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For the Literary Magazine.

PRESSING.

A fragment.

-HERE it was that a boat was seen sailing swiftly after us, and, hailing our vessel, demanded the names and number of our men. The captain, who had no resource, suffered them quietly to come on board, and had the mortification to see his best seamen taken from him. Their reluctance to leave the ship, and the tears of several who were just, as they supposed, on the point of meeting wives and children, whom a long absence had doubly endeared, convinced my friend that the practice of making slaves was not confined to the West Indies.

I could not at first perfectly comprehend the meaning of this; for we were positively assured, at Spithead, that the press-warrants were recalled, as the ships had received their full complement. However, I was quick enough on deck to see several unhappy fellows, awed by a naked cutlass, pensively and sullenly lowering themselves into the boat. This sight transported Adolphus beyond any consideration of his own safety. His face was inflamed; his eye shot fire. I thought, said he, haughtily, England was a land of freedom, and that you made no slaves here.

Slaves, young gentleman, answered the lieutenant, sheathing his cut lass, and looking as if he were ashamed of the business, no, no; these men are going to fight for their king and country.

But they do not like to go, sir; they wish to visit their families. It is a long time since they saw them.. That reasca will not man our fleet, my pretty lad.

What, then they are compelled to go.

Compelled! nonsense! We press them, it is true; but they will think nothing of it in four and twenty hours.

Press them! what is that? Why, oblige them to go: and if they make any resistance

You kill them, I imagine.

You have strange notions, my brave boy, but not quite right in your guesses. Do you take us for savages?

No more palaver, interrupted another, who seemed equal to the first that spoke; bear-a-hand, and let's be gone.

Adolphus turned an awful look upon this true son of the waves.

And will you take these men from their wives and children? Can you answer it to your conscience?

Conscience, captain Bounce? You and your conscience be damned. Time enough when we have done with them.

And when will that be?

O, all's one for that; perhaps when the war's over.

For the Literary Magazine.

DOES PAIN OR PLEASURE PREDOMINATE IN HUMAN LIFE?

NEITHER great pleasures nor great pains constitute the habitual state of man, but are very thinly sown in the path of human life. How many individuals are there who have never experienced either! The habitual state of man is that of simple well-being, which, when a little heightened, becomes pleasure, and, when a little abated, is nullity of sensation, or the middle term of the scale, of which pleasing sensations occupy the one, and painful sensations the other side.

From a state of pain, whatever be its degree, all wish to be delivered; yet it is observable that, among a hundred thousand persons, scarcely one can be found who rushes out of life in order to get rid of his sufferings; and, in this case, it is generally doubted whether he had at that moment the entire use of his reason: even the most pain

ful circumstances are not unaccompanied with some perceptions of good.

It is because well-being is the habitual state of man that pleasures appear to us less lively than pains of equal intensity; and that the durations of pleasure and of pain, though equal with respect to absolute time, seem very unequal when compared. We consider as pleasure only that degree of good which is perceptibly greater than our habitual state of well-being; whereas, we include under the appellation of pain every state in which our habitual well-being loses any thing of its intensity.

In the common course, and among the several classes, of human life, is the number of pains greater or less than that of pleasures, supposing the intensity of each to be nearly equal? Of the class of pains, and that of pleasures, which contains the great er number of genera and species? Of these questions, if they could be accurately investigated, the issue of both would be on the side of pleasure, especially if they were confined to those pleasures and pains which we derive from nature. The former are friendly, and the latter inimical, to the physical constitution of sentient beings; and hence we may suppose that Infinite Goodness has strewed the path of life with a much greater number of pleasures than of pains, and has given us a much greater diversity of the former than of the latter. The Supreme Being has made us susceptible of several different sensations at the same time; which, by their heterogeneity, frequently weaken the continued impression of pain. Time and employment are known to heal the deepest wounds of affliction; and even the most wretched find relief from conversing on the circumstances of their distress. In short, it is a constant law of nature, which is nothing more than the primitive regulation of the Creator, that there should be an unremitting tendency to the preservation of beings in ge

neral, and to repair whatever injuries they may receive from foreign causes: but can this law be said to act with respect to mankind, if the number of their pains exceed that of their pleasures?

