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cruel mortification; for the envious are generally proud. It is a strong desire to be above, which makes people uncasy beneath. Now to see a hated person superior, and to lie under the anguish of disadvantage, is far enough from diversion. Envy is of all others the most ungratifying and disconsolate passion. There is power for ambition, and pleasure for luxury, and pelf even for covetousness; but envy can give nothing but vexation; it is made up of impotence and malice, and where these two qualities are well compounded, there needs no other ingredients of misery. Envy, how carefully does it look? How meager and illcomplexioned ? It preys upon itself, and exhausts the spirits. It is a disease in its constitution, and every pulse is a pain. Ease must be impracticable to the envious; they lie under a double misfortune; common calamities and common blessings fall heavily upon them; their nature gives them a share in the one, and their illnature in the other; and he, that has his own troubles and the happiness of his neighbours to disturb him, is likely to have work enough. Envy looks ill under every aspect; for if a man be good, he ought to be loved; if bad to be pitied. To envy a superior makes the odds more smarting, and the distance more sensible. To envy an inferior is to lose the higher ground, and to set him upon a level. To grudge any man an advantage in person or fortune is to censure the liberalities of providence, and be angry at the goodness of God.

Since envy is so odious and every way unlucky, and does so much mischief to itself and others, it may not be improper to offer something more particular to prevent it.

First then let us consider, that Providence has given the least of us more, than we can pretend to. If we could make out a title to more privilege, to complain were not unreasonable; but I suppose no one is so hardy, as to say God is in his debt; that he owed him a nobler being, or a better subsistence. For existence must be antecedent to merit; that, which was not, could not oblige; and nothing can claim nothing, You will say such an one is much better furnished,

than myself; besides, I want several conveniences, which I could mention; and, if I must not have them, I wish they had not come in my way. Look you are we to cry, like illmanaged children, for every thing before us? If I give a beggar six pence, has he reason to grumble, because he has seen a shilling, or knows how to spend a crown? Let him give me leave to be master of my charity, and do what I please with my own. If bare knowledge would give posses→ sion, and our senses could challenge all, they lay hold of, there would be a strange world quickly. But these are wild and impracticable suppositions; there is neither justice, nor convenience, nor possibility, in such an expectation. Let us remember we are well dealt with, and then we shall not be troubled to see another in a better condition. To consider we have more, than we deserve, will help our reason to silence our murmuring, and make us ashamed to repine. Just thoughts and modest expectations are easily satisfied. If we do not overrate our pretensions, all will be well. Humility disarms envy, and strikes it dead.

Secondly we should endeavor to improve our respective abilities. Men naturally desire to stand fair in the opinion of others, and to have somewhat of value to support them in their own thoughts. When they are the worst of their way, and fixed in the fag end of business, they are apt to look not kindly upon those, who go before them. He, that can be reconciled to the character of an insignificant person, has a mean soul. To be easy, a man should examine his genius, and exert his spirits, and try to make the most of himself. It is true every one cannot expect to distinguish himself in the highest posts; to command an army, or ride admiral in a fleet, or be at the head of justice, or religion; neither is it material to the point. Notwithstanding there are few but may shine in their own orb, and be remarkable in their station, so far at least, as to guard off contempt, and secure a moderate repute; and those, that are easy at home, will not be envious abroad. Those, that are good for something themselves, will be content that others should be so too. All things considered,

they have their share of regard, and let who will take the

rest.

Thirdly the proportioning reward to merit, which will be done hereafter, is a sufficient expectation to remove envy. The persuasion of such a regulation of honor is certainly the most solid principle for this purpose imaginable. For this way all the seeming partialities of birth and fortune are set aside; and to speak familiarly every one has a fair turn to be as great, as he pleases. Here all people are upon equal terms of advantage; the temple of honor stands open to all comers, and the peasant has an opportunity of being as great, as the prince. Thus station and happiness lie in every one's power. The management of the will determines the precedency. A slender share of present advantage will do no prejudice to future pretensions; for men will not be valued by the size of their understandings, but their honesty; not considered by the height of their character, but for the decency of personation. When the scene of life is shut up, the slave will be above his master, if he has acted better. Thus nature and condition are once more brought to a balance; and, as all men were equal at first, so they may be at last, if they take care. This consideration digs up envy by the roots; because no man can be less, than another, without his own fault.

