The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• Editor’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Elements of Criticism
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Introduction<1>
• Chapter I: Perceptions and Ideas In a Train
• Chapter II: Emotions and Passions
• Chapter III: Beauty
• Chapter IV: Grandeur and Sublimity
• Chapter V: Motion and Force
• Chapter VI: Novelty, and the Unexpected Appearance of Objects
• Chapter VII: Risible Objects
• Chapter VIII: Resemblance and Dissimilitude 1
• Chapter IX: Uniformity and Variety
• Appendix to Chapter IX: Concerning the Works of Nature, Chiefly With Respect to Uniformity and Variety.
• Chapter X: Congruity and Propriety
• Chapter XI: Dignity and Grace 1
• Chapter XII: Ridicule
• Chapter XIII: Wit
• Chapter XIV: Custom and Habit
• Chapter XV: External Signs of Emotions and Passions
• Chapter XVI: Sentiments
• Chapter XVII: Language of Passion

CHAPTER XVI

Sentiments

Every thought prompted by passion, is termed a sentiment.* To have a general notion of the different passions, will not alone enable an artist to make a just representation of any passion: he ought, over and above, to know the various appearances of the same passion in different persons. Passions receive a tincture from every peculiarity of character; and for that reason it rarely happens, that a passion, in the different circumstances of feeling, of sentiment, and of expression, is precisely the same in any two persons. Hence the following rule concerning dramatic and epic compositions, That a passion be adjusted to the character, the sentiments to the passion, and the language to the sentiments. If nature be not faithfully copied in each of these, a defect in execution is perceived: there may appear some resemblance; but the picture upon the whole will be insipid, through want of grace and delicacy. A painter, in order to represent the various attitudes of the body, ought to be intimately acquainted<452> with muscular motion: no less intimately acquainted with emotions and characters ought a writer to be, in order to represent the various attitudes of the mind. A general notion of the passions, in their grosser differences of strong and weak, elevated and humble, severe and gay, is far from being sufficient: pictures formed so superficially have little resemblance, and no expression; yet it will appear by and by, that in many instances our artists are deficient even in that superficial knowledge.

In handling the present subject, it would be endless to trace even the ordinary passions through their nice and minute differences. Mine shall be an humbler task; which is, to select from the best writers instances of faulty sentiments, after paving the way by some general observations.

To talk in the language of music, each passion hath 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 as-<453>sumed 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 ductility 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 sight, 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 characteristical 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 nice dialogue-writing is, will be evident, even without reasoning, from the miserable compositions of that kind found without number in all<454> 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 the talent be, 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; 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, no 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 must, 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,<455> 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 capital part in what may be termed a descriptive tragedy: after assuming the very passion that is to be represented, how is he<456> 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, I am persuaded, in the bulk of our plays, which confines our stage almost entirely to Shakespear, 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.

Looking back upon what is said, I am in some apprehension of not being perfectly understood; for it is not easy to avoid obscurity in handling a matter so complicated: but I promise to set it in the clearest light, by adding example to precept. The first examples 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, I borrow my instances from Shakespear and Corneille, who for genius in dramatic composition stand uppermost in the rolls of fame.

Shakespear shall furnish the first example, being of sentiments dictated by a violent and perturbed passion:<457>

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.

• Pr’ythee, 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, wheresoe’er you are,
• That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm!
• How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
• Your loop’d and window’d raggedness defend you
• From seasons 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’st shake the superflux to them,
• And show the heavens more just.

• King Lear, act 3. sc. 5.1

I give another example of the same kind, expressing sentiments arising from remorse and despair:

Othello.

• Lo! I have a weapon:
• A better never did itself sustain
• Upon a soldier’s thigh. I’ve seen the day,<458>
• That with this little arm, and this good sword,
• I’ve made my way through more impediments
• Than twenty times your stop. But, oh vain boast!
• Who can controul his fate? ’tis not so now.
• Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon’d;
• Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt,
• The very sea-mark of my outmost sail.
• Do you go back dismay’d? ’tis a lost fear.
• Man but a rush against Othello’s breast,
• And he retires. Where should Othello go?
• Now—how dost thou look now? Oh ill-starr’d wench!
• Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
• This look of thine will hurl my soul from heav’n,
• And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl;
• Ev’n like thy chastity. O cursed slave!
• Whip me, ye devils,
• From the possession of this heav’nly sight;
• Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur,
• Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire—
• Oh, Desdemona! Desdemona! dead! dead! oh! oh!

