The Rolliad and the Antijacobin will afford lasting specimens of the brilliant wit and classical attainments, which have been eminently enjoyed by the rival parties of this eventful reign. Whether the acts of their several administrations will be regarded, as equally demonstrative of their political wisdom, vigour, justice, and moderation, it will be the less pleasing task of the historian to decide. The Baviad and Mæviad must and will endure, if there be faith in prophecy; their neat versification, their happy adaptation from

the originals, their terse language, and their well-pointed and well-directed sarcasms, must vindicate a high place among the classicks of England. The very objects of his satire will, involuntarily assist in the preservation of his fame; for their strange and abortive stanzas are no longer to be found, except in Mr. Gifford's excellent notes, where they will long be searched for as a literary curiosity, the only remaining specimens of that false taste, which his good sense and vigorous writing have so effectually exploded.

self-love."

THE last hypothesis, which we shall notice, in searching for the cause of the pleasure derived from sympathy, is the selfish one. This system teaches, that all the motives and springs of action in human nature take their rise in self-love. Appearances of benevolence are only disguises of selfishness. We think we are concerned for another; but in reality all our solicitudes are for ourselves. "Sympathy," says this philosophy, "does not operate as such. It is only the ostensible motive, the accidental circumstance, the form or vehicle, that serves to transmit the efficacy of another principle lying hid beneath it; and that has no power but what it derives from its connexion with some thing else." This chilling and degrading theory is maintained in the extreme by the Adventurer, (No. Vol. V. No. IV.

2 A

BUTLER.

110,) who thinks compassion "an example of unmixed selfishness and malignity; and that it may be resolved into that power of the imagination, by which we apply the misfortunes of others to ourselves; and that we are said to pity no longer than we fancy ourselves to suffer, and to be pleased only by reflecting that our sufferings are not real; thus indulging a dream of distress, from which we awake, whenever we please, to exult in our own security, and enjoy the comparison of the fiction with the truth." This is going farther than even Hobbes; who de fines "pity, imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense" (sight or knowledge)" of another man's ca lamity." The disciples of the Epicurean school, ancient and modern, have seemed bent on proving that

selfish and social affections belong to the same class, and that the distinction between them is rather in words than in nature. It is not perhaps fair to say "that persons deficient in benevolence endeavour to run it down, and justify their own narrow views by alledging that it is only selfishness in a particular form." But we may assert that there is not always so much humility, as there seems to be in low thoughts of human nature. Spleen and ill-humour prompt some people to give their species a bad character. Mean ideas of our original powers coalesce with the desire of escaping duties. We had rather charge our moral disorders to our constitution, than to our will. Atheists and skepticks decry the work to discredit the workman; whilst mysticks and theorists are willing to depreciate nature to magnify grace, believing that all defect of good principle and feeling in the frame of man, is so much support to the doctrine that all his goodness is a supernatural infusion. To prove that the object of all kind affection is personal, it has been asked, "Do we not attach ourselves to the idea of another's welfare, because it is pleasing to us, and do we not feel an aversion or dislike to certain objects, relating to ourselves and others, because they are disagreeable to us? And is not this self-love? The benevolent man follows his inclination and what more do we? You find your pleasure in being concerned for others happiness or misery, and I mine, in being wakeful to my own interest? Where is the difference." Were it admitted, that the circumstance of both descriptions of character acting from the principle of satisfaction would confound the tender with the hard-hearted, the generous with the mean; and that neither would have a priority of merit ;

there would still be a great difference in their value and agreeableness. My neighbour does me good and you do me harm! You equally please yourselves perhaps, but you cannot expect equally to please me. So far as immediately concerns me, he is amiable and you are odious; him I commend, you I dispraise. When benevolence is traced to selfishness, there is an abuse of words. A benevolent affection is one, which terminates in the good of another. Self-love terminates in my own good, and selfishness is regard to my own good and nothing else. Upon what principle can these different affections be put into one class and be expressed by one denomination? Is it because they originate in the love of agreeable sensation, or desire of happiness? "It is a misnomer to call my attachment to any particular object or idea by a name that implies my attachment to a general principle, or to any thing beyond itself. Numerically and absolutely speaking, the particular idea or modification, which produces any given action, is as much a distinct, individual, independent thing in nature, and has no more to do with myself, that is with other objects and ideas, which have no immediate concern in producing it, than one individual has to do with another." "I feel pleasure in doing good to my friend, because I love him; but do not love him for the sake of that pleasure." According to the selfish system the effect is made the cause of that, of which it is the effect. "It is not less absurd to trace our love of others to self-love, than it would be to account for a man's love of reading from his fondness for bread and butter, or to say that his having an ear for musick arose from his relish for port wine.'

