The enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1804-1815, 1811-01-01
their guilty pleasures came to pail upon

L
abroad, as well as At home. has served To
Confirm the philosophy of the peasant of
switzerland. lnsomuch that whenever /
see the native bloom of health and the ge
hume smile OF content l mark down the
character as Industrious and virtuous: and
never yet failed to have the prepossession
confirmed on enquiry. So on the other
hand, Whenever see pale repning and Ian
guid discomfort; and hear complaints utter
ed against the hard lot of humanity, my
first Impression is that the character from
whom they proceed is incident. or vicious,
or both; and have not often had occasion
to retract the opinion.
There is, indeed, class Of characters,
| rather INDECENT than vicious, who are really
| to be pltied; whose innocent and cap,iva
ting amusements becoming at length their
sole pursuits, tend only to whet their SEN
| sbiiity 10 mistor;unes which they contri
butte bring on; and to form pictures of
life so highly aggravated as 10 render lite
! itself stale and fiat. Of this cast was the
Immortal Homer; who has the credit of
having hrst advanced the opinion which
pliny has SO much anplified that in HUI
| man lite, the sum of evil far exceeds that
| OF good. Ii is not wonderful that Homer
should have advanced such a sentiment. if
we may confde in any OF the ancient accounts
! OF him which have been handed down to
us, more especially in that circumstantiai
! one which IS ascribed 70 Herodotus Ac
cording to these accounts, he was the off
! spring OF an Illicit amour, never rec pg;.i,ed
by his father. and. in his childhood, de.
pendant or mother who had TO support
herself and him by manual labor. Arrived
at years OF maturity, he at first taught 4
school, and afterwards wandered about
Greece, in the character If a rhapsod,st,
(somewhat analogous 20 the bard or min
strei OF ancient Blitain,) singing his poe ms
at great mems houses, and subsisting on
their precarious bounty. During this va
grant life. he was supported for conside-
| rable time at the house of a leather dresser
and having, by repeated attacks of de-
fiuction IN his eyes, entirely lost his sight,
and remained blind for several years. he at
length died, wanderer, and was buried
in the sands of the sea shore Compare
these disastrous and humiliaiing events
with he character of the man; that tender
and dlssoiving sepsibillty which beams with
such irresistible effect from every part of
his works, which drew the parting of Hec-
tor and Andromache, and the no less pa
thc,ic meeting Of Ulysses and Penelope
compare his own poverty and mortihca,i
ons with that genius which was for ever
representing to him characters and life ON
their grandest and mobiles, scale. and will
you see any Cause TO wonder at Homer's
| estimate OF human lifes Those who have
| succeeded this Prince Of poets, in his pro
| fession, have resembled him much more
IN their poverty, misery and CONSEQUENT
estimate of life. than in snblimity Of genius
and immortality of works
But against the opinion of these men, we
nave that OF Socrates pronounced by the o..
racle OF Delphos to be the wIsss, nan of
the age in which he lived ; of Plato. Arts
totle, Seneca, and an ancient poet, as emf.
nent TOR dramatic composition as Homer
was tor epic i mean Eurpdes, who after
| citing the opinion OF Homer advances the
exact reverse OF it, and supports himself
oy an argument which has been termed in
shlraHon. In proof OF the gene IA lily OF this
latter opinion, too, we have the whole
practice OF antiquity: FOR they held suicide
To be no crime; and if they really believed
the evil ot lite 70 sa;iiass the goou. now did
/ II happen that they did not &c; rid of it.
thai on the Contrary. with the proiocu or
whom Plautus introduces in my motto hey
were guilty of the practical solecism OF 70
UNFAIRLY sustaining the greater evil for the
sake Ut the trivial good!-
Yet the very men who have most distin
gushed themselves by this opinion of he
preponderance of evil. were those VINO seem
to have cleaved tolife with the fondest per-
t'nacity. Thus Homer, in spite Of DO
verify, blindness and misery. fingered on TO
a very advanced age, and fell at last not
by MS own hand, but the reluctant hand of
nature /: Ovid, another advocate Of this Opt
( mon, as might we'll have been expected
from his lewd course of life. sustained the
ordinary evils increased by exile yet, o.
verloaded with calamity as he affected TO
think this state of being. like some of the
lovers, we meet with in Operas, he chose
the moment of misfortune to break out in,o
a song, and chaunted away, to the day of
his death, with much ease, and melody.
and grace !; and on subjects, too, SO ligh: &
airy, that it is as difficult to believe him
sincere IN his mplauts, as il is 10 believe
the lover in the Opera. AS to Piyny, al
though he held dea to be the greatest of
blessings, yet he practised, in this respect,
all the abstinence Of a philosopher {; and ned
from the eruption of Ksna--whch DESTROY
ed him, with as much precipitation as if he
had really tho't death the greatest of evils.
Lucretius is the only advocate of that O.
pnion who abridged his life and in him.
II we may believe his historians, it was not
| The effect of reason and calculation, but of
long standing and confirmed insanity.
In this class of victims TO a busy Incidence
next to those who devote their whole lives
| TO the Improbable business of writing works
| OF imagination, are those who spend the
whole OF theirs in reading them. There
are several men and women Of this descrip-
ton in the circle of my acquaintance per
sons, whose misfortune it ~ to be released
from the salutary necessity of supporting
| themselves by their own exertioas, and who
/ al hnV