• Othello, act 5. sc. 9.2

The sentiments here display’d flow so naturally from the passions represented, that we cannot conceive any imitation more perfect.

With regard to the French author, truth obliges me 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 decla-<459>matory style.* It is scarce necessary to give examples, for he never varies from that tone. I shall however take two passages at a venture, in order to be confronted with those transcribed above. In the tragedy of Cinna, Aemilia, after the<460> conspiracy was discovered, 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 surprise and gratitude in their different stages, which seem naturally to be what follow. These passions, raised at once to the utmost<461> pitch, and being at first too big for utterance, must, for some moments, be expressed by violent gestures only: as 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. Aemilia 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 task off her hands:

• Et je me rens, Seigneur, à ces hautes bontés:
• Je recouvre la vûe auprès de leurs clartés.
• Je connois mon forfait qui me sembloit justice;
• Et ce que n’avoit pû la terreur du supplice,
• Je sens naitre 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,
• Puisqu’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 sujet fidele;
• Et prenant désormais cette haine en horreur,
• L’ardeur de vous servir succede à sa fureur.

• Act 5. sc. 3.3

In the tragedy of Sertorius, the Queen, surprised with the news that her lover was assassinated, instead of venting any passion, degenerates into a<462> cool spectator, and undertakes to instruct the bystanders how a queen ought to behave on such an occasion:

Viriate.

• Il m’en fait voir ensemble, et l’auteur, et la cause.
• Par cet assassinat c’est de moi qu’on dispose,
• C’est mon trône, c’est moi qu’on pretend conquerir;
• Et c’est mon juste choix qui seul l’a fait perir.
• Madame, après sa perte, et parmi ces alarmes,
• N’attendez point de moi de soupirs, ni de larmes;
• Ce sont amusemens que dédaigne aisement
• Le prompt et noble orgueil d’un vif ressentiment.
• Qui pleure, l’affoiblit; qui soupire, l’exhale:
• Il faut plus de fierté dans une ame royale;
• Et ma douleur soumise aux soins de le venger, &c.

• Act 5. sc. 3.4

So much in general upon the genuine sentiments of passion. I 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.

Oroonoko.

• ——— ——— Can you raise the dead?
• Pursue and overtake the wings of time?<463>
• And bring about again, the hours, the days,
• The years, that made me happy?

• Oroonoko, act 2. sc. 2.5

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 1. sc. 7.

• I would not be the villain that thou think’st
• For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp,
• And the rich earth to boot.

• Macbeth, act 4. sc. 4.6

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 ere it goes, and grasp her shade.
• ’Tis life! ’tis warm! ’tis she! ’tis she herself!
• It is Almeria! ’tis, it is my wife!

• Mourning Bride, act 2. 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 show’r down, &c.

• Mourning Bride, act 1. sc. 1.<464>

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 forc’d 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 scarce any sentiment of revenge, but is totally occupied in contemplating the low situation to which he is reduced by the affront:

• O rage! ô desespoir! ô vieillesse 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 fletrir tant de lauriers?
• Mon bras, qu’avec respect toute 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 passée!
• Oeuvre de tant de jours en un jour effacée!
• Nouvelle dignité fatale à mon bonheur!
• Precipice elevé d’où tombe mon honneur!
• Faut il de votre éclat voir triompher le Comte,
• Et mourir sans vengeance, ou vivre dans la honte?
• Comte, sois de mon Prince à present governeur,
• Ce haut rang n’admet point un homme sans honneur;<465>
• Et ton jaloux orgueil par cet affront insigne,
• Malgré le choix du Roi, m’en a sû rendre indigne.
• 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 defense,
• Va, quitte desormais le dernier des humains,
• Passe pour me venger en de meilleures mains.

• Le Cid, act 1. sc. 7.7

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 distemper that seized Alexander bathing in the river Cydnus, Quintus Curtius8 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 son di sasso,
• Poi che questa novella non m’uccide.

• Act 4. sc. 2.9 <466>

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

• Oh 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 natures into bitterness?
• See where she comes! Once my heart’s dearest blessing,
• Now my chang’d eyes are blasted with her beauty,
• Loathe that known face, and sicken to behold her.

• Act 3. sc. 1.

These are the reflections of a cool spectator. A passion while it has the ascendant, and is freely indulged, suggests 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 vigor.

