in Poetry. To talk in the language of music, each passion has a certain tone, to which every sentiment proceeding from it ought to be tuned with the greatest accuracy: which is no easy work, especially where such harmony ought to be supported during the course of a long theatrical representation. In order to reach such delicacy of execution, it is necessary that a writer assume the precise character and passion of the personage represented; which requires an uncommon genius. But it is the only difficulty; for the writer, who, annihilating himself, can thus become another person, need be in no pain about the sentiments that belong to the assumed character: these will flow without the least study, or even preconception; and will frequently be as delightfully new to himself as to his reader. But if a lively picture even of a single emotion require an effort of genius, how much greater the effort to compose a passionate dialogue with as many different tones of passion as there are speakers? With what difficulty of feeling must that writer be endued, who approaches perfection in such a work; when it is necessary to assume different and even opposite characters and passions in the quickest succession? Yet this work, difficult as it is, yields to that of composing a dialogue in genteel comedy, exhibiting characters without passion. The reason is, that the different tones of character are more delicate, and less in fight, than those of passion; and, accordingly, many writers, who have no genius for drawing characters, make a shift to represent, tolerably well, an ordinary passion in its simple movements. But of all works of this kind, what is truly the most difficult, is a characteristic dialogue upon any philosophical subject; to interweave characters with reasoning, by suiting to the character of each speaker a peculiarity not only of thought but of expression, requires the perfection of genius, taste, and judgement.

How difficult dialogue-writing is, will be evident, even without reasoning, from the miserable compositions of that kind found without number in all languages. The art of mimicking any singularity in gesture or in voice, is a rare talent, though directed by sight and hearing, the acutest and most lively of our external senses: how much more rare must that talent, of imitating characters and internal emotions, tracing all their different tints, and representing them in a lively manner by natural sentiments properly expressed? The truth is, such execution is too delicate for an ordinary genius; Sentiments: and for that reason the bulk of writers, instead of expressing a passion as one does who feels it, content themselves with describing it in the language of a spectator. To awake passion by an internal effort merely, without any external cause, requires great sensibility; and yet that operation is necessary, not less to the writer than to the actor; because none but those who actually feel a passion can represent it to the life. The writer's part is the more complicated: he must add composition to passion: and, uniting in the quickest succession, adopt every different character. But a very humble flight of imagination may serve to convert a writer into a spectator, so as to figure, in some obscure manner, an action as passing in his sight and hearing. In that figured situation, being led naturally to write like a spectator, he entertains his readers with his own reflections, with cool description, and florid declamation; instead of making them eye-witnesses, as it were, to a real event, and to every movement of genuine passion. Thus most of our plays appear to be cast in the same mould; personages without character, the mere outlines of passion, a tiresome monotony, and a pompous declamatory style.

This descriptive manner of representing passion is a very cold entertainment; our sympathy is not raised by description; we must first be lulled into a dream of reality, and every thing must appear as passing in our sight. Unhappy is the player of genius who acts a part in what may be termed a descriptive tragedy; after assuming the very passion that is to be represented, how is he cramped in action, when he must utter, not the sentiments of the passion he feels, but a cold description in the language of a bystander? It is that imperfection, undoubtedly, in the bulk of our plays, which confines our stage almost entirely to Shakespeare, notwithstanding his many irregularities. In our late English tragedies, we sometimes find sentiments tolerably well adapted to a plain passion: but we must not in any of them expect a sentiment expressive of character: and, upon that very account, our late performances of the dramatic kind are for the most part intolerably insipid.

But it may be proper to illustrate this subject by examples. The first example shall be of sentiments that appear the legitimate offspring of passion; to which shall be opposed what are descriptive only, and illegitimate; and in making this comparison, the instances shall be borrowed from Shakespeare and Corneille, who for genius in dramatic composition stand uppermost in the rolls of fame.

I. Shakespeare shall furnish the first example, being of sentiments dictated by a violent and perturbed passion:

Lear. Filial ingratitude! Is it not as if this mouth should tear this hand? For lifting food to't?—But I'll punish home; No, I will weep no more.—In such a night, To shut me out!—Pour on, I will endure. In such a night as this! O Regan, Gonerill, Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all— O! that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that.

