, be even approved of, if they
betrayed not sometimes too evident symptoms of madness and disorder.

The Athenians pretended to the first invention of agriculture and of
laws: and always valued themselves extremely on the benefit thereby
procured to the whole race of mankind. They also boasted, and with
reason, of their war like enterprises; particularly against those
innumerable fleets and armies of Persians, which invaded Greece during
the reigns of Darius and Xerxes. But though there be no comparison in
point of utility, between these peaceful and military honours; yet we
find, that the orators, who have writ such elaborate panegyrics on
that famous city, have chiefly triumphed in displaying the warlike
achievements. Lysias, Thucydides, Plato, and Isocrates discover, all of
them, the same partiality; which, though condemned by calm reason and
reflection, appears so natural in the mind of man.

It is observable, that the great charm of poetry consists in lively
pictures of the sublime passions, magnanimity, courage, disdain of
fortune; or those of the tender affections, love and friendship; which
warm the heart, and diffuse over it similar sentiments and emotions. And
though all kinds of passion, even the most disagreeable, such as
grief and anger, are observed, when excited by poetry, to convey a
satisfaction, from a mechanism of nature, not easy to be explained: Yet
those more elevated or softer affections have a peculiar influence, and
please from more than one cause or principle. Not to mention that
they alone interest us in the fortune of the persons represented, or
communicate any esteem and affection for their character.

And can it possibly be doubted, that this talent itself of poets, to
move the passions, this pathetic and sublime of sentiment, is a very
considerable merit; and being enhanced by its extreme rarity, may exalt
the person possessed of it, above every character of the age in which
he lives? The prudence, address, steadiness, and benign government of
Augustus, adorned with all the splendour of his noble birth and imperial
crown, render him but an unequal competitor for fame with Virgil, who
lays nothing into the opposite scale but the divine beauties of his
poetical genius.

The very sensibility to these beauties, or a delicacy of taste, is
itself a beauty in any character; as conveying the purest, the most
durable, and most innocent of all enjoyments.

These are some instances of the severa