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 I 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.<467>

• 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 3. sc. 1.

Othello.

• Oh devil, devil!
• If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
• Each drop she falls, would prove a crocodile.
• Out of my sight.

Desdemona.

I will not stay t’offend you.[going.

Lodovico.

• Truly, an obedient lady:
• I do beseech your Lordship, call her back.

Oth.

Mistress—

Des.

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, avaunt!
• [Exit Desdemona.

• Othello, act 4. sc. 6.10

Aemilia.

Oh! my good Lord, I would speak a word with you.

Othello.

• Yes, ’tis Aemilia—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 she come in? were’t good?<468>
• I think she stirs again—No—what’s the best?
• If she come in, she’ll, sure, speak to my wife;
• My wife! my wife! What wife! I have no wife;
• Oh insupportable! oh heavy hour!

• Othello, act 5. sc. 7.11

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 foiblesse, et non une vertu.

• Boileau, L’art poet. chant. 3. l. 101.12

• O, they love least that let men know their love.

• Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 1. sc. 3.13

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<469> 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, Shakespear, 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: th’ occasion speaks thee, and
• My strong imagination sees a crown
• Dropping upon thy head.

• Act 2. sc. 1.

There never was drawn a more complete picture of this kind, than that of King John soliciting Hubert to murder the young Prince Arthur:

K. John.

• Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
• We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh
• There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
• And with advantage means to pay thy love.
• And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
• Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
• Give me thy hand, I had a thing to say—
• But I will fit it with some better time.<470>
• By Heav’n, Hubert, I’m almost asham’d
• To say what good respect I have of thee.

Hubert.

I am much bounden to your Majesty.

K. John.

• Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet—
• But thou shalt have—and creep time ne’er so slow,
• Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
• I had a thing to say—but let it go;
• The sun is in the heav’n; and the proud day,
• Attended with the pleasures of the world,
• Is all too wanton and too full of gawds,
• To give me audience. If the midnight-bell
• Did with his iron-tongue and brazen mouth
• Sound one into the drowsy race of night;
• If this same were a church-yard where we stand,
• And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
• Or if that surly spirit Melancholy
• Had bak’d thy blood, and made it heavy-thick,
• Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
• Making that idiot Laughter keep mens eyes,
• And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
• (A passion hateful to my purposes);
• Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
• Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
• Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
• Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words;
• Then, in despite of broad-ey’d watchful day,
• I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.
• But ah, I will not—Yet I love thee well;
• And, by my troth, I think thou lov’st me well.

Hubert.

• So well, that what you bid me undertake,
• Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
• By Heav’n, I’d do’t.

K. John.

• Do not I know, thou wouldst?<471>
• Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
• On yon young boy. I’ll tell thee what, my friend;
• He is a very serpent in my way.
• And, wheresoe’er this foot of mine doth tread,
• He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
• Thou art his keeper.

• King John, act 3. sc. 5.14

As things are best illustrated by their contraries, I 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 class contains faulty sentiments of various kinds, which I shall endeavour to distinguish from each other; beginning with sentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the passion:<472>

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 2. sc. 6.15

This sentiment may be suggested by violent and inflamed passion, but is not suited to the calm satisfaction that one feels upon escaping danger.

Philaster.

• Place me, some god, upon a pyramid
• Higher than hills of earth, and lend a voice
• Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence
• I may discourse to all the under-world
• The worth that dwells in him.

• Philaster of Beaumont and Fletcher, act 4.16

Second. 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’avois crû, je n’aurois pas de maitre,
• 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,
• Où si quelque lumiere en leur ame se glisse,<473>
• Cette fausse clarté dont il les eblouit,
• Le plonge dans une gouffre, et puis s’evanouit.

• La mort de Pompée, act 4. sc. 1.17

In Les Freres ennemies of Racine, the second act is opened with a love-scene: Hemon talks to his mistress of the torments of absence, of the lustre of her eyes, that he ought to die no where but at her feet, and that one moment of absence is a thousand years. Antigone on her part acts the coquette; pretends she must be gone to wait on her mother and brother, and cannot stay to listen to his courtship. This is odious French gallantry, below the dignity of the passion of love: it would scarce be excusable in painting modern French manners; and is insufferable where the ancients are brought upon the stage. The manners painted in the Alexandre of the same author are not more just: French gallantry prevails there throughout.

Third. 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.<474>

Again,

• Heav’n first taught letters for some wretch’s aid,
• Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid;
• 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 limitary 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 wheels
• In progress through the road of heav’n star-pav’d.

