degree of humanity, clemency, order, tranquillity, and other
social virtues, to which, in the administration of government, we
have attained in modern times, had any one been then able to have
made a fair representation of them. Such is the compensation,
which nature, or rather education, has made in the distribution
of excellencies and virtues, in those different ages.

The merit of benevolence, arising from its utility, and its
tendency to promote the good of mankind has been already
explained, and is, no doubt, the source of a CONSIDERABLE part of
that esteem, which is so universally paid to it. But it will also
be allowed, that the very softness and tenderness of the
sentiment, its engaging endearments, its fond expressions, its
delicate attentions, and all that flow of mutual confidence and
regard, which enters into a warm attachment of love and
friendship: it will be allowed, I say, that these feelings, being
delightful in themselves, are necessarily communicated to the
spectators, and melt them into the same fondness and delicacy.
The tear naturally starts in our eye on the apprehension of a
warm sentiment of this nature: our breast heaves, our heart is
agitated, and every humane tender principle of our frame is set
in motion, and gives us the purest and most satisfactory
enjoyment.

When poets form descriptions of Elysian fields, where the blessed
inhabitants stand in no need of each other's assistance, they yet
represent them as maintaining a constant intercourse of love and
friendship, and sooth our fancy with the pleasing image of these
soft and gentle passions. The idea of tender tranquillity in a
pastoral Arcadia is agreeable from a like principle, as has been