Kent. Good, my lord, enter here. Lear. Prithee, go in thyself, seek thine own ease,

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder On things would hurt me more:—but I'll go in; In, boy, go first. You houseless poverty— Nay, get thee in; I'll pray, and then I'll sleep— Poor naked wretches, whereof'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiful storm! How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, Your loopy'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From feasons such as these!—O I have ta'en Too little care of this! take physic, Pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou may'lt shake the superflux to them, And show the heav'n's more just.

King Lear, act iii. sc. 5.

With regard to the French author, truth obliges us to acknowledge, that he describes in the style of a spectator, instead of expressing passion like one who feels it; which naturally betrays him into a tiresome monotony, and a pompous declamatory style. It is scarcely necessary to give examples, for he never varies from that tone. We shall, however, take two passages at a venture, in order to be confronted with those transcribed above. In the tragedy of Cinna, after the conspiracy was discovered, Æmilia, having nothing in view but racks and death to herself and her lover, receives a pardon from Augustus, attended with the brightest circumstances of magnanimity and tenderness. This is a lucky situation for representing the passions of surprie and gratitude in their different stages, which seem naturally to be what follow. These passions, raised at once to the utmost pitch, and being at first too big for utterance, must, for some moments, be expressed by violent gestures only: so soon as there is vent for words, the first expressions are broken and interrupted: at last, we ought to expect a tide of intermingled sentiments, occasioned by the fluctuation of the mind between the two passions. Æmilia is made to behave in a very different manner: with extreme coolness she describes her own situation, as if she were merely a spectator; or rather the poet takes the talk off her hands:

Et je me rends, Seigneur, à ces hautes bontés: Je recouvre la vue auprès de leurs clartés. Je connais mon forfait qui me semblait justice; Et ce que n'avoit pâ la terreur du supplice, Je sens naître en mon ame un repentir puissant, Et mon cœur en secret me dit, qu'il y consent. Le ciel a résolu votre grandeur suprême; Et pour preuve, Seigneur, je n'en veux que moi-même. J'ose avec vanité me donner cet éclat, Puifqu'il change mon cœur, qu'il veut changer l'état. Ma haine va mourir, que j'ai crue immortelle; Elle est morte, et ce cœur devient fût fidèle; Et prenant déformais cette haine en horreur, L'ardeur de vous servir succède à fa furceur.

Act v. sc. 3.

So much in general on the genuine sentiments of passion. We proceed to particular observations. And, first, passions seldom continue uniform any considerable time: they generally fluctuate, swelling and subsiding by turns, often in a quick succession; and the sentiments cannot be just unless they correspond to such fluctuation. Accordingly, a climax never shows better than in expressing a swelling passion: the following passages may suffice for an illustration. Almeria. — How hast thou charm'd The wildness of the waves and rocks to this; That thus relenting they have giv'n thee back To earth, to light and life, to love and me? Mourning Bride, act i. sc. 7.

I would not be the villain that thou think'lt For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp, And the rich earth to boot. Macbeth, act iv. sc. 4.

The following passage expresses finely the progress of conviction.

Let me not stir, nor breathe, lest I dissolve That tender, lovely form, of painted air, So like Almeria. Ha! it sinks, it falls; I'll catch it e'er it goes, and grasp her shade. 'Tis his life! 'tis warm! 'tis she! 'tis she herself! It is Almeria! 'tis, it is my wife! Mourning Bride, act ii. sc. 6.

In the progress of thought our resolutions become more vigorous as well as our passions.

If ever I do yield or give consent, By any action, word, or thought, to wed Another lord; may then just heav'n shew'r down, &c. Mourning Bride, act i. sc. 1.

