estation; and (without going to such an extreme case) that Dryden and
Pope, when they are describing characters like Buckingham, Shaftsbury,
and the Duchess of Marlborough, should represent qualities and actions
at war with each other and with themselves; and that the page should be
suitably crowded with antithetical expressions. But all this argues an
obtuse moral sensibility and a consequent want of knowledge, if applied
where virtue ought to be described in the language of affectionate
admiration. In the mind of the truly great and good everything that is
of importance is at peace with itself; all is stillness, sweetness and
stable grandeur. Accordingly the contemplation of virtue is attended
with repose. A lovely quality, if its loveliness be clearly perceived,
fastens the mind with absolute sovereignty upon itself; permitting or
inciting it to pass, by smooth gradation or gentle transition, to some
other kindred quality. Thus a perfect image of meekness (I refer to an
instance before given) when looked at by a tender mind in its happiest
mood, might easily lead on to thoughts of magnanimity; for assuredly
there is nothing incongruous in those virtues. But the mind would not
then be separated from the person who is the object of its thoughts; it
would still be confined to that person or to others of the same general
character; that is, would be kept within the circle of qualities which
range themselves quietly by each other's sides. Whereas, when meekness
and magnanimity are represented antithetically, the mind is not only
carried from the main object, but is compelled to turn to a subject in
which the quality exists divided from some other as noble, its natural
ally: a painful feeling! that checks the course of love, and repels the
sweet thoughts that might be settling round the person whom it was the
Author's wish to endear to us; but for whom, after this interruption, we
no longer care. If then a man, whose duty it is to praise departed
excellence not without some sense of regret or sadness, to do this or to
be silent, should upon all occasions exhibit that mode of connecting
thoughts, which is only natural while we are delineating vice under
certain relations, we may be assured that the nobler sympathies are not
alive in him; that he has no clear insight into the internal
constitution of virtue; nor has himself been soothed, cheared,
harmonized, by those outward effects which follow everywhere her
goings,--declari