• Paradise lost, book 4.

The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage.

Fourth. Sentiments too artificial for a serious<475> passion. I give for the first example a speech of Piercy 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 5. sc. 9.18

Livy inserts the following passage in a plaintive oration of the Locrenses, accusing Pleminius the Roman legate of oppression.

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<476>
• 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 1. 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 loose.

• Act 5. sc. 11.

Lady Trueman.

How could you be so cruel to defer giving me that joy which you knew I must receive from your presence? You have robb’d my life of some hours of happiness that ought to have been in it.

Drummer, act 5.19

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<477> 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 reliques made.20

Fifth. 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<478> instant to its height; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most abominably into antithesis and conceit, even of the lowest kind:

• E in lui versò d’inefficabil 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 son vista,
• Vista non son da te, benche presente
• E trovando ti perdo eternamente.

• Canto 19. st. 105.21

Armida’s lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo,* is in the same vicious taste.

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 2. sc. 2.

Jane Shore.

• Let me be branded for the public scorn,
• Turn’d forth, and driven to wander like a vagabond,
• Be friendless and forsaken, seek my bread
• Upon the barren wild, and desolate waste,
• Feed on my sighs, and drink my falling tears;
• Ere I consent to teach my lips injustice,
• Or wrong the orphan who has none to save him.

• Jane Shore, act 4.<479>

• Give me your drops, ye soft-descending rains,
• Give me your streams, ye never-ceasing springs,
• That my sad eyes may still supply my duty,
• And feed an everlasting flood of sorrow.

• Jane Shore, act 5.

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 I have nothing left me to bestow,
• Nothing but one sad sigh. Oh mercy, Heav’n!

• [Dies. Act 5.

Gilford 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 hadst resolv’d to brave thy fate,
• And triumph in the midst of desolation.
• Ha! see, it swells, the liquid crystal rises,
• It starts in spight of thee—but I will catch it,
• Nor let the earth be wet with dew so rich.

• Lady Jane Gray, act 4. 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.<480>

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 forc’d 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,22 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.

If the sentiments of a passion ought to be suited to a peculiar character, it is still more necessary that actions be suited to the character. In the 5th act of the Drummer, Addison makes his gardener act even below the character of an ignorant credulous rustic: he gives him the behaviour of a gaping idiot.<481>

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 5. an illustrious instance, namely, 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:

Again,

Aman.

C’en est fait. Mon orgueil est forcé de plier. L’inexorable Aman est reduit à prier.

Esther, act 3. sc. 5.24

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 2. sc. 7.25

Titus.

O de ma passion fureur desesperée!

Brutus of Voltaire, act 3. sc. 6.26

What other are the foregoing instances but describing the passion another feels?<482>

A man stabbed to the heart in a combat with his enemy expresses himself thus:

• So, now I am at rest:—
• I feel death rising higher still, and higher,
• Within my bosom; every breath I fetch
• Shuts up my life within a shorter compass:
• And like the vanishing sound of bells, grows less
• And less each pulse, ’till it be lost in air.

• Dryden.

Captain Flash, in a farce composed by Garrick, endeavours to hide his fear by saying, “What a damn’d passion I am in.”

An example is given above of remorse and despair expressed by genuine and natural sentiments. In the fourth book of Paradise lost, Satan is made to express his remorse and despair in sentiments, which, though beautiful, are not altogether natural: they are rather the sentiments of a spectator, than of a person who actually is tormented with these passions.

The fourth class is of sentiments introduced too early or too late.

Some examples mentioned above belong to this class. Add the following from Venice preserv’d, act 5. 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<483> 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 direct 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 1. sc. 7.27

This speech is not natural. A treacherous murder was never perpetrated even by the most har-<484>dened 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 3. sc. 5.28

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 I think is not natural; I hope there is no such wretch to be found as is here represented. In the Pompey of Corneille,* Photine counsels a wicked action in the plainest terms without disguise:

