t is certain, that, wherever we go, whatever we reflect on
or converse about, everything still presents us with the view of human
happiness or misery, and excites in our breast a sympathetic movement
of pleasure or uneasiness. In our serious occupations, in our careless
amusements, this principle still exerts its active energy.

A man who enters the theatre, is immediately struck with the view of
so great a multitude, participating of one common amusement; and
experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or
disposition of being affected with every sentiment, which he shares with
his fellow-creatures.

He observes the actors to be animated by the appearance of a full
audience, and raised to a degree of enthusiasm, which they cannot
command in any solitary or calm moment.

Every movement of the theatre, by a skilful poet, is communicated, as
it were by magic, to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice,
and are inflamed with all the variety of passions, which actuate the
several personages of the drama.

Where any event crosses our wishes, and interrupts the happiness of the
favourite characters, we feel a sensible anxiety and concern. But where
their sufferings proceed from the treachery, cruelty, or tyranny of an
enemy, our breasts are affected with the liveliest resentment against
the author of these calamities. It is here esteemed contrary to the
rules of art to represent anything cool and indifferent. A distant
friend, or a confident, who has no immediate interest in the
catastrophe, ought, if possible, to be avoided by the poet; as
communicating a like indifference to the audience, and checking the
progress of the passions.

Few species of poetry are more entertaining than PASTORAL; and every
one is sensible, that the chief source of its pleasure arises from those
images of a gentle and tender tranquillity, which it represents in its
personages, and of which it communicates a like sentiment to the reader.
Sannazarius, who transferred the scene to the sea-shore, though he
presented the most magnificent object in nature, is confessed to have
erred in his choice. The idea of toil, labour, and danger, suffered by
the fishermen, is painful; by an unavoidable sympathy, which attends
every conception of human happiness or misery.

When I was twenty, says a French poet, Ovid was my favourite: Now I am
forty, I declare for Horace. We enter, to be sure, more readily into
sentiments, which resem