But the mind of the honest, simple, and ingenuous, is always gay and enlivened, like some of the southern climates, with a serenity almost perpetual. Let a man who would form an adequate idea on the different states of the good and bad heart, with respect to happiness, compare the climate of Otaheite, with that of Terra del Fuego, as described by our British circumnavigators.

NO. CLX. 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 cir. cumstances 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 would gladly resign the spear and the shield for the shepherd's crook and the lover's garland. But in an un

informed 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 dispised 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 régu lation of the passions, insensibility soon passed among the vulgar for what it had no claim to, 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 œconomy. It was not till the days of chivalry that men shewed 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 ancients, 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 a military discipline, and had endured the hardships of a campaign, though he might yield to the allurements of pleasure, would not have time to cultivate 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 gratifica, tion. 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 benevolence. It teaches men to feel for others as for them. selves; 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 breasts, 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 effemipacy 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 trembling 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. Dis gusted 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 effecually 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, co-operating with nature, may easily attain.

The affectation of great sensibility is extremely common. It is however as odious as the reality is amiable. It renders a man detestable, and a woman ridiculous. Instead of relieving the afflicted, which is the necessary effect of genuine sympathy, a character of this sort flies from misery, to shew that it is too delicate to support the sight of distress. The appearance of a toad, or the jolting of a carriage, will cause a paroxysm of fear. It pretends to a superior share of refinement and philanthropy. But it is remarkable, that this delicacy and tenderness often disappear in solitude, and the pretender to uncommon sensibility is frequently found, in the absence of witnesses, to be uncommonly unfeeling.

To have received a tender heart from the hand of nature, is to have received the means of the highest enjoyment. To have regulated its emotions by the dictates of reason, is to have acted up to the dignity of man, and to have obtained that happiness of which the heart was constituted susceptible. May a temper, thus laudable in itself, never be rendered con temptible by affectation, or injurious to its possessor and to others, through the want of a proper guid

ance!