is acted upon, and never acts; and by indulging in this contemplation, it becomes more and more unfit for action: the paffive feeling of compaflion may increafe, but the power requifite to relieve will diminish. On the other hand, a man who has not the fame degree of fenfibility, or the fame difpofition to indulge in the contemplation of objects of distress, may, by the poffeffion of a firmer mind and greater habits of activity, perform many more benevolent and generous actions. The more the paffive habit of compaffion is indulged without the ac tive*, the weaker will the disposition to activity become: but on the other hand, though by the exertion of the active habit the paffive may be diminished; yet by a frequent repetition of benevolent acts, the mind will become more and more difpofed to repeat them, and will find the performance more and more easy. He whofe nervous fenfibility could not bear the fight of a wound, would, in fuch a cafe, be incapable, were he otherwise qualified, to affift in its cures while a perfon of lefs delicate feelings, and who is lefs affected with the fore, will be both more able and more willing to lend his aid in giving relief.

If the above obfervations be well founded, may we not conclude, that there is often much

See Butler's Analogy.

danger,

danger, in the education of children, of foftening their minds too much, of rendering them too susceptible to general representations of distress, and of affe&ing them too frequently and too deeply by fictitious tales of woe? The mind thus affected, may be infenfible to the proper impreffion, when the influence of romantic deception is removed, and when real objects of diftress, unattended with the colours in which Novelifts and Poets exhibit them, are placed before it. Accustomed to be affected with objects only that are removed from ourselves, and where there can be no competition with our own interests, we may be unmoved when our own interefts or other inclinations interfere. In ufe to indulge folely in feeling, and gratified with the consciousness of that feeling, we may fhrink from the labour of active benevolence, and find in the experience of real life, that the very habit of indulging in the contemplation of distress, though it may add to our natural sensibility, yet, by fatiguing and exhausting the mind, will give it a feebleness, and a languor, which is inconsistent with every vigorous and every proper exertion. While therefore a certain degree of fenfibility ought to be cultivated, we ought at the fame time to be upon our guard not to push it too far; and habits of action ought carefully to be intermixed with our habits of contempla

tion. We ought ever to have impreffed on our minds the fentiments of one of the most illuftrious men that ever lived; of a man who united the moft fublime views of contemplation, with the most splendid exertions of activity, in the greatest theatre that history has exhibited to our view; of 'Marcus Aur. Antoninus, that "neither virtue nor vice confift in passive senti"ment, but in action;" "óvdì y aperǹ xai xanIO κι αν πέσει, αλλά ενεργεία.”

26

A.

No 78. SATURDAY, July 29, 1786.

SIR,

To the AUTHOR of the LOUNGER.

ONE of your earliest correspondents gave

us an account of a worthy Baronet, a relation of his, who spent all his life intending to do many things, without ever having actually done any thing. Though this may not be a useful, it seems to me a very harmless way of paff ing one's days. I am the wife, Sir, of quite another kind of gentleman. My husband, Mr. Buftle, always does things firft, and then thinks of them afterwards.

One of the most important concerns of his life, I must own to you, he conducted in this manner, and I was his accomplice. We mar ried on three days' acquaintance at the house of a relation of his, where we happened to meet on a visit. We have, however, been a very decently happy couple, and have a family of very fine children. Mr. Buftle indeed does not depend very much on us for the happiness of his life, and he has no time for conferring much happiness or beftowing much attention on E 6

us..

us. He is of fo active a fpirit, fo bufy, fo constantly employed, that pleasures of a domestic or a quiet kind do not enter at all into his plan of life.

His father was a careful œconomical man, and left him in a very comfortable fituation, with a large eftate, a fet of thriving tenants, a good house, a well-laid-out farm, and a wellftocked garden. When we went home, we had nothing to do, as the faying is, but to draw in our chairs and fit down. But fitting, however much at his cafe, was not my husband's way. He foon made a great deal of bufinefs, though he had found none. It was difcovered, that the principal apartments of our house were too low; fo it was unroofed, to have fome feet added to its height, and a new lead-covered plat-form put a-top, to command a view of a particular turn of the river that runs through the grounds. This kept us two winters in one of our tenant's houses, in which too, all the time we were in it, fomething or other was a-doing fo that the carpenter's hammer was heard every hour of the day. We had scarce got back to our own house again, when it was found that the water came through our leadcovered platform: fo he had the pleasure of having that changed into a cupola, with a roof of a different conftruction, for the view of the