* Preface to Light of Nature abridged.

Every thing, which has respect to self, is not selfish. A man shivering with cold may put on his surtout, a man in hunger may set down to his food for his own gratification; and at the same time be a man of benevolence. A disposition or action is not selfish merely because it is attended with pleasure. Men of all characters probably act from the impulse of present satisfaction. The source from which this satisfaction arises, and the object to which it is directed, determines them to be good or bad, selfish or benevolent. There is the pleasure of pleasing; and the pleasure of displeasing. The former constitutes a man a friend, and the latter makes him an enemy of human enjoyment. "Could your family, your neighbours, your acquaintance, come and say with perfect sincerity, Sir, please to let us know in what we can serve you, for we shall take the greatest pleasure in doing it, what would you require of them more? Would you answer them, look ye, good folks, while you take delight in serving me, you do it to please yourselves, so I do not thank you for it; but if you would lay a real obligation upon me, you must first hate me with all your might, and then the services you will be purely disinterested."

do me

The theory of Hobbes, and that of Hawkesworth, belong to that hypothesis of self-love, which the preceding remarks and citations, are designed to explain and confute. The former makes fear the cause of pity. We are moved by a spectacle of misery; but our emotion is only terrour, from the idea, that this misery may, at some time, be our own. Mankind have supposed, that when their compassion is excited, the object is the distress of another. It is no such thing, says the philosopher of Malmesbury. The ob

The

ject is your own danger. compassionate and the fearful are the same. You have been accustomed to think well of that sensibility, which weeps with them that weep. Bestow your favour with more discrimination. The man of feeling, who seems a partaker "of evils not his own," is concerned only for himself, and is neither more nor less than a coward.

The opinion, that compassion is an example of unmixed selfishness and malignity, is too absurd and extravagant to need a refutation. It is unworthy of so good a man and moralist as the author of the Adventurer. "We pity no longer than we fancy ourselves to suffer, and are pleased, only, by reflecting, that our sufferings are not real." Hence that delight, which prevents us from spurning a scene of misery, is mere exultation, at our own immunity, from the distress exhibited, and that pain, which prompts us to administer relief, arises not from the participation of another's evils, but from the imagination of our own.

According to this account, when I am affected at the representation of Lear, I conceive myself, and not the player, who personates his character, the wretched monarch. I am turned out of doors by two unnatural daughters, to "bide the pelting of a Should a

man, under such a misconception, have two of his daughters by his side, and mistake them for Goneril and Regan, the consequences might be very serious to the ladies, though they were the most dutiful of children. Upon this system, also, there must be a great mistake in the direction of that relief, which pity impels us to afford. "You pity," says the philosopher, "no longer than you fancy yourself to suffer." Hence, if your compassion is moved at the sight of

a beggar, perishing with hunger, you will, of course, devour any food in your way, to allay the famine, which you conceive yourself to endure, but not a morsel will you give to the dying wretch, who needs your

aid.

It is admitted, that the sense of our own ease and security may be heightened by the spectacle of another's calamity, and often attend the exercise of compassion. When we see a vessel at sea, in danger, we may without malignity, reflect, that we are safe, on the shore. It is not malevolent, at the sight of a distant battle, to be glad that we are not exposed to its rage. Humane tempers, however, do not in ordinary cases resort to a comparison of this kind, for the alleviation of their sympathetick sorrow. Such a reflection is only made, when a small change in situation would make the case of those we commiserate our own. The person, who, in tempestuous

weather is comfortably seated by his fireside, and hears the wind and the rain beating upon the roof and windows of his dwelling, may very naturally congratulate himself that he is not the traveller, who is perhaps encountering all the violence of the elements. The slightness of the change, which would reverse his situation, forces the thought of his good fortune upon his mind. When the calamity which we see or conceive, is far removed from us, the idea of our exemption does not mingle with our sympathy. A man, who, with undissembled compassion, bewails the wretched and undeserv ed fate of Desdeniona is not likely to think how fortunate he is in not being the wife of a rash and impetuous husband, easily wrought into a deadly jealousy; though perhaps a young lady, who has just rejected a suitor of such a character, will reflect with great complacency on the escape she hath made.*

