wish that he were again in that very loneliness, from which to be freed, seemed to him before, like resurrection from the tomb. He has not tamed tygers, indeed, but he will find, in his waking remembrances, and in his dreams, that he has animated rocks,— that his heart has not been idle, even when it had no kindred object to occupy it,—and that his cave has not been a mere place of shelter, but a friend.

"If," says the author of Anacharsis, "we were told that two strangers, cast by chance on a desert island, had formed a union of regard, the charms of which were a full compensation to them for all the rest of the universe which they had lost,-if we were told, that there existed anywhere a single family, occupied solely in strengthening the ties of blood with the ties of friendship,-if we were told, that there existed, in any corner of the earth, a people who knew no other law than that of loving each other, no other crime than that of not loving each other sufficiently,-who is there among us, that could dare to pity the fate of the two strangers, that would not wish to belong to the family of friends, —that would not fly to the climate of that happy people? O, mortals, ignorant and unworthy of your destiny," he continues," it is not necessary for you to cross the seas to discover the happiness. It may exist in every condition, in every time, in every place, in you, around you,-wherever benevolence is felt."*

After these remarks, on the emotions of love and hatred in general, it will not be necessary to prosecute the investigation of them, with any minuteness, at least, through all their varieties. The emotions, indeed, though classed together under the general name of love, are of many varieties; but the difference is a difference of feeling too simple to be made the subject of descriptive definition. I have already, in my general analysis of the emotion, stated its two great elements,-a vivid pleasure in the contemplation of the object of regard, and a desire of the happiness of that object; and in the contemplation of various objects, the pleasure may be as different in quality as the corresponding desire is different in degree. The love which we feel for a near relation, may not then, in our maturer years, be exactly the same emotion as

* Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, Chap. LXXVIII.

that which we feel for a friend; the love which we feel for one relation or friend, of one character, not exactly the same as the love which we feel for another relation, perhaps, of the same degree of propinquity, or for another friend of a different character; yet, if we were to attempt to state these differences, in words, we might make them a little more obscure, but we could not make them more intelligible.

I shall not attempt, therefore, to define what is really indefinable. The love, which we feel for our parents, our friends, our country, is known better by these mere phrases, than by any description of the variety of the feelings themselves; as the difference of what we mean by the sweetness of honey, and the sweetness of sugar, is known better by these mere names of the particular substances which excite the feelings, than by any description of the difference of the sweetnesses; or rather, in the one way, it is capable of being made known to those who have ever tasted the two substances; in the other way, no words which human art could employ, if the substances themselves are not named, would be able to make known the distinctive shades. Who is there, who could describe to another the sensations of smell which he receives from a rose, a violet, a sprig of jasmine, or of honeysuckle, though, in using these names, I have already conveyed to your mind a complete notion of this very difference.

It is not my intention, then to give you any description of the varieties of emotion, comprehended under the general terms of love and hate, or, to speak more accurately, it is not in my power. To your own mind, the greater number of these must already be sufficiently familiar. A few very brief remarks on the general guardianship of affection, under which man is placed, and on the happiness of which it is productive, are all which I shall attempt to offer to you.

The helplessness of man at birth, and for the first years of life, is what must have powerfully impressed every one, however unapt to moralize on the contrasts of the present, and the past, and the future, those contrasts, which nature is incessantly exhibiting, not more strikingly, in what we term the accidents of individual fortune, or the dreadful revolutions of nations, which occur only at distant intervals, than in the phenomena, which form the regular display of her power, in every generation of mankind,

and every individual of every generation. That glorious animal, who is to rule all other animals,-to invade their deepest recesses, -to drive the most ferocious from their dens, and to make the strength of the strongest only an instrument of more complete subjection, what is he at his birth ?—A creature, that seems incapable of anything, but of tears and cries,-as Pliny so forcibly pictures him in a few words, "Flens animal cæteris imperaturum." If we were to consider him, as abandoned to himself, we might, indeed, say, to use a still stronger phrase of Cicero, that man is born not of a mother, but of a stepmother. "Hominem, non ut a matri, sed a noverca natum, corpore rudo, fragili et infirmo, animo autem anxio ad molestias, in quo tamen inesset obrutus quidam divinus ignis." Is the divine spark, which seems scarcely to gleam through that feeble frame, to be quenched in it forever? It is feebleness, indeed, which we behold:-but the Creator of that which seems so feeble, was the Omnipotent. That Power, which is omnipotent to bless, has thrown no helpless outcast on the world. Before it brought him into existence, it provided what was to be strength, and more than strength, to the weakness which was to be entrusted to the ready protection. There are beings who love him, before their eyes have seen what they love,-who expect, with all the affection of long intimacy, or rather with an affection, to which that of the most cordial friendship is indifference and coldness, that unsuspecting object of their regard, who is to receive their cares, without knowing of whom they are the cares; but who is to reward every labour and anxiety, by the mere smile, that almost unconsciously answers their smile, or the unintentional caress, to which their love is to affix so tender a meaning. How beautiful is the arrangement, which has thus adapted to each other, the feebleness of the weak, and the fondness of the strong, in which the happiness of those who require protection, and of those who are able to give protection, is equally secured; and man deriving from his early wants the social affections, which afterwards bind him to his race, is made the most powerful of earthly beings, by that very imbecility, which seemed to mark him as born only to suffer and to perish!

