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crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbation of human misery, would then be able to return without horror and dejection; for who can congratulate himself upon a life passed without some act more mischievous to the peace or prosperity of others than the theft of a piece of money.*

In the Harlot's Funeral, by Hogarth, the misemployed characters, on a superficial inspection, provoke to laughter; but when we have sacrificed the first emotions to levity, a very different frame of mind succeeds, or the painter has lost half his purpose. I never look at that wonderful assemblage of depraved beings, who, without a grain of reverence or pity in their perverted minds, are performing the sacred exteriors of duty to the relics of their departed partner in folly, but I am as much moved to sympathy from the very want of it in them, as I should be by the finest representation of a virtuous death-bed surrounded by real mourners, pious children, weeping friends—perhaps more by the very contrast. What reflections does it not awake of the dreadful heartless state in which the creature (a female too) must have lived, who in death wants the accompaniments of one genuine tear! That wretch who is removing the lid of the coffin to gaze upon the corpse with a face which indicated a perfect negation of all goodness or womanhood-the hypocrite parson and his demure partner-all the fiendish group -to a thoughtful mind present a moral emblem more affecting than if the poor friendless carcass had been depicted as thrown out to the woods, where wolves had * Dr. Johnson.

assisted at its obsequies, itself furnishing forth its own funeral banquet.*

In the same spirit Sir Thomas Brown says-" At the sight of a cross or crucifix I can dispense with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour: I cannot laugh at, but rather pity the fruitless journeys of pilgrims, or contemn the miserable condition of friars; for though misplaced in circumstances, there is something in it of devotion. I could never hear the AveMary bell without an elevation; or think it a sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me to err in all, that is in silence and dumb contempt; whilst therefore they directed their devotions to her, I offered mine to God, and rectified the errors of their prayers, by rightly ordering mine own. At a solemn procession, I have wept abundantly, while my consorts, blind with opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn and laughter."+

And in the same spirit he says-" I own there is a general beauty in the works of God, and therefore no deformity in any kind of species of creature whatsoever. I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly, they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms; and having passed that general visitation of God, who saw that all that he had made was good; that is, conformable to his will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty: there is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein, notwithstanding, there is a kind of beauty; Nature so ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they become sometimes more remarkable than the principal fabric.”

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SECTION III.

SOLUTION OF THE CONTINUITY OF UNPLEASANT SENSATION.

A SAILOR dropped out of the main-top of a man-of war, and after in some degree breaking his fall by catching at the rigging, fell on the lieutenant's head, and knocked him down on the quarter-deck. The sailor jumped up, as did the lieutenant-" You rascal," said the lieutenant, "where did you come from?" "From the north of Ireland, an' please your honour,” answered the sailor.

I was invited to attend the funeral of Professor Porson as is usual I suppose on those occasions, all the party were assembled before we were summoned to attend the procession. We followed his sister to the adjoining room, in which upon tressels we saw the coffin covered with black cloth. There was a square plate with an inscription of the professor's age: I was the last of the party. I had seen much of the professor within the month prior to his death, and was with him the day before he died, Standing by his coffin, I thought of his

jokes and his jibes, which did not desert him in his intervals from pain: his extraordinary genius, his misfor tunes, crowded upon me. I was lost in deep thought. My hand was upon the coffin: I found, to my astonishment, that I was quite alone. I heard, or thought I heard, a noise. Listening, I saw a little spruce man rubbing his hands:" Is not it a beautiful plate?" he said.

Six men were a few months ago executed at the Old Bailey. By the fall of the platform the ropes suddenly broke and the malefactors fell. There was an instant laugh amongst the spectators.

In these instances there was a sudden interruption to painful feeling, which I assume to be a cause of pleasure. Let any person who doubts this, think for a moment of the ease after a tooth is extracted, or of a patient when the knife stops in a surgical operation.

"Il y a," says Bentham, " des plaisirs fondés sur des peines. Lorsqu'on souffert, la cessation ou la diminution de la couleur est un plaisir, et souvent tres-vif on peut les appeller Plaisirs du Soulagement, ou de la delivrance.""

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So bishop Taylor says,--" The world does not minister, does not feel a greater pleasure than to be newly delivered from the racks of the gratings of the stone, and the torments and convulsions of a sharp cholic; and no organs, no harp, no lute can sound out the praises of the Almighty Father so spritefully, as the man that rises from his bed of sorrows, and considers what an excellent difference he feels from the groans and intolerable accents of yesterday." And Gray, who was a great admirer of Bishop Taylor, says almost in the same words ;—

"See the wretch, that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,

At length regain his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again.
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies
To him are opening paradise."

HOBBES' THEORY.

Whether the laughter so common in cases of this nature ever exists, unless united with the pleasure attendant upon the consciousness of superiority, is, perhaps, doubtful. In the case of the breaking of the ropes when the six malefactors were executed, the sudden interruption of painful feeling was accompanied by a sort of defiance to the process of law: and, in the case of the sailor, the dignity of the lieutenant is in a moment lowered by the unexpected answer. And the undertaker at Professor Porson's funeral exhibited the vanity of all the paraphernalia of grief. It seems, therefore, that in all these instances, Hobbes' hypothesis, that laughter is ever a sign of conscious superiority, is not impugned : but, although in these and such instances, ingenuity may discover, as a remote cause, one of the ingredients of this laughter, which Hobbes supposes to be its common attendant; the proximate cause seems to be the joy which accompanies the interruption of the previous

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