often to a bad education, lead them beyond the line of common depravity. There is this also which distinguishes their errors from the usual errors of human infirmity; they boast of their enormities, and glory in their disgrace: exorbitant profligacy is considered as a mark of manly spirit; and all who are decent and regular are ridiculed by the majority as tame, pusillanimous, hypocritical, superstitious, methodistical, prejudiced, or narrowminded.

But allowing, what experience refutes, that the enormities of the nominal great are not worse than those of others, yet it cannot be denied that their influence on the community is infinitely more detrimental. The greater part of mankind are weak and ill educated; but to a feeble and ill informed understanding, riches and titles appear to be the noblest distinctions of human nature. Whatever is said or done by the possessors of them, operate both as precepts and examples with irresistible force. It is sufficient, in the opinion of many a silly man and woman of fashion, to justify any eccentricity of behaviour, that a lord or a lady, whom they proudly name among their acquaintance, has set the example. Deformity itself, awkwardness, rudeness, become grace and politeness, when exhibited by some duchess who affects fame by an impudent singularity. The court in Doctors Commons affords frequent instances, in the present times, that vices directly repugnant to the law of God, pregnant with injuries to society, and fatal to private virtue and private happiness, are become fashionable. It is a pride and pleasure among the blasted lordlings of the day, to stand forth in a court of justice, and avow themselves the destroyers of female virtue and nuptial felicity. They are traveled men; and like

which is endeavouring to destroy our political existence, they attempt to introduce the loose prineiples of conjugal libertinism into their own country. Those who have not traveled, imitate the noble youth who have; and thus is the sweet cup of domestic felicity almost universally imbittered among those who, in the regions of fashion, pretend to superior skill in the art of enjoying life.

No. CLXII.

On Affectation of extreme Delicacy and Sensibility.

EXTREME delicacy, so esteemed at present, seems to have been unknown in times of remote antiquity. It is certainly a great refinement on human nature; and refinements are never attended to in the earlier ages, when the occupations of war, and the wants of unimproved life, leave little opportunity, and less inclination, for fanciful enjoyments. Danger and distress require strength of mind, and necessarily exclude an attention to those delicacies which, while they please, infallibly enervate.

That tenderness which is amiable in a state of perfect civilization, is despised as a weakness among unpolished nations. Shocked at the smallest circumstances which are disagreeable, it cannot support the idea of danger and alarm. So far from exercising the severities which are sometimes politically necessary in a rude state, it starts with horror from the sight, and at the description of them. It delights in the calm occupations of rural life, and

the shepherd's crook and the lover's garland. But in an unformed community, where constant danger requires constant defence, those dispositions which delight in ease and retirement will be treated with general contempt; and no temper of mind which is despised will be long epidemical.

The ancient Greeks and Romans were the most civilized people on the earth. They, however, were unacquainted with that extreme delicacy of sentiment which is become universally prevalent in modern times. Perhaps some reasonable causes may be assigned. The stoic philosophy endeavoured to introduce a total apathy, and though it was not embraced in all its rigour by the vulgar, yet it had a sufficient number of votaries to diffuse a general insensibility of temper. It perhaps originally meant no more than to teach men to govern their affections by the dictates of reason, but as a natural want of feeling produced the same effects as a rational regulation of the passions, insensibility soon passed among the vulgar, for what it had no claim, a philosophical indifference.

That respectful attention to women, which in modern times is called gallantry, was not to be found among the ancients. Women were unjustly considered as inferior beings, whose only duty was to contribute to pleasure, and to superintend domestic economy. It was not till the days of chivalry that men showed that desire of pleasing the softer sex, which seems to allow them a superiority. This deference to women refines the manners and softens the temper; and it is no wonder that the ancients, who admitted not women to their social conversations, should acquire a roughness of manners incompatible with Delicacy of Sentiment.

Men who acted, thought, and spoke, like the an

cients, were unquestionably furnished by nature with every feeling in great perfection. But their mode of education contributed rather to harden, than to mollify their hearts. Politics and war were the only general objects of pursuit. Ambition, it is well known, renders all other passions subservient to itself; and the youth who had been accustomed to military discipline, and had endured the hardships of a campaign, though he might yield to the allurements of pleasure, would not have time to attend to the refinements of delicacy.

But the modern soldier, in the present mode of conducting war, is not compelled to undergo many personal hardships either in the preparation for his profession, or in the exercise of it. Commerce, but little known to many ancient nations, gives the moderns an opportunity of acquiring opulence without much difficulty or danger; and the infinite numbers who inherit this opulence have recourse, in order to pass away life with ease, to the various arts of exciting pleasure. The professions of divinity and law leave sufficient time, opportunity, and inclination to most of their professors to pursue every innocent amusement and gratification. The general plan of modern education, which among the liberal consists of the study of poets and sentimental writers, contributes perhaps more than all other causes to humanize the heart and refine the sentiments: for at the period when education is commenced, the heart is most susceptible of impressions.

Whatever disposition tends to soften, without weakening the mind, must be cherished; and it must be allowed that an unaffected Delicacy of Sentiment, on this side the extreme, adds greatly to the happiness of mankind, by diffusing an universal be

themselves; it disposes them to rejoice with the happy, and by partaking to increase their pleasure. It frequently excludes the malignant passions, which are the sources of the greatest misery in life. It excites a pleasing sensation in our own breast, which, if its duration be considered, may be placed among the highest gratifications of sense. The only ill consequence that can be apprehended from it is, an effeminacy of mind, which may disqualify us for vigorous pursuits and manly exertions.

In the most successful course of things, obstacles will impede, and disagreeable circumstances disgust. To bear these without feeling them is sometimes necessary in the right conduct of life: but he who is tremblingly alive all over, and whose sensibility approaches to soreness, avoids the contest in which he knows he must be hurt. He feels injuries never committed, and resents affronts never intended. Disgusted with men and manners, he either seeks retirement to indulge his melancholy, or weakened by continual chagrin, conducts himself with folly and imprudence.

How then shall we avoid the extreme of a disposition, which in the due medium is productive of the most salutary consequences? In this excess, as well as all others, reason must be called in to moderate. Sensibility must not be permitted to sink us into such a state of indolence, as effectually represses those manly sentiments, which may very well consist with the most delicate. The greatest mildness is commonly united with the greatest fortitude in the true hero. Tenderness, joined with resolution, forms indeed a finished character, to which reason, cooperating with nature, may easily attain.

The affectation of great sensibility is extremely