The suddenness of the change, which, at this interesting period, takes place, in many instances, in the whole character and

* Lib. VII. proem.

mode of conduct of the mother, is as remarkable, as the force of the fondness itself. The affection, which the child requires, is not an affection of a passive sort; it is one which must watch and endure fatigues, and the privation of many accustomed pleasures. But nature, who, in adaptation to the wants of the new animated being, has provided for it the food best suited for its little frame, by a change in the very bodily functions of the mother, has provided equally for that corresponding change, which is necessary in the maternal mind. "How common is it," says Dr Reid," to see a young woman, in the gayest period of life, who has spent her days in mirth, and her nights in profound sleep, without solicitude or care, all at once transformed into the careful, the solicitous, the watchful nurse of her dear infant, doing nothing by day but gazing upon it, and serving it in the meanest offices,-by night, depriving herself of sound sleep for months, that it may lie safe in her arms. Forgetful of herself, her whole care is centered in this little object. Such a sudden transformation of her whole habits, and occupation, and turn of mind, if we did not see it every day, would appear a more wonderful metamorphose, than any that Ovid has described."*

Such is that species of love, which constitutes parental affection, an affection, however, that is not to fade, with the wants to which it was so necessary, but is to extend its regard, with delightful reciprocities of kindness, over the whole life of its object, --or rather is not to terminate with this mortal life, but only to begin then a new series of wishes, that extend themselves through immortality. Affection is not a task that finishes, when the work which it was to accomplish is done. The dead body of their child, over which the parents bend in anguish, is not to them a release from cares imposed on them. It awakes in them, love not less, but more vivid. It speaks to them of him, who still exists to their remembrance, and their hope of future meeting, as he existed before, to all the happiness of mutual presence. On their own bed of death, if he is the survivor, they have still some anxieties, even of this earth, for him. They look, with devout confidence, to that God, who is the happiness of those who are admitted, after the toils of life, to his divine presence; but they look to him also, as the happiness of those, whose earthly career is not * On the Active Powers, Essay III. c. iv.

yet accomplished, the averter of perils, to which they can no longer be exposed, the source of consolation in griefs, which they can no longer feel. The heaven, of which they think, is not the heaven, that is at the moment at which they ascend to it, but the heaven which is to be, when, at least, one other inhabitant is added to it.

These are the delightful emotions of parental regard, which far more than repay every parental anxiety. But does the child enjoy their protecting influence, without any return of love? His little heart,—the heart of him, who is perhaps afterwards to have the same parental feelings,-is not so cold and insensible. His love, indeed, has not the intensity of interest,-far less the reasoning foresight,—which distinguishes the zealous fondness of that unwearied guardianship, on which he depends. But it is a reflection from the same blessed sunshine to his own delighted bosom. It is this, which, in childhood, makes even obedience,-the most powerful, perhaps, of all things, when the reason of the command is not known, almost as delightful, as the freedom which is restrained; and which in maturer life continues a reverence, which the proud mind of man refuses to every other created being. It is to the feeling of this sacred and paramount regard, that we are to trace the peculiar horror attached in every nation to parricide. Murder, indeed, in every form, is horrible to our conception; but the murder of a parent is a crime, of which we mark the occurrence with the same astonishment, with which we mark and record some fearful prodigy of nature.

The fraternal affection is, in truth, in its origin, only another form of that general susceptibility of friendship, with which nature has endowed us. We cannot live long with any one, in the constant interchange of social offices, without forming an attachment, which is altogether independent of the expectation of the benefits, that may arise from a continuance of the intercourse ;and what we feel for every other playmate, with whom we meet only occasionally, must surely be felt, still more, for those, who have partaken almost of every pleasure, which we have enjoyed, since we entered into life, and who, in all the little adventures, of years that have relatively, as many, or even more important incidents, than the years which are occupied only with a few great projects, have been the companions of our toils, and perils, and