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Numb. Ii. Tuesday, April 24, 1750.

h'on DinJymcnt, nen aJytis quatil
Miuttm fucerJotum incola Pjtbim,

Nob Liltr «tquf, not acuta

Sic gcmenant Cirybanla <rra,
Trifits ut irte. Ho*.

Yet O! remember, nor the god of wine,

Nor Pythian Phoebus from his inmost (hrinc,

Nor DinJjmtKf, nor her priests possest,

Can with their founding cymbals shake the breast.

Like furious anger. F»akcis«

THE maxim which Periander of Corinth, one of the seven fages of Greece, lest as a memorial of his knowledge and benevolence, was x°'x* *pxTii, Be master os tby auger. He considered anger as the great disturber of human lise, the chies enemy %oth of publick happiness and private tranquillity, and thought that he could not lay on posterity 4 lbronger obligation to reverence his memory, than by leaving them a falutary caution against this outrageous passion.

To what latitude Periander might extend the word, the brevity of his precept will scarce allow ui to conjecture. From anger, in its sull import, protracted into malevolence, and exerted in revenge, arise, indeed, many of the evils to which the lise of man is exposed. By anger operating upon

power power are produced the subversion of cities, the desolation of countries, the massacre of nations, and all thofe dreadsul and astonishing calamities which sill the histories of the world, and which could not be read at any distant point of time, when the passions stand neutral, and every motive and principle is lest to its natural force, without some doubt of the truth of the relation, did we not see the fame causes still tending to the fame effects, and only acting with less vigour for want of the fame concurrent opportunities.

But this g gantick and enormous species of anger falls not properly under the animadversion of a writer, whofe chies end is the regulation of common lise, and whofe precepts are to recommend themselves by their general use. Nor is this essay intended to expofe the tragical or fatal effects even of private malignity. The anger which I propofe now for my subject is such as makes thofe who indulge it more troublesome than formidable, and ranks them rather with hornets and wasps, than with basilisks and lions. I have, theresore, prefixed a motto, which characterises this passion, not so much by the mischies that it causes, as by the noise that it utters.

There is in the world a certain class of mortals, known, and contentedly known, by the appellation of faffionate men, who imagine themselves entitled by that distinction to be provoked on every flight occasion, and to vent their rage in vehement and fierce vociserations, in surious menaces and licentious reproaches. Their rage, indeed, for the most part, sumes away in outcries of injury, and F 2 protestations protestations of vengeance, and seldom proceeds to actual violence, unless a drawer or linkboy falls in their way; but they interrupt the quiet of thofe that happen to be within the reach of their clamours, obstruct the course of conversation, and disturb the enjoyment of society.

Men of this kind are sometimes not without understanding or virtue, and are, therefore, not always treated with the severity which their neglect of the case os all about them might justly provoke; they have obtained a kind of prescription for their folly, and are considered by their companions as under a predominant influence that leaves them not masters of their conduct or language, as acting without consciousness, and rushing into mischief with a mist before their eyes; they are therefore pitied rather than censured, and their sullies are passed over as the involuntary blows of a man agitated by the spasms of a convulsion.

It is surely not to be observed without indignation, that men maybe found os minds mean enough to be satisfied with this treatment; wretches who are proud to obtain the privilege of madmen, and can, without shame, and without regret, consider themselves as receiving hourly pardons from theif companions, and giving them continual opportunities of exercising their patience, and boasting their clemency.

Pride is undoubtedly the original of anger; but pride, like every other passion, if it once breaks loofe from reason, counteracts its own purpofes. A passionate man, upon the review of his day, will

have have very sew gratifications to offer to his pride, when he has considered how his outrages were caused, why they were borne, and in what they are likely to end at last.

Thofe sudden bursts of rage generally break out upon small occasions; for lise, unhappy as it is, cannot supply great evils as frequently as the man of fire thinks it fit to be enraged; therefore the first reflection upon his violence must show him that he is mean enough to be driven from his post by every petty incident, that he is the mere stave os casualty, and that his reason and virtue are in the power of the wind.

One motive there is of these loud extravagancies, which a man is caresul to conceal from others, and does not always discover to himself. He that finds his knowledge narrow, and his arguments weak, and by consequence his suffrage not much regarded, is sometimes in hope of gaining that attention by his clamours, which he cannot otherwise obtain, and is pleased with remembering that at least he made himself heard, that he had the power to interrupt thofe whom he could not consute, and suspend tho decision which he could not guide.

Of this kind is the sury to which many men give way among their servants and domesticks; th-y seel their own ignorance, they see their own insignificance; and, therefore, they endeavour, by their sury, to fright away contempt from besore them, when they know it must follow them behind; and think themselves eminently masters, when they see one folly tamely complied with, only lest resusal or delay should provoke them to a greater,

F 3 These

These temptations cannot but be owned to have some force. It is so little pleasing to any man to see himself wholly overlooked in the mass of things, that he may be allowed to try a sew expedients for procuring some kind of supplemental dignity, and use some endeavour to add weight, by the violence of his temper, to the lightness of his other powers. But this has now been long practised, and found, upon the most exact estimate, not to produce advantages equal to its inconveniencies i for it appears not that a man can by uproar, tumult, and bluster, alter any one's opinion of his understanding, or gain influence except over thofe whom fortune or nature have made his dependents. He may, by a steady perseverance in his serocity, fright his children, and harass his servants, but the rest of the world will look on and laugh; and he will have the comfort at hill of thinking, that he lives only to raise contempt and hatred, emotions to which wisdom and virtue would be always unwilling to give occasion. He has contrived only to make thofe sear him, whom every reasonable being is endeavouring to endear by kindness, and must content himself with the pleasure of a triumph obtained by trampling on them who could not resist. He must perceive that the apprehension which his pretence causes is not the awe of his virtue, but the dread of his brutality, and that he has given up the selicity of being loved, without gaining the honour of being reverenced.

But this is not the only ill consequence of the frequent indulgence of this blustering passion, which a man, by often calling to his assistance, will teach,

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