In order to set this argument in a stronger light, we should be obliged to take a particular view of those pleasing sensations which enter into the habitual state of most men, arising from a consciousness of existence; the enjoyment, if not of perfect, yet of tolerable health; the alternate succession of action and rest; the gratification of the appetites of nature; curiosity; the attachments prompted by interest; the relations and affections of social life; the desire of acquiring and of communicating knowledge; a variety of occupations and employments, whether of business or of amusement, which exercise and improve the faculties both of body and mind, together with a consciousness of difficulties overcome, and of duties performed; and, lastly, hope, which anticipates future enjoyment. All these sources of pleasure are intimately connected with our nature, and are common to the great. est part of mankind in every period and condition of life. As to factitious enjoyments, these must be contrasted with factitious sufferings, which probably exceed them in number; nor would it be fair to place that good or that evil, which derives its existence solely from the irregula rity of the imagination, in the same class with the pleasures and pains allotted to us by the condition of our nature.

It may be asked, if our pleasures be really more numerous than our pains, why are there so few who would be willing to recommence the career of life through which they have already passed? We may answer this objection by observing that the activity of the human mind is such as to require a continual succession of new ideas; and that nature has implanted in us a constant tendency to new states of being,

PLEASURE AND PAIN.

each differing from the preceding, and which gradually lead to that perfection which finite beings cannot attain at once. We are formed, not for a stationary condition, not to recommence the circumstances through which we have already passed, but to be constantly advancing in our career toward new and higher modes of existence. Another cause is, that the condition supposed, in the notion of recommencing our life, is that all the circumstances through which we must pass are already known to us. Hence, neither curiosity is interested, nor hope excited: no new objects can be attained; nor have we the liberty of preventing or of avoiding the pains through which we know that we must pass: hence the experience, the knowledge, and the abilities which we have acquired would be lost on us; and we could have no other prospect than that of being, at the end of our second existence, exactly at the same point from which we had set out. Remove this condition, and most men would be glad, for the sake of avoiding death, to recommence a life equally, or even less advantageous in point of happiness than that which they have experienced. From this number we need not except those pretended philosophers, who limit existence to the present state; who are continually complaining of the miseries of life, and yet have not the courage to put an end to it. As to those whom reason and religion inspire with a well-founded hope of a future existence, and of a continued progress toward perfection, though they have as lively a sense as others of the pleasures of this life, which they consider as a natural preparation for a future state, they would never be desirous to recommence their career; which, whatever pleasures it might afford, would only retard their advancement toward that perfect state, for which they know they are destined.

For the Literary Magazine.

THE FEAR OF DEATH.

sological arrangements, ranks the DARWIN, in his whimsical notimor lathi among diseases. The than the impression made upon the cause he considers as nothing more fancy by hearing described, or actually witnessing, cases of great agony and horror suffered by others when dying. The mode of prevention and sing or relation of cases in which cure he points out to be the witnesdying has borne a close resemblance to sleep, and been equally void of pain and of terror.

ought carefully to be made between In these speculations a distinction those views of death which merely arise from its physical and corporeal circumstances, and those which are connected with reflections on the These different views are plainly after-state and condition of the soul. and entirely distinct from each other, as is evident from that dismal apprehension of death entertained by multitudes that are either confident of existence and happiness hereafter, or are totally thoughtless and indifferent on that head.

hint of Darwin's, been led into reI have often, in pursuance of this flections as to what is the real state of this interesting case. I have considered with myself, what are the real circumstances of that death which every human being is fated in a painful, and what in an easy to endure; what diseases terminate dissolution; that daily happen actually charachow are the deaths terized in this respect; is the greater number easy or painful, accompanied with a lively consciousness, pain. I do not know whether phyor with stone-like insensibility to sicians have ever made this an object of attention or inquiry, but surely it is a very interesting and instructive one.

If we may be allowed to discover the state of pure and perfect nature

in any thing but that state in which things are actually found, we might be tempted to suppose that in such a state death would cease to be an evil. Mankind would reach old age in uninterrupted health and tranquillity, and their lamp would go out without a warning or a struggle, without the previous decay of any

such an end as that of this good bishop.

W.

For the Literary Magazine. ADVERSARIA,

NO. XV.

thing but muscular strength. The Or Winter Evening Amusements. untimely, lingering, and agonizing deaths which at present abound in the world may be supposed to originate in the guilt and folly of mankind, in their blind and wanton violation of the precepts of temperance and virtue.

