With equal regard to nature doth he represent Hamlet as shortening the time that intervened between the death of his father and the marriage of his mother with his uncle, because that circumstance heightened and gratified his indignation. At first he says,

That it should come to this!

But two months dead; nay, not fo much, not two.

Presently after, in the fame foliloquy,

Yet within a month.

Afterwards he calls it a little month; and, at last,

Ere yet the falt of moft unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married-Oh moft wicked speed, to poft
With fuch dexterity to incestuous fheets.

A& I. Scene I.

Nearly allied to this laft obfervation is the following, that all strong paffions and emotions are liable to be transferred to indifferent objects, either related to the proper object, or those whose ideas are accidentally present to the mind, at the time. that it is under the influence of fuch emotion or paffion. This is nothing more than the simplest cafe of the affociation of ideas, but the effects of it are well worthy of our attention. Brute creatures, and even inanimate things, are not exempted from being, in this indirect manner, the objects of fuch human paffions, as it were the greatest abfurdity to suppose them the juft objects of.

Do

Do not all poets and writers of romance reprefent enamoured lovers in raptures with every thing belonging to the object of their affections, and taking uncommon pleasure in the groves, and every place where they have had their delightful interviews. Pious David envied even the fwallows which had built their nefts and laid their young in the Houfe of God. Aware of this, do not all perfons dread to communicate disagreeable information, and are they not eager to be the meffengers of good news? In the former cafe, the meffenger becomes the object of averfion; in the latter cafe, he is regarded with good-will and friendship.

The lofs or abfence of a friend may give fo much uneafiness, that our impatience for the want of him, shall produce a kind of indignation, which may, for a moment, fall even upon the object of our affection himself. This delicate circumftance, as Lord Kaimes obferves, hath not efcaped the notice of Shakespeare, who hath given an exact idea of it, in the laft words of the following paffage :

He is drown'd

Whom thus we ftray to find,
Our frustrate search on land.

and the fea motks

Well, let him go. TEMPEST, A&t III. Scene 3.

It is poffible, however, that the poet might have had nothing more in view than fimply to exprefs acquiefcence in the event. For the words, Well, let

him go, will not express any thing of indignation, without a particular tone, and manner, in the pronunciation of them.

With as true a hand hath he copied thefe finer touches of nature in representing King Richard as expreffing his indignation against a horfe which had formerly been his, but which his enemy had got poffeffion of, and then rode.

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That jade had eat bread from my royal hand;

This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.

Would he not ftumble? Would he not fall down?

(Since pride must have a fall) and break the neck

Of that proud man that did ufurp his back.

RICHARD II. A& V. Scene 11.

In the fame mafter of the human feelings we fee the mind of Othello, when thrown into a violent perturbation by the first fufpicion of jealousy against his wife, defcribed as expreffing its first refentment in terms of the utmost impatience against the informer.

Villain, be fure thou prove my love a whore !
Be fure of it, &c.

OTHELLO, A&t III. Scene 8.

That these feeming irregular fallies of passion are, however, natural, may easily be conceived from confidering, that in our infancy we never look farther than the neareft caufe of our difquiet on which to fix our refentment; that few perfons, upon fudden provocation, can forbear expreffing their refentment in the fame indiscriminate

manner;

manner; and that there are many well-attefted inftances of the greatest imaginable extravagancies of this kind in perfons of ftrong paffions and little reflection. Are we not credibly informed by Herodotus, that Xerxes, in great wrath and earnestnefs, infulted the Hellefpont, both by words and actions, when he found the bridge he had laid over it broken to pieces. Nay, did not the Athenians inftitute a process at law against all inftruments of murder, by which clubs, axes, fwords, and the like, were ftrictly tried, and, if found guilty, expelled the territories of Attica? Nothing like any of thefe inftances could ever have occured, nor could any paffion ever have been expreffed, or gratified, in so abfurd a manif the mind had not been under a temporary illufion, during which it actually conceived thofe things, which were no moral agents, to be the proper objects of paffion.

ner,

Let it be obferved, that the perfonification of brute creatures and inanimate things is taken notice of in this place, as it accounts for their becoming the objects of the paffions properly fo called. This fubject will be confidered in a future lecture in quite another light, as contributing to excite thofe finer feelings, which have been before fpoken of, as conftituting the pleafures of the imagination.

Of the Influence of the Paffions on each other, and other Circumftances relating to ftrong Emotions of Mind.

ANOTHER obfervation relating to the paf

fions, and of confiderable use in criticism, is that they are excited with more or less ease according to the ftate of mind previous to them; and that when feveral of them are in joint poffeffion of the mind, they are liable to be greatly affected by their mutual influences upon one another.

Those paffions, the emotions belonging to which are fimilar, easily introduce, and, as it were, pass into one another. As Mr. Hume well expreffes it, "All resembling impreffions are connected toge"ther; and no fooner one arifes, than the rest

naturally follow. Grief and disappointment "give rife to anger, anger to envy, envy to ma "lice, and malice to grief again. In like man "ner our temper, when elevated with joy, na

turally throws itself into love, generofity, cou 66 rage, pride, and other refembling affections." Hume's differtation on the paffions.

On the other hand, when emotions of a very oppofite nature, which confift of contrary feelings, are, from independent causes, excited in the mind

at