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"much," said he, "as an agreeable image which

conveys a moral sentiment." We were at that time in the plain of Neuilly, near a park in which we saw a group of Love and Friendship, under the forms of a young man and a young woman of fifteen or sixteen years of age, embracing each other with mouth to mouth. Having looked at it he said to me, "Here is an obscene image presented after "a charming idea. Nothing could have been more "agreeable than a representation of the two figures "in their natural state: Friendship, as a grown young "woman caressing an infant Cupid." Being on this interesting subject, I repeated to him the conclusion of that touching fable of Philomela and Progné.

Le désert est-il fait pour des talens si beaux?
Venez faire aux cités eclater leurs merveilles :
Aussi bien, en voyant les bois,

Sans cesse il vous souvient que Térée autrefois,
Parmi des demeures pareilles,

Exerça sa fureur sur vos divins appas.---
Et c'est le souvenir d'un si cruel outrage,

Qui fait, reprit sa sœur, que je ne vous suis pas :
En voyant les hommes, helas!

Il m'en souvient bien davantage,

Why waste such sweetness on the desert air!
Come, charm the city with thy tuneful note.
Think too, in solitude, that form so fair
Felt violation: flee the horrid thought.

Ah! sister dear, sad Philomel replies,

'Tis this that makes me shun the haunts of men: Tereus and Courts the anguish'd heart allies,

And hastes, for shelter, to the woods again.

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"What a series of ideas!" cried he, "how tenderly "affecting it is!" His voice was stifled, and the tears rushed to his eyes. I perceived that he was farther moved by the secret correspondencies between

the

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the talents and the destiny of that bird, and his ́ ́, own situation.

It is obvious, then, in the two allegorical subjects of Diana and Adonis, and of Love and Friendship, that there are really within us two distinct powers, the harmonies of which exalt the soul, when the physical image throws us into a moral sentiment, as in the first example; and abase it, on the contrary, when a moral sentiment recals us to a physical sensation, as in the example of Love and Friendship.

The suppressed circumstances contribute farther to the moral expressions, because they are conformable to the expansive nature of the soul. They conduct it over a vast field of ideas. It is to these suppressions that the fable of the Nightingale is indebted for the powerful effect which it produces. Add to these a multitude of other oppositions, which I have not leisure to analyze.

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The farther that the physical image is removed from us the greater extension is given to the moral sentiment; and the more circumscribed that the first is, the more energetic the sentiment is rendered. It is this undoubtedly which communicates so much force to our affections, when we regret the death of a friend. Grief in this case conveys the soul from one World, to the other, and from an object full of charms to a tomb. Hence it is that the following passage from Jeremiah contains a strain of sublime melancholy: Vox in Ramá audita est; ploratus & ululatus multus: Rachel plorans filios suos, & noluit consolari, quia non sunt. "voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitVOL, III, I

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"ter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, "refused to be comforted, because they are not." All the consolations which this World can administer are dashed to pieces in this world of materna anguish, non sunt.

The single jet d'eau of Saint-Cloud pleases me more than all its cascades. However, though the physical image should not escape and lose itself in infinity, it may convey sorrow thither, when it reflects the same sentiment. I find in Plutarch a noble effect of

this progressive consonance. "Brutus," says he, "giving all up for lost, and having resolved to "withdraw from Italy, passed by land through "Lucania, and came to Elea, which is situated on "the sea-side. Portia being to return from thence "to Rome, endeavoured to conceal the grief which 'oppressed her in the prospect of their approach"ing separation; but with all her resolution and

magnanimity she betrayed the sorrow that was "preying on her heart, on seeing a picture, which "there accidently caught her eye. The subject "of the piece was taken from the Iliad, and re"presented the parting of Hector and Andromache, "when he was preparing to take the field, and at "the instant when he was delivering the infant 'Astyanax into the arms of his mother, while her

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cyes remain immoveably fixed on Hector. The "resemblance which the picture bore to her own "distress made her barst into tears; and seve"ral times a day she resorted to the place where "it hung to gaze at it, and to weep before "it. This being observed by Acilius, one of the Jeremiab, chap xxxi, ver, 1

friends

"friends of Brutus, he repeated the passage from Homer, in which Andromache expresses her in"ward emotion:

Έκτωρ ἀτάρ σύ μοι ἐσσὶ πατὴς καὶ πότνια μήτης,
Η δὲ κασίγνητα, σὺ δὲ μοι θαλερί θα παρακοίτης.
Yet while my Hector still survives, I sce

My father, mother, kindred, all in thee,
My wedded Lord.

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te Brutus replied, with a smile, But I must not "answer Portia in the words of Hector to Andro"mache:

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Αλλ' εις δικον ἴσσα, τὰ σαυτῆς ἔργα κόμιζε,
15ον τ' ηλακάτην τε, καὶ ἀμφιπόλοισι κέλευε.

•hasten to thy tasks at home,

There guide the spindle, and direct the loom. ››

? { "For though the natural weakness of her body prevents her from acting what the strength of men only can perform, yet she has a mind as valiant “and as active for the good of her Country, as we "have."

This picture was undoubtedly placed under the peristyle of some temple built on the shore of the Sea. Brutus was on the point of embarking without pomp, and without a retinue. His wife, the

daughter of Cato, had accompanied him, perhaps on foot. The moment of separation approaches; in order to soothe her anguish she fixes her eyes on that painting consecrated to the Gods. She beholds in it the last long farewel of Hector and Andromache; she is overwhelmed; and to reanimate her fortitude turns her eyes upon her husband. The comparison is completed, her courage forsakes her, tears gush out, conjugal affection triumphs over love of Country. Two virtues in opposition!

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Add to these the characters of a wild nature; which blend so well with human grief: profound solitude, the columns and the cupola of that antique temple, corroded by the keen air of the Sea, and marbled over with mosses which give them the appearance of green bronze; a setting Sun which gilds the summit of it; the hollow murmurs of the Sea at a distance, breaking along the coast of Lucania; the towers of Elea perceptible in the bosom of a valley between two steep mountains, and that sorrow of Portia which hurries us back to the age of Andromache. What a picture suggested by the contemplation of a picture! O, ye Artists, could you but produce it, Portia would in her turn call forth many a tear.

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I could multiply without end proofs of the two powers by which we are governed. Enough has been said on the subject of a passion, the instinct of which is so blind, to evince that we are attracted to it, and actuated by it, from Laws widely different from those of digestion. Our affections demonstrate the immortality of the soul, because they expand in all the circumstances in which they feel the attributes of Deity, such as that of infinity, and never dwell with delight on the Earth, except on the attractions of virtue and innocence.

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OF SOME OTHER SENTIMENTS OF DEITY, AND AMONG OTHERS, OF THAT OF VIRTUE.

There are besides these a great number of sentimental Laws, which it has not been in my power at present to unfold: such are those which suggest presentiments

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