properties in a supreme degree: but this is not the case of laughter, which indicates an intermediate sentiment, a species of indecision and certain fluctuation of the soul, more approximating to gay and lively sentiments than to the indolent and impetuous affections. The angry man who should pass suddenly from fury to fits of laughter would not, for all this, bound from one extreme to the other: he would solely fall into a fluctuation, which would tend to incline him towards the contrary sentiment, though, I own, with a certain rapidity.

"In the same manner," continues M. Tiedermann," a violent love changes into hatred, when we find the object unworthy of future affection, and when a long enjoyment has not prepared the way to indifference. The force of our attachment makes us perceive, in so much a more lively manner, the baseness and unworthiness of the subject; and impels us on to the most vehement hatred, in making us pass the bounds of indifference."

Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice, affords a fine example to illustrate transitions of passions and affections.

Shylock experiences the most bitter anguish, whilst recalling to his mind the precious jewels he has lost by the flight of his daughter: he evinces the most lively joy, whilst learning the catastrophe of Antonio, his rival in commerce, on whom he feels he can revenge himself at his pleasure. Accordingly, as his friend Tubal directs the attention of Shylock to the one or the other of these events, these two opposite sentiments alternately succeed in the soul of the Jew: grief seems to take the place of joy, and joy to assume that of grief, without any intermediate sentiment. I use the word seems, since grief, in succeeding to joy, no longer manifests itself with the same violence as in its original; and so joy, likewise, in its sudden triumph over grief, cannot, in its first instants, efface the wrinkles from the forehead, and restore it to all its natural serenity. With a feeble light, it smiles, as we may say, through a cloud, still leaving something of pain and chagrin in the first mien, and probably in the first tone of Shylock's voice; but the essential circumstance to be observed here is, that in joy there is found an accessary sentiment, which serves for its point of union with grief: I mean that joy arising from the

misery of another person; consequently the joy of hatred (of choler moderated) so closely approaches grief. The two alternate sentiments are not then simple, though they appear to be so. But we are beginning to lose ourselves in subtilties, which appear to remove farther and farther from us in practice. It is time then to terminate our researches, and to end our correspondence.

If you find that I have furnished but little, recollect that I never promised much; yet. I dare flatter myself with having done more than my promise obliged me to execute. Instead of merely collecting a few materials for the edifice, and leaving them as rude as I found them, I have, at least, in connecting them in some sort among themselves, elevated a vast though imperfect monument, open on all sides, and perhaps menacing ruin. It is very probable that a construction so precipitate, and so incomplete, should moulder of itself, or that some destructive critique should level it with the dust but a hope constantly remains, to cheer and console me-a hope that, in the end, an architect of superior talent will find the site which I have chosen not only very agreeable, but also very

:

advantageously disposed for the increase of our acquirements as well as our pleasures; and that, on the same spot where I have constructed a frail edifice to an art which I love, a majestic temple may arise, whose well ordered parts shall be decorated with all the graces of taste and all the sublimities of regular magnificence.