furrounding air. At length an eternal feparation was made between those who should enjoy the happier lot of returning to their country, friends, and relatives, and those who were for ever to be confined to their dreadful dungeons. The Syracufans, who could punish their helpless captives with fuch unrelenting severity, had often melted into tears at the rehearsal of the affecting ftrains of EURIPIDES, an Athenian poet, who had learned in the Socratic school to adorn the leffons of philofophy with the charms of fancy, and who was regarded by the taste of his contemporaries, as he still is by many enlightened judges, as the most tender and pathetic, the most philofophical and inftructive, of all the ancient tragic writers*.

The pleasure which the Syracufans had derived from his inimitable poetry, made them delight in hearing it fung by the flexible voices and harmonious pronunciation of the Athenians, fo unlike, and fo fuperior to the rudeness and afperity of their own doric dialect.

They defired thofe captives, who could fing, to reherse those plaintive scenes of their favourite bard. The

* The Greek play was fung, and every citizen had free admittance to these public entertainments. The ancient theatres contained from 20 to 30,000 people.

captives

captives obeyed; and affecting to represent the woes of kings and heroes, they too faithfully expreffed their

own.

Their taste and sensibility endeared them to the Syracufans, who foon released their bonds; and, after treating them with all the honourable diftinctions of ancient hospitality, restored them to their longing and afflicted country, as a small but precious wreck of the most formidable armament that had ever failed from a Grecian harbour.

At their return to Athens, the grateful captives walked in folemn proceffion to the house of EURIPIDes, whom they hailed as their deliverer from flavery and death *.

* Vide The Hiftory of Greece by Dr. GILLIES, a work which exhibits throughout the deepest research, the most elegant narrative, and the foundest reflections.

SECT.

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.

SECT. LXVII.

OF SELF-LOVE, AND SOCIAL AFFECTION.

On their own axis as the planets run,

yet make at once their circle round the fun :

fo two confiftent motions actuate the foul;

and one regards itfelf, and one the whole.

POPE.

THE original conftitution of our nature with refpect to the mixture of selfish and social affection, difcovers in this, as in every other part of our frame, profound and admirable wisdom. Each individual is by his CREATOR committed particularly to himself and his own care. He knows and confiders his own fituation beft, and has more opportunities of promoting his own happiness, than he can have of advancing the happiness of other person. It was therefore fit, it was neceffary, that in each individual self-love should be the strongest and most active instinct.

any

This felf-love, if he had been a being who ftood folitary and alone, might have proved fufficient for the purpose both of his prefervation and his wel

4

fare.

of man.

fare. But fuch was not intended to be the fituation He is mixed among multitudes of the fame nature. In these multitudes, the felf-love of one man, or attention to his own particular intereft, encountering the felf-love and the intereft of another, could not but produce frequent oppofition, and innumerable mischiefs. It was neceffary, therefore, to provide a counterbalance to this part of his nature; which is accordingly done, by implanting in him those social and benevolent instincts, which lead him in some measure out of himself, to follow the interest of others.

The strength of these focial inflints is, in general, proportioned to their importance in human life. Thus, that parental affection, which the helpless state of infancy and childhood renders fo needful, is made the strongest of them all. Next, come those ties of blood, which prompt mutual kindness among those who are intimately joined together by brotherhood, and other family connections. To these fucceeds that valuable instinct of pity, which impels us to affift the diftreffed wherever we behold them. Hence that degree of fenfibility, which prompts us to weep with them that weep, is ftronger than that which prompts us to rejoice with them that rejoice; for this plain reafon,

that the unhappy stand more in need of our fellow-feeling and affistance than the profperous.

Still, however, it was requifite, that in each individual the quantity of felf-love fhould remain in a large proportion, on account of its importance to the preservation of his life and well-being. But as the quantity requifite for this purpose is apt both to ingrofs his attention, and to carry him into criminal exceffes, the perfection of his nature is measured by the counterpoife of those focial principles which, tempering the force of the selfish affection, render man not only useful to himself, but to those about

him.

SECT.