And this leads to a second observation, That the different stages of a passion, and its different directions, from birth to extinction, must be carefully represented in their order; because otherwise the sentiments, by being misplaced, will appear forced and unnatural.—Resentment, for example, when provoked by an atrocious injury, discharges itself first upon the author; sentiments therefore of revenge come always first, and must in some measure be exhausted before the person injured think of grieving for himself. In the Cid of Corneille, Don Diegue having been affronted in a cruel manner, expresses scarcely any sentiment of revenge, but is totally occupied in contemplating the low situation to which he is reduced by the affront:

O rage ! ô défévoir ! ô vieilleffe ennemie ! N'ai-je donc tant vecu que pour cette infamie ? Et ne suis-je blanchi dans les travaux guerriers, Que pour voir en un jour flétrit tant de lauriers ? Mon bras, qu'avec respect tout l'Espagne admire, Mon bras qui tant de fois a sauvé cet empire, Tant de fois affermi le trône de son roi, Trahit donc ma querelle, et ne fait rien pour moi ! O cruel souvenir de ma gloire passé ! Oeuvre de tant de jours en un jour effacée ! Nouvelle dignité fatale à mon bonheur ! Precipice élevé d'où tombe mon honneur ! Faut-il de votre éclat voir triompher le comte, Et mourir sans vengeance, ou vivre dans la honte ? Comte, fois de mon prince à présent gouverneur, Ce haut rang n'admet point un homme sans honneur ; Et ton jaloux orgueil par cet affront infigne, Malgré le choix du roi, m'en a été rendu indigné. Et toi, de mes exploits glorieux instrument, Mais d'un corps tout de glace inutile ornement, Fer jadis tant à craindre, et qui dans cette offense, M'as servi de parade, et non pas de défense,

Va, quitte désormais le dernier des humains, Passe pour me venger en de meilleures mains. Le Cid, act i. sc. 7.

These sentiments are certainly not the first that are suggested by the passion of resentment. As the first movements of resentment are always directed to its object, the very same is the case of grief. Yet with relation to the sudden and severe distresses that seized Alexander bathing in the river Cydnus, Quintus Curtius describes the first emotions of the army as directed to themselves, lamenting that they were left without a leader, far from home, and had scarce any hopes of returning in safety: their king's distress, which must naturally have been their first concern, occupies them but in the second place according to that author. In the Aminta of Tasso, Sylvia, upon a report of her lover's death, which she believed certain, instead of bemoaning the loss of her beloved, turns her thoughts upon herself, and wonders her heart does not break:

Ohime, ben fon di faffo, Poi che quefta novella non m'uccide. Aët iv. sc. 2.

In the tragedy of Jane Shore, Alicia, in the full purpose of destroying her rival, has the following reflection:

O Jealousy! thou bane of pleasing friendship, Thou worst invader of our tender bosoms; How does thy rancour poison all our softness, And turn our gentle nature into bitterness! See where she comes! Once my heart's dearest blessing, Now my chang'd eyes are blafhed with her beauty, Loathe that known face, and ficken to behold her. Aët iii. sc. 1.

These are the reflections of a cool spectator. A passion, while it has the ascendant, and is freely indulged, fuggets not to the person who feels it any sentiment to its own prejudice: reflections like the foregoing occur not readily till the passion has spent its vigour.

A person sometimes is agitated at once by different passions; and the mind in that case, vibrating like a pendulum, vents itself in sentiments that partake of the same vibration. This we give as a third observation:

Queen. Would I had never trod this English earth, Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it! Ye've angels faces, but heav'n knows your hearts. What shall become of me now? wretched lady! I am the most unhappy woman living. Alas! poor wenches, where are now your fortunes?

[To her women. Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity, No friends, no hope, no kindred, weep for me: Almost no grave allow'd me.

Henry VIII. act iii. sc. 1.

Othello. Oh devil, dévil! If that the earth could teem with woman's tears, Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile. Out of my fight!

