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seems to be greater or less, in proportion to the change made by either, upon the situation of the mind or organ; which change must, of course, be the greatest when opposite sensations or sentiments are contrasted, and succeed immediately to each other. Contrast is extremely favourable to ugliness, or any natural disadvantages, where there are other recommendations to overcome them. The first impression, from appearance, is so disagreeable, that it animates all the pleasing impressions from merit, by the mere effect of contrast; and therefore, it matters not what it is, whether it be the loss of an eye, or an ill-contrived set of features, or a rustic gait,—it is merely an obstacle in the beginning. If you have merit of any kind to get over it, you will afterwards derive good from it, rather than harm; and be extolled as much above your true standard, as you were first of all depreciated below it. A great deal of the propriety of common behaviour is regulated by contrast. No one could endure to see a judge dance, or a bishop vault into his saddle. A very regulated and subdued pleasantry and relaxation, is all that can be allowed to men habitually and officially dignified. Contrast in trifling objects, which can excite no high emotion, is the source of humour.

There are two kinds of novelty;-novelty in detached objects, and novelty in their succession. It was a novelty to the Romans to behold the elephants of King Pyrrhus: and it is a novelty to us to see men made drunk and mad by breathing a certain air; it is an order of events, to which we have never been accustomed. We have not connected together the phenomena of drunkenness, and the reception of an aërial fluid into the lungs. There are also different degrees of novelty. An extensive building, or a complicated machine, may be new, after I have seen them three or four times; because, it is impossible to remember all the parts and relations, where they are so extensive and intricate.

Another degree of novelty exists in objects, of which we have some information at second-hand; for description, though it contribute to familiarity, cannot do away entirely with the effect of novelty, when the object is presented. The first sight of a lion occasions wonder, after a thorough acquaintance with the best pictures and statues of that animal; and no man could see the great wall of Tartary without shuddering, even if he had read a whole circulating library full of embassies to, and travels in China.

We have the greatest disposition to find resemblances, and to class objects together which affect the mind in a similar manner; and so strong is this propensity in our nature, that it is hardly possible we can see anything, without likening it to something we have seen or conceived before. The inhabitants of Owhyhee had no animals larger than hogs, and when they saw a goat on board Captain Cook's ship they called it a bird. Some white travellers, seized by the natives in the interior of Africa, were immediately pronounced to be a species of the monkey; and as the Indian corn had been lately very much plundered by that animal, they well-nigh escaped being stoned to death. It is, in fact, hardly possible that we should see anything without finding a resemblance for it; and therefore, strictly speaking, nothing is absolutely new: but things differ in the degree in which they resemble our previous ideas. The love of variety seems to be a low degree of the love of novelty; for in running from the town to the country, and the country to the town, I seek for a succession of objects, some of the properties and qualities of which I have forgotten, and the revival of which, produces in my mind a low degree of the same sort of excitement which is always consequent upon novelty. A person has been absent a whole winter, in London: the parlour, the drawing-room, and the lawn, in the country, cannot be said to be absolutely new, but still, in a certain de

gree, they are faded away from the memory; the little traces are gone, the great work of oblivion is clearly begun, and the pleasure we experience at revisiting the haunts of our childhood, is derived from the treachery and infirmity of our faculties. In the same manner we are apt to tire of our companions. When we have seen them some time, we fly to others for relief, whose style and conversation has become slightly obliterated in our minds, and by the comparative freshness of which, we are more excited.

All these phenomena of which I have been speaking, the effects of contrast, variety, and novelty, are all referable to one fact, the effects of change upon the mind; for the mind is in a state of rest, when the ideas which pass through it are not very different from each other, nor very sudden in their approach, nor very new but these three sorts of change, novelty, suddenness, and contrast, rouse it in a moment from its slumbers, and let loose all the storms of passion.

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"I was sitting," says the author of some Letters upon the Earthquake at Lisbon, "I was sitting playing with my kitten, and just going to breakfast. I had one slipper on, and the other was in pussy's mouth; when my attention was roused by the sudden sound of "thunder; the floor heaved under me, and I saw the "spire of the church of the Holy Virgin come tum"bling to the ground, like a plaything overturned by "a child. I rushed into the street, unknowing what I "did, and where I went; and beheld such a scene, as made it come into my mind, that the end of all things was at hand, and that this was the judgmentแ day appointed by God! By this time the air was "filled with the screams of the mangled and the dying. "The dwellings of men, the trophies of conquest, the temples of God, were falling all around me, and my "escape appeared quite impossible. I made up my mind "for death."

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There is in this picture, I think, suddenness, contrast, and novelty, in abundance! Nor is it inappositely contrasted with the calm and familiar state of his ideas, previous to the commencement of the earthquake.

It is commonly said and thought that no account can be given of these effects of change upon our minds, — that we are pleased with novelty, and affected by surprise and contrast, because such is the law of nature; and that no other reason can be given. But surely the explanation of it is, that all the changes of matter are so apt to affect us with pleasure and pain, that, on this account, we watch its changes. If no object that you could present to a child, could give that child either pleasure or pain, I submit to every body here present, whether it seems very probable that the child would care one farthing about the changes of objects: but some objects are sweet, and some are disgusting, like physic; and some smooth, and some prick him; and therefore, as every object presented to him, affects his interests, he gains rapidly those habits of attending to the changes of object, which, because the origin of it lies hidden in the remotest infancy, we indolently pronounce to be an ultimate fact, and incapable of explanation. A child is originally excited by new objects, and by objects suddenly presented to his notice, from the hope of the pleasures, or fear of the pains, it may produce. For the very same reason, he is struck by contrast. He has an interest in studying the qualities of everything with the greatest quickness. The mind travels with more difficulty from a sheep to an elephant, than from a sheep to a lamb. The difficulty of mastering and arranging the new ideas, from their great dissimilarity with those which preceded them, is that excitement of mind which contrast produces; and variety is the same thing, in a less degree. If matter could do us neither good nor harm, we should see Gorgons, Chimæras, and Minotaurs, starting up under our feet, with as much indifference as

we think about thein; and the only reason why surprise, novelty, and contrast, in our conceptions, are not as strong as in our perceptions, is, that they have little to do with pleasure or pain. No man had more new, surprising, and contrasted ideas, than Ariosto; but nobody ever heard of his surprising himself into swoons by his own conceptions: a mouse running across the room, has probably startled him much more than all his own beautiful extravagances have ever been able to do.

We have, in the same manner, a pleasure in contemplating the resemblances of objects, and their differences : hence, method and classification in science; the mode of arguing by analogy; and the rules laid down for the regulation of common life. It seems to be most probable that all this comes from the strong motive which pain and pleasure communicate to us, for observing the resemblances of matter; for a child that loves sugar, observes the appearances of sugar, and everything white is a resemblance, which is apt to excite his appetite: perhaps he takes up a piece of salt, and the pain which this mistake inflicts, excites him to fresh observation, and makes him more attentive in his classifications. If he got nothing by observing whether objects were alike or unlike, he would never observe or classify at all. I beg leave to observe, that I am only speaking of the origin of contrast, novelty, discernment, and variety; for after the mind has once got the notion, that new things are to be watched, on account of their consequences, the middle term, according to the usual process of association, is soon omitted, and novelty is remarked on account of itself; just as, at last, money is loved for itself. And this is another reason why the cause of the feeling is forgotten, and it is supposed to be original.

If this be the history of our attention to change, the next question is, how far is change agreeable? In the first place, we must remember that novelty excites the