DISTRESS, in its ordinary acceptation, denotes calamity, misery, or suffering.

The Contemplation of Distress a source of pleasure. On this subject there is a very pleasing and ingenious essay by Dr Barnes, in the Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. It is introduced with the following motto from Lucretius:
Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis,
Eterra alterius magnum spectare periclum.
Non quia vexari quenquam est jucunda voluptas;
Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.

“The pleasure here described by the poet, and of which he has mentioned so striking and apposite an instance, may perhaps at first seem of so singular and astonishing a nature, that some may be disposed to doubt of its existence. But that it does exist in the case here referred to, and in many others of a similar kind, is an undoubted fact; and it may not appear an useless or disagreeable entertainment to trace its source in the human breast, together with the final cause for which it was implanted there by our benevolent Creator.

“Shall I, it maybe said, feel complacency in beholding a scene in which many of my fellow-creatures are agonizing with terror, whilst I can neither diminish their danger, nor, by my sympathy, divide their anguish? At the sight of another’s woe, does not my bosom naturally feel pain? Do I not share in his sensations? And is not this strong and exquisite sensibility intended by my Maker to urge me on to active and immediate assistance? /These sensations arc indeed attended with a noble pleasure, when I can, by friendly attention, or by benevolent communication, [7:8:54]soothe the sorrows of the poor mourner, snatch him from impending danger, or supply his pressing wants. But in general, where my sympathy is of no avail to the wretched sufferer, I fly from the spectacle of his misery, unable or unwilling to endure a pain which is not allayed by the sweet satisfaction of doing good.”

In answer to these objections, it will be necessary, in the first place to prove the reality of the feeling, the cause of which, in the human constitution, many have attempted to explore.

Mr Addison, in his beautiful papers on the pleasures of the imagination, has observed, “that objects or scenes, which, when real, give disgust or pain, in description often become beautiful and agreeable. Thus, even a dunghill may, by the charms of poetic imagery, excite pleasure and entertainment. Scenes of this nature, dignified by apt and striking description, we regard with something of the same feelings with which we look upon a dead monster.
............. Informe cadaver
Protrahitur: nequeunt expleri corda tuendo
Terribiles oculos, vultum, villosaque setis
Pectora semiferi, atque extinctos faucibus ignes.

“This,” he observes, “is more particularly the case where the description raises a ferment in the mind, and works with violence upon the passions. One would wonder,” he adds, “how it comes to pass, that passions, which are very unpleasant at all other times, are very agreeable when excited by proper description; such as terror, dejection, grief, &c. This pleasure arises from the reflection we make upon ourselves, whilst reading it, that we are not in danger from them. When we read of wounds, death, &c. our pleasure does not rise so properly from the grief which these melancholy descriptions give us, as from the secret comparison we make of ourselves with those who suffer. We should not feel the same kind of pleasure if we actually saw a person lying under the tortures that we meet with in a description.”

And yet, upon the principle assigned by this amiable writer, we might feel the same, or even higher pleasure, from the actual view of distress, than from any description; because the comparison of ourselves with the sufferer would be more vivid, and consequently the feeling more intense. Wc would only observe, that the cause which he assigns for this pleasure is the very same with that assigned by Lucretius in our motto. Mr Addison applies it to the description, the poet to the actual contemplation, of affecting scenes. In both, the pleasure is supposed to originate in selfishness. But wherever the social passions are deeply interested, as they arc here supposed to be, from the pathetic description, or the still more pathetic survey, of the sufferings of another, the sympathetic feelings will of themselves at once, and previously to all reflection, become a source of agreeable and tender emotions. They will thus dignify and enhance the satisfaction, if any such be felt, arising merely from the consideration of our own personal security. And the more entirely we enter into the scene, by losing all ideas of its being either past or fabulous—the more perfectly we forget ourselves, and are absorbed in the feeling—the more exquisite is the sensation.

But as our subsequent speculations will chiefly turn upon the pleasure derived from real scenes of calamity, and not from those which are imaginary, we may be expected to produce instances in proof of the proposition that such pleasure is actually felt by persons very different in their tastes and mental cultivation.

