the cause of his misfortune; and if he have a walking-stick, he gives it a blow or two. And thus Cyrus, from a similar feeling, vented his anger on the river Cydnus, and Xerxes on the

ocean.

Some men are suspicious and revengeful; but they are uncertain in their conduct and feelings. Their anger foments, and then they froth and fume. It is said of Rousseau by his biographer, "Sometimes he would part from you with all his former affection; but if an expression had escaped you which might bear an unfavourable construction, he would recollect it, examine it, exaggerate it, perhaps dwell upon it for a month, and conclude by a total breach with you."

Revenge is the occasion of boxing among children, scolding among housewives, combats with hard words or brick-bats, pugilistic encounters in our streets, duelling, and warfare.

The feeling of revenge grows gradually. It begins in infancy. The child will beat its nurse. A sensation of love arises towards what occasions pleasure, and a feeling of aversion towards what produces pain. We show our love for favours received by kind words, by pleasing actions this is gratitude; but we show our aversion to the cause of our unhappiness by producing unhappiness in return-this is revenge. Sometimes revenge is shown by inflicting an injury of a bodily kind, sometimes by directing our malevolence to the property, and, on other occasions, to the feelings of another. The latter may be occasioned by

passions, and exciting compassion, pity, or sorrow. And thus, one person, in revenge, will show how much he is affected: he will not speak nor eat; he will, perhaps, be very ill, or he will commit suicide. Most of these, like other kinds of revenge, are low and unmanly. Shenstone has very well described the buddings of a revengeful spirit, exhibited in the way of sulkiness, by a delinquent school-boy:

"Behind some door, in melancholy thought,
Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff, pines;
He for his fellow's joyance careth aught,
But to the wind all merriment resigns,
And deems it shame if he to peace inclines.
And many a sullen look askance is sent,
Which for his dame's annoyance he designs;
And still the more to pleasure him she's bent,
The more doth he, perverse, her 'haviour past resent."

And when a person is prevented from injuring his neighbour's property, life, or reputation, he will sometimes vent his malice in ill wishes, in curses on the body or the soul, and sometimes he will curse himself. Nothing, surely, is more disgraceful or more silly than profane cursing. It is worse than the disposition to beat a block over which a person has fallen; because, what a worthless fellow might wish or say with regard to another would never be fulfilled, except he had, as may seem somewhat likely, one powerful personage on his side, who is always ready for mischief. But then it must be remembered that there is a Power above superior to that pow er beneath. If a man vent curses upon himself, there

is a greater probability that they would be fulfilled; but if he has, or fancies that he has, received a disadvantage, why does he wish for more?

Dr. Beattie observes of revenge, that, "though it may, to an indelicate and inconsiderate mind, give a momentary gratification, even as gluttony and excessive drinking may to a depraved appetite, it can never bring happiness along with it." Dreadful is the condition of those tribes among whom this feeling reigns. In some parts of the globe the inhabitants are continually obliged to keep themselves armed. The husbandman works with his weapon at his side; the women, who go to the stream for water, must be guarded. They truly dwell in the midst of alarms." Captain Cook remarks of the New Zealanders, that they "live under perpetual apprehensions of being destroyed by each other; there being few of their tribes that have not, as they think, sustained wrongs from some other tribes, which they are continually upon the watch to revenge.”

A keen disposition of satire is usually employed as a sort of revenge for real or imaginary evils; but it is injurious to the possessor. Let a person, a female particularly, be considered as a satirist, and all the prepossessions in her favour, which had fixed themselves in the other sex, fall immediately as scales from the eyes; and the men behold her as sour in her disposition, though she be sweet to the lip, or though she be fascinating in appearance. The Duchess of Abrantes was rather keen one day in a joke on Napoleon Buonaparte.

The

Emperor pinched her nose pretty smartly, and said, "You are witty, but you are also malicious : do not be so; for a woman loses all her charms when she becomes an object of dread."

As a feeling of forgiveness may be produced or increased by weighing and estimating matters correctly, so an opposite disposition may be produced by estimating incorrectly; by aggravating the action and magnifying the result. In Richard the Third we have an introduction to the art of generating a revengeful spirit:

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

"O thou well skill'd in curses, stay a while,
And teach me how to curse mine enemies.

QUEEN MARGARET.

Forbear to sleep the night, and fast the day;
Compare dead happiness with living wo;
Think that thy babes were fairer than they were,
And he that slew them fouler than he is."

The feeling of revenge may be counteracted by the indulgence of charity; by looking at ourselves, and considering that we also may be faulty. The eminent Baldus was always inclined to excuse the misconduct of others; for he said, "If we knew the actual character of the best men, we should find much that needed correction." An inclination for revenge may be diminished, also, by raising one's self (in a very allowable dignity) above the trifle which is intended as an affront or disadvantage. Descartes used to observe, “When any one injures me, I endeavour to elevate my mind so high, that the injury cannot reach it." It

66

is noble to avoid revenge; but it is disgraceful to offer insults. In taking revenge, Dr. Beattie remarks, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior."-" Contemn injuries," observes St. Chrysostom," and thou shalt be a conqueror."

The disposition to revenge transforms an imaginary evil into a real one; it makes an unintentional offence the source of a perpetual quarrel; it stirs up families, it sets one village against another, one city against another city, one kingdom against a neighbouring kingdom; it produces civil wars and foreign wars; it occasions discords among men of commerce, of literature, and religion; it occasions the human race, like so many ferocious birds or savage beasts, to inflict upon each other pains and penalties, losses and crosses, discontentment and unhappiness; to occasion sorrow and lamentation, rather than the offices of kindness, the exercise of charity, and the enjoyment of happiness.