretius, ii. verf.

not

not fo much by our reflecting on what others really feel, as by a lively conception of what they would feel if their nature were exactly fuch as ours; or of what we ourselves fhould feel, if we were in their condition, with the fame fentiments we have at. prefent *.

Many of our paffions may be communicated and ftrengthened by fympathy. If we go into a chearful company, we become chearful; if into a mournful one, we become fad. The prefence of a great multitude engaged in devotion, tends to make us devout. Cowards have behaved valiantly, when all their companions were valiant; and the timidity of a few has ftruck a panic into a whole army. We are not, however, much inclined to fympathife with violent anger, jealoufy, envy, malevolence, and other fanguinary or unnatural paffions: we rather take part against them, and fympathife with thofe perfons who are in danger from them; because we can more eafily enter into their diftrefs, and fuppofe ourselves in their condition. But indignation at vice, particularly at ingratitude, cruelty, treachery, and the like, when we are well acquainted with the cafe, awakens in us a moft intenfe fellow-feeling and the fatisfaction we are confcious of, when fuch crimes are ade

Sce Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, fect 1.

quately

quately punished, though fomewhat ftern and gloomy, is however fincere, and by no means difhonourable or detrimental to our moral nature; nor at all inconfiftent with that pity, which the fufferings of the criminal extort from us, when we are made to conceive them in a lively manner.

Of fympathy all men are not equally fufceptible. They who have a lively imagi nation, keen feelings, and what we call a tender heart, are most subject to it. Habits of attention, the ftudy of the works of nature, and of the best performances in art, experience of adverfity, the love of virtue and of mankind, tend greatly to cherish it; and those paffions whereof felf is the object, as pride, felf-conceit, the love of money, fenfuality, envy, vanity, have a tendency no lefs powerful to destroy it. Nothing renders a man more amiable, or more ufeful, than a difpofition to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with thofe that weep; to enter heartily, not officioufly, into the concerns of his fellow-creatures; to comply with the innocent humour of his company, more attentive to them than to himself, and to avoid every occafion of giving pain or offence. And nothing but downright immorality is more difagreeable, than that perfon is, who affects bluntnefs of manner, and would be thought at all times to speak all that he thinks, whether people take it well or ill; or than those pedants are, of what