The way to prevent being envied in a privilege, for that should be thought of too, is to show it not undeserved; that it is either transmitted from worthy ancestors, or acquired by qualities extraordinary. He, that rises above a common performance, and goes far in an honorable danger, may be thought to earn the distinction of his circumstances. In such cases people are more inclined to commend the merit, than repine at the success; especially if the advantage be civilly managed. Conceit, and arrogance, and ostentation, spoil all. Pride and illnature will be hated in spite of all the worth in the world. But he, that is obliging in his exaltation, and makes a modest use of his superiority, may sit secure, and have the odds of good wishes on his side.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION UPON

THE FINE ARTS.

Paris, August, 1804.

I

HAVE just quitted the remnants of ancient taste. I have been admiring the efforts of genius, and have been lost in contemplating the creative energies of man, as displayed in the beautiful and sublime beings, who inhabit the Louvre. The grand colossal statue of La Pallas de Velletri almost demanded adoration; but that feeling was quickly lost, and confounded in the mysterious sensations, which originated from beholding the curves and contours of the Venus de Medici. The sentiment of perfect beauty, which enraptured my mind, and elevated my fancy, soon gave way to a kind of pity, a still sorrow, a silent reverence, and a profound admiration for the Laocoon. I turned from this group, and at the end of another hall I beheld the Apollo of Belvidere. There was no one with me in the room, and I was thus at liberty to commune with my own heart. My intellectual nature expanded, and my whole system underwent a revolution as extraordinary, as the change in the animal frame, when the lungs riot in the oxygenated gas of the chemists. I mean not now

I

to describe this statue. I leave you to your imagination. But I may say without poetry, that I have been in the company of heroes, at the banquet of the gods, in the presence of Venus and the Graces. Well might Hercules, Theseus, and the princes of Greece aspire to be the benefactors of mankind, when after death they were to be introduced to the society of immortals, to the councils of divinities; when they >were to breathe the pure air of the Empyreum, and delight in the dance of the Hours, and listen to the song of the Muses, accompanied by the lyre of Apollo. Such was the fascinating mythology of the first ages. Such was the religion of Ionia and Achaia, which, however it might have been secretly des

pised by Socrates, explained by the philosophers, or derided in the dark celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, inspired with courage and virtue the founders of the Grecian principalities, and animated the fancy of Homer to the sublimest elevation in epic poetry, and taught the grand lyre of Timotheus to fill the air with uncommon combinations of sound.

I am disposed to attribute much of the excellence of the fine arts and of poetry to the power of religion. In every age and country this has been a presiding cause over rude essays and finished inventions in all the departments of taste. The most barbarous nations paint and carve their divinities, before they attempt other subjects. This probably arises from superstition and idolatry. As they are seldom capable of abstraction, or rational conception of the unknown God, they are obliged to have recourse to their senses in order to form the most humble notions of his nature. Since they cannot raise their imagination to contemplate that unseen Being, who darkeneth the sun with eclipses, and who periodically roars in the tremendous tornado, they are forced to level him to their own brutish conceptions, which, being deformed and corrupted with every abomination of vice, sometimes cause him to be shown with the monkey face of Egyptian statues, and sometimes originate the most horrific representations, as when the gigantic and terrible Seeva of Hindostan seems starting from the walls in the infernal sculpture of the caverns of Elephanta.

Let us reverse the medal. The mythology of the Greeks is inexplicable. I am afraid, that the moderns have little illuminated this dark subject. The world seems agreed, that the first settlers of Asia Minor and European Greece were emigrants from Egypt and Phoenicia. Although it is highly probable, that the rites, idolatry, and superstition of these two last countries were derived from the ancient polytheism of India, or from that nation, which Sir William Jones affirms, and nearly proves to have been the parent stock of the Arabians, Tartars, Hindoos, and Persians; yet we cannot find, that they beautified their religion with the elegant part of

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