• Seigneur, n’attirez point le tonnerre en ces lieux,
• Rangez vous du parti des destins et des dieux,
• Et sans les accuser d’injustice, ou d’outrage;
• Puis qu’ils font les heureux, adorez leur ouvrage;<485>
• Quels que soient leurs decrets, déclarez-vous pour eux,
• Et pour leur obéir, perdez le malheureux.
• Pressé de toutes parts des coléres celestes,
• Il en vient dessus vous faire fondre les restes;
• Et sa tête qu’ à peine il a pûdérober,
• Tout prête dechoir, cherche avec qui tomber.
• Sa retraite chez vous en effet n’est qu’un crime;
• Elle marque sa haine, et non pas son estime;
• Il ne vient que vous perdre en venant prendre port,
• Et vous pouvez douter s’il est digne de mort!
• Il devoit mieux remplir nos vœux et notre attente,
• Faire voir sur ses nefs la victoire flotante;
• Il n’eût ici trouvé que joye et que festins,
• Mais puisqu’il est vaincu, qu’il s’en prenne aux destins.
• J’en veux à sa disgrace et non à sa personne,
• J’ exécute à regret ce que le ciel ordonne,
• Et du même poignard, pour César destiné,
• Je perce en soupirant son cœur infortuné.
• Vous ne pouvez enfin qu’ aux dépens de sa tête
• Mettre à l’abri la vôtre, et parer la tempête.
• Laissez nommer sa mort un injuste attentat,
• La justice n’est pas une vertu d’état.
• Le choix des actions, ou mauvaises, ou bonnes,
• Ne fait qu’ anéantir la force des couronnes;
• Le droit des rois consiste à ne rien épargner;
• La timide équité détruit l’art de regner;
• Quand on craint d’être injuste on a toûjours à craindre;
• Et qui veut tout pouvoir doit oser tout enfraindre,
• Fuir comme un deshonneur la vertu qui le pert,
• Et voler sans scrupule au crime qui lui sert.29

In the tragedy of Esther,* Haman acknowledges,<486> without disguise, his cruelty, insolence, and pride. And there is another example of the same kind in the Agamemnon of Seneca.† In the tragedy of Athalie,‡ Mathan, in cool blood, relates to his friend many black crimes he had been guilty of, to satisfy his ambition.

In Congreve’s Double-dealer, Maskwell, instead of disguising or colouring his crimes, values himself upon them in a soliloquy:

In French plays, love, instead of being hid or disguised, is treated as a serious concern, and of greater importance than fortune, family, or dignity. I suspect the reason to be, that in the capital of France, love, by the easiness of intercourse, has dwindled down from a real passion to be a connection that is regulated entirely by the mode or fashion.* This may in some measure excuse<487> their writers, but will never make their plays be relished among foreigners:

Maxime.

Quoi, trahir mon ami?

Euphorbe.

• —L’amour rend tout permis,
• Un véritable amant ne connoît point d’amis.

• Cinna, act 3. sc. 1.30

Cesar.

• Reine, tout est plaisible, et la ville calmée,
• Qu’un trouble assez leger avoit trop allarmée.
• N’a plus à redouter le divorce intestin
• Du soldat insolent, et du peuple mutin.
• Mais, ô Dieux! ce moment que je vous ai quittée,
• D’un trouble bien plus grand à mon ame agitée,
• Et ces soins importuns qui m’arrachoient de vous
• Contre ma grandeur même allumoient mon courroux.
• Je lui vouloís du mal de m’être si contraire,
• De rendre ma presence ailleurs si necessaire.
• Mais je lui pardonnois au simple souvenir
• Du bonheur qu’àmaflâme elle fait obtenir.
• C’est elle dont je tiens cette haute espérance,
• Qui flate mes desirs d’une illustre apparence,
• Et fait croire à César qu’il peut former de vœux,
• Qu’il n’est pas tout-à-fait indigne de vos feux,
• Et qu’il peut en pretendre une juste conquête,
• N’ayant plus que les Dieux au dessus de sa tête.
• Oui, Reine, si quelqu’ un dans ce vaste univers
• Pouvoit porter plus haut la gloire de vos fers;
• S’il étoit quelque trône où vous pouissiez paroître
• Plus dignement assise en captivant son maître,<488>
• J’irois, j’irois à lui, moins pour le lui ravir,
• Que pour lui disputer le droit de vous servir;
• Et je n’aspirerois au bonheur de vous plaire,
• Qu’après avoir mis bas un si grand adversaire.
• C’etoit pour acquerir un droit si précieux,
• Que combattoit par tout mon bras ambitieux,
• Et dans Pharsale même il a tiré l’epée
• Plus pour le conservir, que pour vaincre Pompée.
• Je l’ai vaincu, Princesse, et le Dieu de combats
• M’y favorisoit moins que vos divins appas.
• Ils conduisoient ma main, ils enfloient mon courage,
• Cette pleine victoire est leur dernier ouvrage,
• C’est l’effet des ardeurs qu’ils daignoient m’inspirer;
• Et vos beaux yeux enfin m’ayant fait soûpirer,
• Pour faire que votre ame avec gloire y réponde,
• M’ont rendu le premier, et de Rome, et du monde;
• C’est ce glorieux titre, à présent effectif,
• Que je viens ennoblir par celui de captif;
• Heureux, si mon esprit gagne tant sur le vôtre,
• Qu’il en estime l’un, et me permette l’autre.

