* * * * *
Why do I feel so differently from the Reverend Dr. Price, and those of
his lay flock who will choose to adopt the sentiments of his
discourse?--For this plain reason: Because it is _natural_ I should;
because we are so made as to be affected at such spectacles with
melancholy sentiments upon the unstable condition of mortal prosperity,
and the tremendous uncertainty of human greatness; because in those
natural feelings we learn great lessons; because in events like these
our passions instruct our reason; because, when kings are hurled from
their thrones by the Supreme Director of this great drama, and become
the objects of insult to the base and of pity to the good, we behold
such disasters in the moral as we should behold a miracle in the
physical order of things. We are alarmed into reflection; our minds (as
it has long since been observed) are purified by terror and pity; our
weak, unthinking pride is humbled under the dispensations of a
mysterious wisdom. Some tears might be drawn from me, if such a
spectacle were exhibited on the stage. I should be truly ashamed of
finding in myself that superficial, theatric sense of painted distress,
whilst I could exult over it in real life. With such a perverted mind, I
could never venture to show my face at a tragedy. People would think the
tears that Garrick formerly, or that Siddons not long since, have
extorted from me, were the tears of hypocrisy; I should know them to be
the tears of folly.
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