MILTON, book i.
The following passage from Shakespeare falls not much short of that now mentioned in particularity of description:
O you hard hearts! ye cruel men of Rome!
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tyber trembled underneath his banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in his concave shore?
Julius Cæsar, act i. sc. 1.
The following passage is scarcely inferior to either of those mentioned:
"Far before the rest, the son of Ossian comes:
bright in the smiles of youth, fair as the first beams of
the sun. His long hair waves on his back: his dark
brow is half beneath his helmet. The sword hangs
loose on the hero's side; and his spear glitters as he
moves. I fled from his terrible eye, king of high
Temora.
The Henriade of Voltaire errs greatly against the foregoing rule: every incident is touched in a summary way, without ever descending to circumstances. This manner is good in a general history, the purpose of which is to record important transactions: but in a fable it is cold and uninteresting; because it is impracticable to form distinct images of persons or things represented in a manner so superficial.
It is observed above, that every useless circumstance ought to be suppressed. The crowding such circumstances is, on the one hand, not less to be avoided than the conciseness for which Voltaire is blamed, on the other. In the Æneid, Barce, the nurse of Sychæus, whom we never hear of before nor after, is introduced for a purpose not more important than to call Anna to her sister Dido: and that it might not be thought unjust in Dido, even in this trivial circumstance, to prefer her husband's nurse before her own, the poet takes care to inform his reader, that Dido's nurse was dead. To this may be opposed a beautiful passage in the same book, where, after Dido's last speech, the poet, without detaining his readers by describing the manner of her death, hastens to the lamentation of her attendants:
Narration. Dixerat: atque illam media inter talia ferro
Collapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore
Spumantem, sparsaque manus. It clamor ad alta
Atria; concussam bacchatur fama per urbem;
Lamentis gemitque, et foemineo ululatu
Tecta fremunt, resonat magnis plangoribus æther.
As an appendix to the foregoing rule, may be added the following observation, That to make a sudden and strong impression, some single circumstance, happily selected, has more power than the most laboured description. Macbeth, mentioning to his lady some voices he heard while he was murdering the King, says,
There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cry'd
Murder!
They wak'd each other; and I stood and heard
them:
But they did say their prayers, and address them
Again to sleep.
Lady. There are two lodg'd together.
Macbeth. One cry'd, God bless us! and, Amen!
the other;
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands,
Listening their fear. I could not say, Amen,
When they did say, God bless us.
Lady. Consider it not so deeply.
Macbeth. But wherefore could not I pronounce
Amen!
I had most need of blessing, and Amen
Stuck in my throat.
Lady. These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
Macbeth. Methought, I heard a voice cry,
Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep, &c. Act ii. sc. 2.
Describing Prince Henry:
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury;
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropt down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
First Part Henry IV. act iii. sc. 3.
King Henry. Lord Cardinal, if thou think'st on
Heaven's bliss,
Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.
He dies, and makes no sign!
Second Part Henry VI. act iii. sc. 3.
The same author, speaking ludicrously of an army debilitated with diseases, says,
"Half of them dare not shake the snow from off
their cafsocks, lest they shake themselves to pieces."
"I have seen the walls of Baleutha, but they were
defolate. The flames had resounded in the halls: and
the voice of the people is heard no more. The stream
of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the
walls. The thistle shook there its lonely head: the
moss whistled to the wind. The fox looked out from
the windows: and the rank grass of the wall waved
round
Narration. round his head. Desolate is the dwelling of Morna: silence is in the house of her fathers." Fingal.
To draw a character is the master stroke of description. In this Tacitus excels; his portraits are natural and lively, not a feature wanting or misplaced. Shakespeare, however, exceeds Tacitus in liveliness; some characteristical circumstance being generally invented or laid hold of, which paints more to the life than many words. The following instances will explain our meaning, and at the same time prove our observation to be just.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandfire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice,
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,
(I love thee, and it is my love that speaks),
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
O my Antonio! I do know of those,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing.
Merchant of Venice, act i. sc. 1.
"Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice: his reasons are two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search." Ibid.
In the following passage a character is completed by a single stroke:
Shallow. O the mad days that I have spent; and to see how many of mine old acquaintance are dead.
Silence. We shall all follow, cousin.
