BOILEAU, l'Art. Poet. chant. iii. l. 101.
O, they love least that let men know they love.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, act i. sc. 3.
Hence a capital rule in the representation of immoderate passions, that they ought to be hid or dissembled as much as possible. And this holds in an especial manner with respect to criminal passions: one never counsels the commission of a crime in plain terms; guilt must not appear in its native colours, even in thought; the proposal must be made by hints, and by representing the action in some favourable light. Of the propriety of sentiment upon such an occasion, Shakespeare, in the Tempest, has given us a beautiful example, in a speech by the usurping duke of Milan, advising Sebastian to murder his brother the king of Naples:
Antonio. ————What might,
Worthy Sebastian,—O, what might—no more.
And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face
What thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and
My strong imagination sees a crown
Dropping upon thy head.
Act ii. sc. 2.
A picture of this kind, perhaps still finer, is exhibited
in King John, where that tyrant solicits (act iii. sc. 5.) Sentiments Hubert to murder the young prince Arthur; but it is too long to be inserted here.
II. As things are best illustrated by their contraries, we proceed to faulty sentiments, disdaining to be indebted for examples to any but the most approved authors. The first class shall consist of sentiments that accord not with the passion; or, in other words, sentiments that the passion does not naturally suggest. In the second class shall be arranged sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but unsuitable to it as tinctured by a singular character. Thoughts that properly are not sentiments, but rather descriptions, make a third. Sentiments that belong to the passion represented, but are faulty as being introduced too early or too late, make a fourth. Vicious sentiments exposed in their native dress, instead of being concealed or disguised, make a fifth. And in the last class shall be collected sentiments suited to no character nor passion, and therefore unnatural.
The first class contains faulty sentiments of various kinds, which we shall endeavour to distinguish from each other.
1. Of sentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the passion, the following may serve as an example:
Othello. ————O my soul's joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death:
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus high, and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven?
Othello, act ii. sc. 6.
This sentiment may be suggested by violent and inflamed passion; but is not suited to the satisfaction however great, that one feels upon escaping danger.
2. Instance of sentiments below the tone of the passion. Ptolemy, by putting Pompey to death, having incurred the displeasure of Cæsar, was in the utmost dread of being dethroned: in that agitating situation, Corneille makes him utter a speech full of cool reflection, that is in no degree expressive of the passion.
Ah! si je t'avois crié, je n'aurois pas de maître,
Je serois dans le trône où le ciel m'a fait naître;
Mais c'est une imprudence assez commune aux rois,
D'écouter trop d'avis, et se tromper au choix.
Le Destin les aveugle au bord du précipice,
Ou si quelque lumière en leur âme se glisse,
Cette fausse clarté dont il les éblouit,
Le plonge dans une gouffre, et puis s'évanouit.
La Mort de Pompée, act iv. sc. 1.
3. Sentiments that agree not with the tone of the passion; as where a pleasant sentiment is grafted upon a painful passion, or the contrary. In the following instances, the sentiments are too gay for a serious passion:
No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.
Eloisa to Abelard, l. 47.
Again;
Heav'n first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid:
Sentiments. They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart;
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.
Eloisa to Abelard, l. 51.
These thoughts are pretty: they suit Pope, but not Eloisa.
Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus:
Then when I am thy captive, talk of chains,
Proud imitatory cherub; but ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm, though heaven's King
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us'd to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress thro' the road of heav'n a star pav'd.
Paradise Lost, book iv.
The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage.
4. Sentiments too artificial for a serious passion. The first example is a speech of Percy expiring.
O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my growth:
I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me:
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.
But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.
First Part, Henry IV. act v. sc. 9.
The sentiments of the Mourning Bride are for the most part no less delicate than just copies of nature: in the following exception the picture is beautiful, but too artful to be suggested by severe grief.
Almeria. O no! Time gives increase to my afflictions.
The circling hours, that gather all the woes
Which are diffus'd through the revolving year,
Come heavy laden with th' oppressive weight
To me; with me, successively, they leave
The sighs, the tears, the groans, the restless cares,
And all the damps of grief, that did retard their flight;
They shake their downy wings, and scatter all
The dire collected dews on my poor head;
Then fly with joy and swiftness from me. Act i. sc. 1.
In the same play, Almeria seeing a dead body, which she took to be Alphonso's, expresses sentiments strained and artificial, which nature suggests not to any person upon such an occasion;
Had they or hearts or eyes, that did this deed?
Could eyes endure to guide such cruel hands?
Are not my eyes guilty alike with theirs,
That thus can gaze, and yet not turn to stone?
—I do not weep! the springs of tears are dry'd.
And of a sudden I am calm, as if
All things were well; and yet my husband's murder'd!
Yes, yes, I know to mourn: I'll sluice this heart,
The source of woe, and let the torrent in.