We shall not mention the horrid joy with which the savage feasts his eyes upon the agonies and contortions of his dying prisoner, expiring in all the pains which artificial cruelty can inflict. Nor will we recur to the almost equally savage sons of ancient Rome, when the majesty of the Roman people could rush with eagerness and transport to behold hundreds of gladiators contending in fatal conflict, and probably more than half the number extended, weltering in blood and writhing in agony upon the arena. Nor will we mention the Spanish bull feasts; nor the fervent acclamations of an English mob around their fellow creatures when engaged in furious battle, in which it is possible that some of the combatants may receive a mortal blow, and be hurried into another world. Let us survey the multitudes which in every part of the kingdom always attend an execution. It may perhaps be said, that in every place the vulgar have little of the sensibility and tenderness of more polished minds. But in the last-mentioned instance, an execution, there is no exultation in the sufferings of the poor criminal. He is regarded by every spectator with the most melting compassion. The whole assembly sympathize with him in his unhappy situation; an awful stillness prevails at the dreadful moment; many are wrung with unutterable sensations; and prayer and silence declare, more loudly than any language could, the interest they feel in his distress. Should a reprieve come to rescue him from death, how great is the general triumph and congratulation. And probably in this multitude you will find not the mere vulgar herd alone, but men of superior knowledge and of more refined sensibility, who, led by some strong principle which we wish to explain, feel a pleasure greater than all the pain, great and exquisite as one should imagine it to be, in beholding such a spectacle.

The man who condemns many of the scenes we have already mentioned as barbarous and shocking, would probably run with the greatest eagerness to some high cliff overhanging the ocean, to sec it swelled into a tempest, though a poor vessel, or even a fleet of vessels, were to appear as one part of the dreadful scenery, now lifted to the heavens on the foaming surge, now plunged deep into the fathomless abyss, and now dashed upon the rocks, where they are in a moment shivered into fragments, and, with all their mariners, entombed in the deep. Or, to vary the question a little, who would not be forward to stand safe on the top of some mountain or tower, adjoining to a field of battle, in which two armies meet in desperate conflict, though probably thousands may soon lie before him prostrate on the ground, and the whole field present the most horrid scenes of carnage and desolation? That in all these cases pleasure predominates in the compounded feeling is plain, because you continue to survey the scene; whereas, when pain became the stronger sensation, you would certainly retire.

Cultivation may indeed have produced some minuter differences in the taste and feelings of different minds; and those whose sensibilities have not been refined by education or science, may feel the pleasure in a more gross and brutal form. But do not the most polished natures feel a similar, a kindred pleasure, in the deep-wrought distresses of the well-imagined scene? Here the endeavour is to introduce whatever is dreadful or pathetic, whatever can harrow up the feelings or extort the tear. And the deeper and more tragical the scene becomes, the more it agitates the several passions of terror, grief, or pity, the more intensely it delights even the most polished minds. They seem to enjoy the various and vivid emotions of contending passions. They love to have the tear trembling in the eye, and to feel the whole soul as it were rapt in thrilling sensations. For that moment they seem to forget the fiction; and afterwards commend that exhibition most in which they most entirely lost sight of the [7:8:55]author and of their own situation, and were alive to all the unutterable vibrations of strong or melting sensibility.

Taking it then for granted, that in the contemplation of many scenes of distress, both imaginary and real, a gratification is felt, let us endeavour to account for it by mentioning some of those principles, interwoven into the web of human nature by its benevolent Creator, on which that gratification depends.

Dr Akenside, in one of the most striking passages of his Pleasures of the Imagination, has endeavoured to show that the sympathetic feelings are virtuous, and therefore pleasant; and from the whole he deduces this important conclusion, that every virtuous emotion must be agreeable, and that this is the sanction and the reward of virtue. The thought is amiable, and the conclusion noble; but still the solution appears to us to be imperfect. We have already said, that the pleasure arising from the contemplation of distressful scenes is a compounded feeling arising from several distinct sources in the human breast. The kind and degree of the sensation must depend upon the various blendings of the several ingredients which enter into the composition. The cause assigned by Mr Addison, namely, the sense of our own security, may be supposed to have some share in the mass of feelings. That of Dr Akenside may be allowed to have a still larger proportion. Let us attempt to trace some of the rest.

There arc few principles in human nature of more general and important influence than that of sympathy. An ingenious writer, led by the fashionable idea of simplifying all the springs of human nature into one source, has, in his beautiful Theory of Moral Sentiments, endeavoured to analyze a very large number of the feelings of the heart into sympathetic vibration. Though it appears to us most probable that the human mind, like the human body, possesses various and distinct springs of action and of happiness, yet he has shown, in an amazing diversity of instances, the operation and importance of this principle of human nature.