Shallow. Certain, 'tis certain, very sure, very sure; Death (as the Psalmist faith) is certain to all: all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
Slender. Truly cousin, I was not there.
Shallow. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?
Silence. Dead, Sir.
Shallow. Dead! see, see: he drew a good bow: and dead. He shot a fine shot. How a score of ewes now?
Silence. Thereafter as they be. A score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.
Shallow. And is old Double dead?
Second part Henry IV. act iii. sc. 2.
Describing a jealous husband:
"Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note. There is no hiding you in the house." Merry Wives of Windsor, act iv. sc. 3.
Congreve has an inimitable stroke of this kind in his comedy of Love for Love:
Ben Legend. Well, father, and how do all at home? how does brother Dick, and brother Val.
VOL. XIV. Part II.
Sir Sampson. Dick, body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years. I writ you word when you were at Leghorn.
Ben. Mefs, that's true; marry I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you say. Act iii. sc. 6.
Falstaff speaking of Ancient Pistol:
"He's no swaggerer, hostels; a tame cheater i' faith: you may stook him as gently as a puppy greyhound; he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance."
Second part Henry IV. act ii. sc. 4.
Ollian, among his other excellencies, is eminently successful in drawing characters; and he never fails to delight his reader with the beautiful attitudes of his heroes. Take the following instances:
"O Oscar! bend the strong in arm; but spare the feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy people; but like the gale that moves the grass to those who ask thine aid.—So Trenmor lived; such Trathal was; and such has Fingal been. My arm was the support of the injured; and the weak rested behind the lightning of my steel."
"We heard the voice of joy on the coast, and we thought that the mighty Cathmor came. Cathmor the friend of strangers! the brother of red-haired Cairbar! But their souls were not the same; for the light of heaven was on the bosom of Cathmor. His towers rose on the banks of Atha: seven paths led to his halls: seven chiefs stood on these paths, and called the stranger to the feast. But Cathmor dwelt in the wood to avoid the voice of praise."
"Dermid and Oscar were one: they reaped the battle together. Their friendship was strong as their steel; and death walked between them to the field. They rush on the foe like two rocks falling from the brow of Ardven. Their swords are stained with the blood of the valiant: warriors faint at their name. Who is equal to Oscar but Dermid? who to Dermid but Oscar?"
"Son of Comhal, replied the chief, the strength of Morni's arm has failed: I attempted to draw the sword of my youth, but it remains in its place: I throw the spear, but it falls short of the mark: and I feel the weight of my shield. We decay like the grass of the mountain, and our strength returns no more. I have a son, O Fingal! his soul has delighted in the actions of Morni's youth; but his sword has not been fitted against the foe, neither has his fame begun. I come with him to battle, to direct his arm. His renown will be a sun to my soul, in the dark hour of my departure. O that the name of Morni were forgot among the people! that the heroes would only say, Behold the father of Gaul."
Some writers, through heat of imagination, fall into contradiction; some are guilty of downright absurdities; and some even rave like madmen. Against such capital errors one cannot be more effectually warned than by collecting instances; and the first shall be of a contradiction, the most venial of all. Virgil speaking of Neptune,
Narration. Interea magno miseri murmure pontum,
Emisiamque hyemem sensit Neptunus, et imis
Stagna refusa vadis; graviter commotus, et alto
Propiciens, summâ placidum caput extulit undâ.
Aeneid, i. 128.
Again :
When first young Maro, in his boundless mind,
A work t'outlast immortal Rome design'd.
Essay on Criticism, 30.
The following examples are of absurdities.
"Alii pulsis é tormento catenis discepti festique,
dimidiato corpore pugnavant sibi superstitis, ac per-
empte partis ultores." SIRADA, Dec. ii. 2.
Il pover huomo, che non sen' era accorto,
Andava combattendo, ed era morto. Berni.
He fled, but flying, left his life behind.
Iliad, xi. 443.
Full through his neck the weighty falchion sped :
Along the pavement roll'd the mutt'ring head.
Odyssey, xxii. 365.
The last article is of raving like one mad. Cleopatra speaking to the asp, —
Welcome, thou kind deceiver,
Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key,
Do'st open life, and unperceiv'd by us
Ev'n steal us from ourselves; discharging to
Death's dreadful office, better than himself;
Touching our limbs so gently into slumber,
That Death stands by, deceiv'd by his own image,
And thinks himself but sleep.