Desdemona. I will not stay t'offend you. [Going. Lodovico. Truly, an obedient lady: I do befeech your lordship, call her back. Oth. Miftres— Def. My lord. Oth. What would you with her, Sir? Lod. Who, I, my lord? Oth. Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn. Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on; And turn again. And she can weep, Sir, weep; And she's obedient: as you say, obedient: Very obedient—proceed you in your tears— Concerning this, Sir,—oh well painted passion!— I am commanded home—get you away, I'll send for you anon—Sir, I obey the mandate, And will return to Venice.—Hence, avant! [Exit Desdemona. Othello, act iv. sc. 6.

Æmilia. Oh! my good lord, I would speak a word with you. Othello. Yes, 'tis Æmilia—By and by.—She's dead. 'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death; The noise was high.—Ha! no more moving? Still as the grave. Shall the come in? 'wer't good? I think she stirr again—No—what's the best? If she come in, th'ill, sure, speak to my wife: My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife; Oh insupportable! oh heavy hour! Othello, act v. sc. 7.

A fourth observation is, That nature, which gave us passions, and made them extremely beneficial when moderate, intended undoubtedly that they should be subjected to the government of reason and conscience. It is therefore against the order of nature, that passion in any case should take the lead in contradiction to reason and conscience: such a state of mind is a sort of anarchy which every one is ashamed of and endeavours to hide or dissemble. Even love, however laudable, is attended with a conscious shame when it becomes immoderate: it is covered from the world, and disclosed only to the beloved object:

Et que l'amour souvent de remors combattu Paroisse une foible-ffe, et non une vertu. 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. A & ii. sc. 2. A picture of this kind, perhaps still finer, is exhibited in King John, where that tyrant solicits (act iii. sc. 5.) 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 ranged 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 clas 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. Instances of sentiments below the tone of the passion. Ptolemy, by putting Pompey to death, having incurred the displeasure of Caesar, 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'avais cru, je n'aurais pas de maître, Je ferois 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 le 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: They 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 foul to foul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

Eloifa to Abelard, l. 51.

These thoughts are pretty: they suit Pope, but not Eloifa. Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus:

Then when I am thy captive, talk of chains, Proud liminary 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'rt his triumphant wheels In progress thro' the road of heav'n's 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 rob'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 swiftnels 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 wo, and let the torrent in.

Act v. sc. 11.

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 indifferently 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 riting flow'r's 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'erhade 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, understanding 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 infant to its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she defends most abominably into antithesis and conceit even of the lowest kind:

E in lui versò d'inefficabil vena Lacrime, e voce di foppi mitta. In che mifero punto hor qui me mena Fortuna? a che veduta amara e trista? Dopo gran tempo i' ti ritrovo a pena Tancredi, e ti riveggio, e non son vista Viita non fon da te, benche prelente 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. stan. 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 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 condemn'd to die:

Thou stand'st unmov'd; Calm temper fits 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'rt resolv'd to brave thy fate, And triumph in the midst of desolation. Ha! see, it swells, the liquid crystal riles, 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.

Corneille, 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.

Jusfe 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 reduit 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 Succeder—Je serois sensible à la pitié? Athalie, act ii. sc. 7.

Titus. O de ma passion fureur désespérée! 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 Priuli. 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, unfix me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe, top full Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood, Stop up th' accels and passage to remorse, That no compunctionous 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 The last clas 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'lt thy faculty, Not seeing of election, but necessity. Thus do our eyes, as do all common mirrors, Succesively reflect succeeding images. Nor what they would, but must; a flar 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. Obrue saxa Crimine plena deum. Si tota eft Herculis Oete, Et juga tota vacant Bromio Nyfeia; quare Unus in Egypto Magno lapis? Omnia Lagi Rura tene potest, fi nulla cespite nomen Haeferit. 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 Hercules all Oeta's heights demand, And Nyfa'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 son? Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach Fillop the stars: then let the mutinous winds Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun: Murd'ring impossibility, to make What cannot be, flight work.

Coriolanus, act i. sc. 3.

Caesar. ——Danger knows full well, That Caesar is more dangerous than he. We were two lions litter'd in one day, And I the elder and more terrible.

Julius Caesar, act ii. sc. 4.

Ventidius. But you, ere love mifled 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 fospite, 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.