• Pompée, act 4. sc. 3.31

The last class comprehends sentiments that are unnatural, as being suited to no character nor 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.<489> But an imperfect imitation is a venial fault, compared with that of running cross to nature. In the Hippolytus of Euripides,* 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 misfortunes 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 thought.
• 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 2. 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,† 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.32 <490>

This is so absurd as scarce to provoke a smile, if it be not at the author.

Of the second branch the following are examples.

• ——— ——— Now bid me run,
• And I will strive with things impossible.
• Yea get the better of them.

• Julius Caesar, act 2. sc. 3.33

• Que son nom soit beni. Que son nom soit chanté.
• Que l’on celebre ses ouvrages
• Au de la de l’eternité.

• Esther, act 5. sc. last.35

• Me miserable! which way shall I fly
• Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
• Which way I fly is hell: myself am hell;
• And in the lowest deep, a lower deep
• Still threatening to devour me, opens wide;
• To which the hell I suffer seems a heav’n.

• Paradise lost, book 4.

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 deûm. Si tota est Herculis Octe,
• Et juga tota vacant Bromio Nyseia; quare<491>
• 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.

• L. 8. l. 798.

Thus in Row’s translation:

• Where there are seas, or air, or earth, or skies,
• Where-e’er Rome’s empire stretches, Pompey lies.
• Far be the vile memorial then convey’d!
• Nor let this stone the partial gods upbraid.
• Shall Hercules 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.36

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, slight work.

• Coriolanus, act 5. sc. 3.

Caesar.

• ——— ——— Danger knows full well,
• That Caesar is more dangerous than he.<492>
• We were two lions litter’d in one day,
• And I the elder and more terrible.

• Julius Caesar, act 2. sc. 4.37

Almahide.

• This day—
• I gave my faith to him, he his to me.

Almanzor.

• Good Heav’n, thy book of fate before me lay
• But to tear out the journal of this day.
• Or if the order of the world below,
• Will not the gap of one whole day allow,
• Give me that minute when she made that vow.
• That minute ev’n the happy from their bliss might give,
• And those who live in grief a shorter time would live,
• So small a link if broke, th’ eternal chain
• Would like divided waters join again.

• Conquest of Granada, act 3.

Almanzor.

• ——— ——— I’ll hold it fast
• As life: and when life’s gone, I’ll hold this last.
• And if thou tak’st it after I am slain,
• I’ll send my ghost to fetch it back again.

• Conquest of Granada, part 2. act 3.

Lyndiraxa.

• A crown is come, and will not fate allow,
• And yet I feel something like death is near.
• My guards, my guards—
• Let not that ugly skeleton appear.
• Sure Destiny mistakes; this death’s not mine;
• She doats, and meant to cut another line.
• Tell her I am a queen—but ’tis too late;
• Dying, I charge rebellion on my fate;
• Bow down, ye slaves—<493>
• Bow quickly down and your submission show;
• I’m pleas’d to taste an empire ere I go.

• [Dies.Conquest of Granada, part 2. act 5.

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 1.

Not to talk of the impiety of this sentiment, it is ludicrous instead of being lofty.

The famous epitaph on Raphael is no less absurd than any of the foregoing passages:

• Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci
• Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori.38

Imitated by Pope in his Epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller:

• Living, great Nature fear’d he might outvie
• Her works; and dying, fears herself might die.

Such is the force of imitation; for Pope of himself would never have been guilty of a thought so extravagant.

So much upon sentiments: the language proper for expressing them, comes next in order.<494>

[* ]See Appendix, § 32.