Pope's elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expresses delicately the most tender concern and sorrow that one can feel for the deplorable fate of a person of worth. Such a poem, deeply serious and pathetic, rejects with disdain all fiction. Upon that account, the following passage deserves no quarter; for it is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease, and by that means is eminently discordant with the subject. It would be a still more severe censure, if it should be ascribed to imitation, copying indiscreetly what has been said by others:
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy relics made.
5. Fanciful or finical sentiments. Sentiments that degenerate into point or conceit, however they may amuse in an idle hour, can never be the offspring of any serious or important passion. In the Jerusalem of Tasso, Tancred, after a single combat, spent with fatigue and loss of blood, falls into a swoon; in which situation, understood to be dead, he is discovered by Erminia, who was in love with him to distraction. A more happy situation cannot be imagined, to raise grief in an instant to its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most abominably into antithesis and conceit even of the lowest kind:
E in lui versò d'inefficabilel vena
Lacrime, e voce di sospiri mista.
In che misero punto hor qui me mena
Fortuna? a che veduta amara e trista?
Dopo gran tempo i' ti ritrovo à pena
Tancredi, e ti riveggio, e non so vista
Vista non son da te, benchè presente
T' trovando ti perdo eternamente.
Canto xix. st. 105.
Armida's lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo is in the same vicious taste. Vid. canto xx. stanz. 124, 125, 126.
Queen. Give me no help in lamentation,
I am not barren to bring forth complaints:
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern'd by the wat'ry moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world,
Ah, for my husband, for my dear lord Edward.
King Richard III. act ii. sc. 2.
Jane Shore utters her last breath in a witty conceit:
Then all is well, and I shall sleep in peace—
'Tis very dark, and I have lost you now—
Was there not something I would have bequeath'd you?
But
Sentiments. But I have nothing left me to bestow,
Nothing but one sad sigh. Oh mercy, Heav'n! [Dies.
Act v.
Guilford to Lady Jane Gray, when both were condemned to die:
Thou stand'st unmov'd;
Calm temper sits upon thy beauteous brow;
Thy eyes that flow'd so fast for Edward's loss,
Gaze unconcern'd upon the ruin round thee,
As if thou had'st resolv'd to brave thy fate,
And triumph in the midst of desolation.
Ha! see, it swells, the liquid crystal rises,
It starts in spite of thee—but I will catch it,
Nor let the earth be wet with dew so rich.
Lady Jane Gray, act iv. near the end.
The concluding sentiment is altogether finical, unsuitable to the importance of the occasion, and even to the dignity of the passion of love.
Cornille, in his Examen of the Cid, answering an objection, That his sentiments are sometimes too much refined for persons in deep distress, observes, that if poets did not indulge sentiments more ingenious or refined than are prompted by passion, their performances would often be low, and extreme grief would never suggest but exclamations merely. This is in plain language to assert, that forced thoughts are more agreeable than those that are natural, and ought to be preferred.
The second class is of sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but are not perfectly concordant with it, as tinctured by a singular character.
In the last act of that excellent comedy The Careless Husband, Lady Easy, upon Sir Charles's reformation, is made to express more violent and turbulent sentiments of joy than are consistent with the mildness of her character.
Lady Easy. O the soft treasure! O the dear reward of long-desiring love.—Thus! thus to have you mine, is something more than happiness; 'tis double life, and madness of abounding joy.
The following instances are descriptions rather than sentiments, which compose a third class.
Of this descriptive manner of painting the passions, there is in the Hippolytus of Euripides, act v. an illustrious instance, viz. the speech of Theseus, upon hearing of his son's dismal exit. In Racine's tragedy of Esther, the queen hearing of the decree issued against her people, instead of expressing sentiments suitable to the occasion, turns her attention upon herself, and describes with accuracy her own situation.
Juste ciel! tout mon sang dans mes veines se glace.
Act i. sc. 3.
Again,
Aman. C'en est fait. Mon orgueil est forcé de plier.
L'inexorable Amen est réduit à prier.
Esther, act iii. sc. 5.
Athalie. Quel prodige nouveau me trouble et m'embarrasse?
La douceur de sa voix, son enfance, sa grace,
Font insensiblement à mon inimitié
Succéder—Je serois sensible à la pitié?
Athalie, act ii. sc. 7.
Titus. O de ma passion fureur desesperée!
Brutus of Voltaire, act iii. sc. 6.
What other are the foregoing instances but describing the passion another feels?
The fourth class is of sentiments expressed too early or too late.
Some examples mentioned above belong to this class. Add the following from Venice Preserv'd, act v. at the close of the scene between Belvidera and her father Prioli. The account given by Belvidera of the danger she was in, and of her husband's threatening to murder her, ought naturally to have alarmed her relenting father, and to have made him express the most perturbed sentiments. Instead of which, he dissolves into tenderness and love for his daughter, as if he had already delivered her from danger, and as if there were a perfect tranquillity:
Canst thou forgive me all my follies past!
I'll henceforth be indeed a father; never,
Never more thus expose, but cherish thee,
Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life,
Dear as those eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee:
Peace to thy heart.
Immoral sentiments exposed in their native colours, instead of being concealed or disguised, compose the fifth class.