It is certain that such reasonable and tranquil dissolutions sometimes happen, and, their possibility being thus established, there seems no difficulty in supposing that they might be universal, excluding only casualties.

Let us listen, for example, to the following account of the death of the famous bishop Cumberland, as given by his descendant, the late Richard Cumberland.

"The death of this venerable prelate was, like his life, serene and undisturbed. At the extended age of eighty-six years and some months, as he was sitting in his library, he expired without a struggle; for he was found in the attitude of one asleep, with his cap fallen over his eyes, and a book in his hand, in which he had been reading. Thus, without the ordinary visitations of pain or sickness, it pleased God to terminate the existence of this exemplary man."

Those who pant after a terrestrial immortality, and who reproach the Deity for that imperfection in the general system which assigns a limit to the duration of all animal life, will be tempted, by instances like this, to renounce their wishes and their arguments. Provided the race be immortal, provided each man's place is for ever full, it appears to be a perfection in the plan which conducts each successive individual through a diversified existence to

I CONFESS I am not one of those who endeavour to establish a fancied superiority by reviling the female character, and I think these midnight lucubrations have borne testimony to my sincere fondness and undissembled respect for its loveliness and dignity. Milton has acknowledged that "love is not the lowest end of human life;" and I readily believe that this world, without the sweet intercourse of looks and smiles, would be but a wide waste indeed. Why is it that, in the hour of distress, we forget all our vaunted heroism, and fly to the arms of female kindness for that consolation, which we in vain seek in our own reflections? And why is it that the tears of a woman have more effect in arousing our feelings than the loudest call of the clarion? It is that all-pervading influence, which moves every passion of the human breast; it is that which melts the most fierce into docility, and inspires even cowardice with bravery.

Spenser, a favourite poet with me, has a passage on the influence of women in distress, which I wish every one to read and admire:

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Or thro' allegiance and part fealty, Which I doe owe unto all womankind, Feel my heart prest with so great agony, When such I see, that all for pity I could dy.

But whilst I admire, and praise, and defend, let me not be supposed to be so blind as to see all their virtues and their vices, their beauties and deformities in the same partial light. No; the canvas so alluring to the eye is yet tarnished by many a stain. The sickly mein of affectation, the vice of a weak mind, and the ungenial chill of prudery, the folly of an impure mind, with many other frailties that female flesh is heir to, must be corrected before woman can be called perfect. Yet, with all these imperfections, how infinitely do they surpass us in virtue, friendship, constancy, fortitude, genuine good sense, and unaffected good nature!

Let me add a grateful testimony of older experience, of which I have been reminded by these reflections. In the Travels of Ledyard, this celebrated traveller says, he has "always remarked that women, in all countries, are civil, obliging, tender, and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a kind or generous action.

"Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious, they are full of courtesy and fond of society. More liable in general to err than man, but, in general also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of friendship and decency, without receiving a friendly and decent answer; with man it has often been otherwise.

"In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the widespread regions of the wandering Tartars; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been

friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, so worthy the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was thirsty, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry I ate the coarsest meal with a double relish."

The most striking characteristic in the mind of Jaques, says professor Richardson, is extreme sensibility. He discovers a heart strongly disposed to compassion, and susceptible of the most tender impressions of friendship; for he who can so feelingly deplore the absence of kindness and humanity, must be capable of relishing the delight annexed to their exercise. But sensibility is the soil where nature has planted social and sweet affections: by sensibility they are cherished and grow to maturity. Social dispositions produce all those amiable and endearing connections that alleviate the sorrows of human life, adorn our nature, and render us happy. Now Jaques, avoiding society, and burying himself in the lonely forest, seems to act inconsistently with his constitution. He possesses sensibility, sensibility begets affection, and affection begets the love of society. But Jaques is unsocial. Can these inconsistent qualities be reconciled? Or has Shakespeare exhibited a character, of which the parts are incongruous and discordant? In other words, how does it happen that a temper disposed to beneficence, and addicted to social enjoyment, becomes solitary and morose? Changes of this kind are not unfrequent, and, if researches into the origin or cause of a distemper can direct us in the discovery of an antidote or of a remedy, the present inquiry is of importance. Perhaps, the excess and luxuriancy of benevolent dispositions, blighted by unkindness or ingratitude, is the cause that, instead of yielding us fruits of complacency and friend. ship, they shed bitter drops of misanthropy.

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