POLITIAN.

THE gratitude of present ages is eminently due to those, who promoted, in modern times, the restoration of literature, by the revival of ancient languages and science. The Latin compositions of modern authors have, generally been but little able to vie with the productions of Augustan Rome. But the revival of the Latin and Greek languages in modern Italy, was, unquestionably, the immediate instrument of the improvement of learning. Of the restorers of ancient lit.

erature, Politian is, without a doubt, the most distinguished. He was born in a propitious season, to share not only the patronage, but the friendship of the Italian Mæcenas, Lorenzo. From the age of fourteen years, he was the inmate of that illustrious personage, and thus enjoyed every advantage for the prosecution of science, that liberality could grant, or taste desire. In Lorenzo he found both a patron, and a fellow student, who was led to encourage learning, not only as a protector, but as a friend. At the

early age of fourteen, his poetical ardour was awakened in praise of the dexterity and elegance of his noble friend, to which his "Stanze" on the Giostra, or tournament, bear testimony. His youth was employed in the attentive perusal and careful illustration of the ancient classicks. By a memorandum, in his hand-writing, at the end of his edition of Catullus, preserved in the Florentine library, he boasts, with some share of vanity, more allow able in the Roman, than in a modern tongue, of the superiour correctness, to which he had brought the text of that author, by diligent perusal, and painful collation of various manuscripts.. Ovid, Statius, Suetonius and several other classicks, shared the same favours from his restoring hand; and, by his example, the other literati of the age were stimulated to the revisal of other authors. For his exertions in the department of legal science, every country, but our own, must be eminently grateful and even here, when we consider the high estimation, of which the civil law is worthy, as a collection of principles, authorised by the purest reason, and long experience, we should owe no slight thanks to its corrector and restorer. Those countries, whose laws are principally founded on the Roman code, can scarcely feel too high obligations to Politian, who was the first that applied himself to illustrate its obscure text, and more obscure commentaries by the light of learning and genius. On this subject he says in a letter, "Tribuit enim hoc mihi uni Laurentius ille Medices vir optimus, ac sapientissimus: fore illud aliquando arbitratus ut opera, labore, industriaque nostra, magna inde omnino utilitas elicere

sur.'

Literary men, in their contests with each other, have been often found to pay but little regard to politeness; and the Latin tongue has more than once been made a cover to scurrility, as well as to vanity and indecency. Of this assertion, the contests of Milton with Salmasius, and of Scaliger with his cote.nporaries, are sufficient proof. Politian, in this respect, has merit. ed less censure than many others, though his forbearance is more to be attributed to extraneous prudential concerns, than to feelings of urbanity. The jealous emulation, of literature, had excited him an enemy in Merula of Milan, and the contest was just rising to its height, when the death of the latter extin guished its warmth. With Bartolomeo Scala he was likewise engaged in a literary, or rather a personal controversy, which all their respect for their mutual patron could scarcely stifle.

In the latter part of his life, he was intimate with those restorers of the sister fine arts, that were encouraged by the enlivening influence of Lorenzo. The companions of his mature years were Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, the former of whom, by a native overpowering sublimity of genius, excelling alike in poetry, in painting and in sculpture, elicited from Raffaelle, by emulation, his best productions. The attachment of Lorenzo and Politian was not merely the attachment of scholars, but of men. The former, on his death bed, took leave of him with the deepest sorrow; but Politian was not long to survive him: grief for the death of his friend and master cut short his life. To detail the calumnies that have been invented to account for his death, would be equally inconsistent with modesty and