The Lady Macbeth, projecting the death of the king, has the following soliloquy:
—The raven himself's not hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, all you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe, top full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose. Macbeth, act i. sc. 7.
This speech is not natural. A treacherous murder was never perpetrated even by the most hardened miscreant without compunction: and that the lady here must have been in horrible agitation, appears from her invoking the infernal spirits to fill her with cruelty, and to stop up all avenues to remorse. But in that state of mind it is a never-failing artifice of self-deceit to draw the thickest veil over the wicked action, and to extenuate it by all the circumstances that imagination can suggest: and if the crime cannot bear disguise, the next attempt is to thrust it out of mind altogether, and to rush on to action without thought. This last was the husband's method.
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they must be scann'd.
Act iii. sc. 5.
The lady follows neither of these courses, but in a deliberate manner endeavours to fortify her heart in the commission of an execrable crime, without even attempting to colour it. This, we think, is not natural; we hope
sentiments hope there is no such wretch to be found as is here represented.
The last class comprehends sentiments that are unnatural, as being suited to no character or passion. These may be subdivided into three branches: first, sentiments unsuitable to the constitution of man, and to the laws of his nature; second, inconsistent sentiments; third, sentiments that are pure rant and extravagance.
When the fable is of human affairs, every event, every incident, and every circumstance, ought to be natural, otherwise the imitation is imperfect. But an imperfect imitation is a venial fault, compared with that of running cross to nature. In the Hippolytus of Euripides (act iv. sc. 5.), Hippolytus, wishing for another self in his own situation, "How much (says he) should I be touched with his misfortune!" as if it were natural to grieve more for the misfortune of another than for one's own.
Osmyn. Yet I behold her—yet—and now no more.
Turn your lights inward, eyes, and view my thoughts;
So shall you still behold her—'twill not be.
O impotence of sight! mechanic sense,
Which to exterior objects ow'st thy faculty,
Not seeing of election, but necessity.
Thus do our eyes, as do all common mirrors,
Successively reflect succeeding images.
Nor what they would, but must; a star or toad;
Just as the hand of chance administers!
Mourning Bride, act ii. sc. 8.
No man in his senses ever thought of applying his eyes to discover what passes in his mind; far less of blaming his eyes for not seeing a thought or idea. In Moliere's L'Avare (act iv. sc. 7.) Harpagon, being robbed of his money, seizes himself by the arm, mistaking it for that of the robber. And again he expresses himself as follows:
Je veux aller querir la justice, et faire donner la question à toute ma maison; à servantes, à valets, à fils, à fille, et à moi aussi.
This is so absurd as scarcely to provoke a smile, if it be not at the author.
Of the second branch the following example may suffice:
Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things impossible,
Yea, get the better of them.
Julius Caesar, act ii. sc. 3.
Of the third branch, take the following samples. Lucan, talking of Pompey's sepulchre,
Romanum nomen, et omne
Imperium magno est tumuli modus. Obre saxa
Crimine plena dolum. Si tota est Herculis Oete,
Et juga tota vacant Bromio Nyseia; quare
Unus in Egypto Magno lapis? Omnia Lagi
Rura tenere potest, si nullo cespite nomen
Haeserit. Erremus populi, cinerumque tuorum,
Magne, metu nullas Nili calcemus arenas.
Lib. viii. l. 798.
Thus, in Rowe's translation:
Where there are seas, or air, or earth, or skies,
Where'er Rome's empire stretches, Pompey lies.
VOL. XIX. Part I.
Far be the vile memorial then convey'd!
Nor let this stone the partial gods upbraid.
Shall Hereules all Oeta's heights demand,
And Nysa's hill for Bacchus only stand;
While one poor pebble is the warrior's doom
That fought the cause of liberty and Rome?
If Fate decrees he must in Egypt lie,
Let the whole fertile realm his grave supply,
Yield the wide country to his awful shade,
Nor let us dare on any part to tread,
Fearful we violate the mighty dead.
The following passages are pure rant. Coriolanus, speaking to his mother,
What is this?
Your knees to me? to your corrected zon?
Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
Fill up the stars: then let the mutinous winds
Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun:
Murdering impossibility, to make
What cannot be, slight work.
Coriolanus, act i. sc. 3.
Cæsar. Danger knows full well,
That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.
We were two lions litter'd in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible.
Julius Cæsar, act ii. sc. 4.
Ventidius. But you, ere love misled your wand'ring eyes,
Were sure the chief and best of human race,
Fram'd in the very pride and boast of nature,
So perfect, that the gods who form'd you wonder'd
At their own skill, and cry'd, A lucky hit
Has mended our design. DRYDEN, All for Love, act i.
Not to talk of the impiety of this sentiment, it is ludicrous instead of being lofty.
The famous epitaph on Raphael is not less absurd than any of the foregoing passages:
Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci,
Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori.
Imitated by Pope, in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller:
Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself may die.
Such is the force of imitation; for Pope of himself would never have been guilty of a thought so extravagant.