We naturally sympathize with the passions of others. But if the passions which they appear to feel be not those of mere distress alone; if, amidst the scenes of calamity, they display fortitude, generosity, and forgiveness; if “rising superior to the cloud of ills which covers them,” they stand firm, collected, and patient; a still higher source of pleasure opens upon us, arising from complacent admiration, and that unutterable sympathy which the heart feels with virtuous and heroic minds. By the operation of this principle, we place ourselves in their situation; we feel, as it were, some share of that conscious integrity and peace which they must enjoy. Hence, as was before observed, the pleasure will vary, both as to its nature and degree, according to the scene and characters before us. The shock of contending armies in the field; the ocean wrought to tempest, and covered with the wrecks of shattered vessels; and a worthy family silently yet nobly bearing up against a multitude of surrounding sorrows; will excite very different emotions, because the component parts of the pleasurable sensation consist of very different materials. They all excite admiration; but admiration diversified both as to its degree and its cause. These several ingredients may doubtless be so blended together that the pleasure shall make but a very small part of the mixed sensation. The more agreeable tints may bear little proportion to the terrifying red or the gloomy black.

In many of the instances which have been mentioned, the pleasure must arise chiefly, if not solely, from the circumstances or accompaniments of the scene. The sublime feelings excited by the view of an agitated ocean, relieve and soften those occasioned by the shipwreck: and the awe excited by the presence of thousands of men, acting as if with one soul, and displaying magnanimity and firmness in the most solemn trial, tempers those sensations of horror and of pain which would arise from a view of the field of battle.

The gratification we are attempting to account for depends also, in a very considerable degree, upon a principle of human nature, implanted in it for the wisest ends; the exercise which it gives to the mind by rousing it to energy and feeling. Nothing is so insupportable as that languor and ennui, for the full expression of which our language does not afford a proper term. To show how agreeable it is to have the soul called forth to exertion and sensibility, we may cite the case of the gamester, who, unable to endure the lassitude and sameness of unanimated luxury, runs with eagerness to the place where probably there await him all the irritation and agony of the most tumultuous passions.

Again, it is,a law in our nature, that opposite passions, when felt in succession, and, above all, when felt at the same moment, heighten and increase each other. Ease succeeding pain, certainty after suspense, friendship after aversion, are unspeakably stronger than if they had not been thus contrasted. In this conflict of feelings, the mind rises from passive to active energy. It is roused to intense sensation; and it enjoys that peculiar, exquisite, and complex feeling, in which, as in many articles of our table, the acid and the sweet, the pleasurable and painful pungencies, are so happily mixed together, as to render the united sensation amazingly more strong; and delightful.

We have not yet mentioned the principle of curiosity, that busy and active power, which appears so early, continues unimpaired so long, and to which, for the wisest ends, is annexed so great a sense of enjoyment. To this principle, rather than to a love of cruelty, we would ascribe that pleasure which children sometimes seem to feel from torturing flies and lesser animals. They have not yet formed an idea of the pain which they inflict. It is indeed of unspeakable consequence that this practice should be checked as soon and as effectually as possible, because it is so important that they should learn to connect the ideas of pleasure and pain with the motions and actions of the animal creation. And to this principle may we also refer no small share of that pleasure in the contemplation of distressful scenes, the springs of which, in the human heart, we are now endeavouring to unfold.

To curiosity, then, to sympathy, to mental exertion, to the idea of our own security, and to the strong feelings occasioned by viewing the actions and passions of mankind in interesting situations, do we ascribe the gratification which the mind feels from the survey of many scenes of sorrow. We have called it a pleasure; but it approaches towards or recedes from pleasure, according to the nature and proportion of the ingredients of which the sensation is composed. In some cases pain predominates; in others there is exquisite enjoyment.

Distress, in Law, the seizing or distraining of any thing for rent in arrear, or other duty unperformed.

The effect of this distress is to compel the party either to replevy the things distrained, and contest the taking in an action of trespass against the distrainer; or rather to oblige him to compound and pay the debt or duty for which he was so distrained.

There are likewise compulsory distresses in actions to cause a person to appear in court, of which kind there is a distress personal of one’s moveable goods, and the profits of his lands, for contempt in not appearing after summons; and there is likewise real distress of a person’s immoveable goods. In these cases none shall be distrained to answer[7:8:56] for any thing touching their freeholds, except by the king’s writ.

Distress may be either finite or infinite. Finite distress is that which is limited by law, in regard to the number of times it shall be made, in order to bring the party to a trial of the action. Infinite distress is that which is without any limitation, being made till the person appear; it is further applied to jurors who do not appear; as, upon a certificate of assize, the process is venire facias, habeas corpora, and distress infinite.

It is also divided into grand distress and ordinary distress. Of these, the former extends to all the goods and chattels which the party has within the county. A person, of common right, may distrain for rents and for all manner of services, and where a rent is reserved on a gift in tail, lease for life, or years, &c. though there be no clause of distress in the grant or lease, so as that he has the reversion; but on a feoffment made in fee, a distress may not be taken, unless it be expressly reserved in the deed.