later, into every house, and discharges its contents in every bosom. But in the private departments of life, the distressing incidents which occur are confined to a narrow circle. The hope of an individual is crushed, the happiness of a family is destroyed; but the social system is unimpaired, and its movements experience no impediment, and sustain no sensible injury. The arrow passes through the air, which soon closes upon it, and all is tranquil. But when the great lights and ornaments of the world, placed aloft to conduct its inferior movements, are extinguished, such an event resembles the apocalyptic vial poured into that element which changes its whole temperature, and is the presage of fearful commotions, of thunders, lightnings, and tempests.

Independently of the political consequences that may result from an event which, by changing the order of succession, involves the prospects of the nation in obscurity, we are formed to be peculiarly affected by the spectacle of prostrate majesty, and fallen greatness. We are naturally prone to associate with the contemplation of exalted rank, the idea of superior felicity. We perceive in persons of that station, a command over the sources of enjoyment, a power of gratifying their inclinations in a multitude of forms from which others are precluded and as they appear to possess the means of supplying every want, of obviating every inconvenience, and of alleviating, to a considerable extent, every sorrow incident to humanity, it is not

to be wondered at that we regard them as the darlings of nature, and the favourites of fortune. The share they possess of the bounties and indulgences of Providence, is so much beyond the ordinary measure of allotment, and so large a portion of human art and industry is exerted in smoothing their passage, and strewing flowers in their path, that we almost necessarily associate ideas of superior enjoyment with a description of persons, for whose gratification the inferior classes seem born to toil.

We are so constituted also, that the sight of felicity, when it is not mixed with envy, is always connected with pleasing emotions, whether it is considered as possessed by ourselves or by others; not excepting even the animal creation. For who can behold their harmless pleasures, the wild gambols of their young, rioting in the superabundance of life and excess of pleasure, without experiencing a momentary exhilaration? As their enjoyments are considered too scanty and limited to excite a feeling of envy; so, from an opposite cause, the privileges attached to an elevated station seldom produce it. Happily for mankind, the corrosions of that baleful passion are almost entirely confined to equals, or to those between whom there exist some pretensions to equality; who, having started from nearly the same level, have recently distanced each other, in the chase of distinction, or of glory. But when the superiority we contemplate has been long possessed, when it is such as renders compe

tition hopeless, and comparison absurd, the feelings of rivalry are superseded by an emotion of respect, and the spectacle presented of superior felicity, produces its primary and natural effect. We dwell with complacency on a system of arrangements so exquisitely adapted apparently to the production of happiness, and yield a sort of involuntary homage to the person in whom it centres, without appearing to disturb our pretensions, or interfere with our pursuits. Hence, of all factitious distinctions, that of birth is least exposed to envy ; the thought of aspiring to an equality in that respect, being instantly checked by the idea of impossibility. When we turn our eyes towards the possessors of distinguished opulence and power, so many glittering appendages crowd on the imagination, productive of agreeable emotion, that we lose sight of the essential equality of the species, and think less of the persons themselves, than of the artificial splendour which surrounds them.

That there is some illusion in these sentiments, that the balance in respect of real enjoyment is far from being so decidedly in favour of the opulent and the great, as they prompt us to imagine, is an indubitable fact. Nevertheless, the disposition they create to regard the external appearances of opulence and power, with respect unmingled with envy, and to acquiesce with pleasure in the visible superiority they confer, is productive of incalculable benefit. But for this, the distinctions of rank, and the privileges and immunities attached to each, on

which much of the tranquillity and all the improvements of society depend, would fall a prey to an unfeeling rapacity; the many would hasten to seize on the exclusive advantages of the few; and the selfish passions, uncontrolled by a more refined order of feeling, would break forth with a fury that would quickly overwhelm the mounds and fences of legal authority. By means of the sentiments to which we have adverted, society exerts a sort of plastic power over its members, which forms their habits and inclinations to a cheerful acquiescence in the allotments of Providence, and bestows on the positive institutions of man the stability of nature.

As the necessary consequence of these sentiments, when great reverses befall the higher orders, the mind experiences a kind of revulsion; the contrast of their present with their past situation, produces a deeper sympathy than is experienced on other occasions. We measure the height from which they fell, and calculate the extent of their loss on a scale proportioned to the value we have been accustomed to attach to the immunities and enjoyments of which it deprives them. The sight of such elaborate preparations for happiness rendered abortive, of a majestic fabric so proudly seated and exquisitely adorned suddenly overturned, disturbs the imagination like a convulsion of nature, and diffuses a feeling of insecurity and terror, as though nothing remained on which we could repose with confidence. Hence, the misfortunes of princes who have survived their greatness, and terminated a

brilliant career by captivity and death, have been selected by poets in every age as the basis of those fictions which are invented for the

ducing commiseration.

purpose of pro

To guard against these feelings being carried to excess, so as to induce an oblivion of moral distinction, a sacrifice of principle, a mean and pusillanimous prostration before the profligate and the vicious; to urge the necessity of correcting their aberrations by the dictates of reason and religion, is foreign to our purpose. The utility of a class of feelings is not the less certain for their being liable to abuse. Let me rather avail myself of the awful dispensation before us, to suggest a warning to the possessors of these envied distinctions, not to overrate their value, nor confide in their continuance, which at most are but the flower of the field, as much distinguished by its superior frailty, as by its beauty. They belong to the fashion of that world which passeth away; they contribute much to embellish and beautify this transitory abode, to the ornament of which the Supreme Being has shown himself not inattentive. As the God of order, whatever tends to secure and perpetuate it, is the object of his approbation; nor can we doubt that he regards with complacency that distribution of men into distinct orders, which assimilates the social system to that variety which pervades the economy of nature.

Let their possessors remember, however, that they must shortly be divested of the brilliant