[* ]In the Aeneid, the hero is made to describe himself in the following words: Sum pius Aeneas, fama super aethera notus. Virgil could never have been guilty of an impropriety so gross, had he assumed the personage of his hero, instead of uttering the sentiments of a spectator. Nor would Xenophon have made the following speech for Cyrus the younger, to his Grecian auxiliaries, whom he was leading against his brother Artaxerxes: “I have chosen you, O Greeks! my auxiliaries, not to enlarge my army, for I have Barbarians without number; but because you surpass all the Barbarians in valour and military discipline.” This sentiment is Xenophon’s; for surely Cyrus did not reckon his countrymen Barbarians. [Aeneid 1.378–79: “I am Aeneas the good . . . my fame is known in the heavens above.” Kames elides the passage which, in full, reads: “I am Aeneas the good, who carry with me in my fleet my household goods, snatched from the foe; my fame is known in the heavens above.”]

[† ]Chez Racine tout est sentiment; il a su faire parler chacun pour soi, et c’est en cela qu’il est vraiment unique parmi les auteurs dramatiques de sa nation. Rousseau. [“In Racine sentiment is everything: he knows how to make each one speak for itself, and in that respect he is quite unique among our national dramatists.” La Nouvelle Héloïse II. Lettre xvii, 1761.]

[* ]See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 7.

[1. ]Act 3, sc. 4.

[2. ]Act 5, sc. 2.

[* ]This criticism reaches the French dramatic writers in general, with very few exceptions: their tragedies, excepting those of Racine, are mostly, if not totally, descriptive. Corneille led the way; and later writers, imitating his manner, have accustomed the French ear to a style, formal, pompous, declamatory, which suits not with any passion. Hence to burlesque a French tragedy, is not more difficult than to burlesque a stiff solemn fop. The facility of the operation has in Paris introduced a singular amusement, which is, to burlesque the more successful tragedies in a sort of farce, called a parody. La Motte [Antoine Houdard de la Motte, A Critical Discourse on Homer’s Iliad, 1714], who himself appears to have been sorely galled by some of these productions, acknowledges, that no more is necessary to give them currency but barely to vary the dramatis personae, and instead of kings and heroes, queens and princesses, to substitute tinkers and tailors, milkmaids and seamstresses. The declamatory style, so different from the genuine expression of passion, passes in some measure unobserved, when great personages are the speakers; but in the mouths of the vulgar, the impropriety, with regard to the speaker as well as to the passion represented, is so remarkable as to become ridiculous. A tragedy, where every passion is made to speak in its natural tone, is not liable to be thus burlesqued: the same passion is by all men expressed nearly in the same manner: and, therefore, the genuine expressions of a passion cannot be ridiculous in the mouth of any man who is susceptible of the passion.

It is a well known fact, that to an English ear, the French actors appear to pronounce with too great rapidity: a complaint much insisted on by Cibber [Colley Cibber, Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, 1740] in particular, who had frequently heard the famous Baron upon the French stage. This may in some measure be attributed to our want of facility in the French tongue; as foreigners generally imagine, that every language is pronounced too quick by natives. But that it is not the sole cause, will be probable from a fact directly opposite, that the French are not a little disgusted with the languidness, as they term it, of the English pronunciation. May not this difference of taste be derived from what is observed above? The pronunciation of the genuine language of a passion, is necessarily directed by the nature of the passion, particularly by the slowness or celerity of its progress: plaintive passions, which are the most frequent in tragedy, having a slow motion, dictate a slow pronunciation: in declamation, on the contrary, the speaker warms gradually; and as he warms, he naturally accelerates his pronunciation. But as the French have formed their tone of pronunciation upon Corneille’s declamatory tragedies, and the English upon the more natural language of Shakespear, it is not surprising that custom should produce such difference of taste in the two nations.

[3. ]Corneille: Cinna, act 5, sc. 3. [Emilia]

• I yield, Sir, to this generosity.
• Its crystal radiance gives me back my sight.
• What appeared justified is now a crime.
• And—what death’s terror had no power to do—
• I feel in me burgeon repentance’ flower,
• And my heart’s prompting gives assent to it.
• Heaven has decided your supremacy,
• And I, my lord, am the best proof ’tis so.
• I dare give this decisive evidence:
• Heaven changes me; then it can change the State.
• My hate I thought undying ebbs to death;
• It’s dead. And with a new fidelity
• I swear that, from now on, my eagerness
• To serve you will replace my enmity.
• (trans. John Cairncross)

[4. ]Corneille, Sertorius, act 5, sc. 3: “I have been brought to see both the author and the cause. It is I who am destroyed by this murder; it is my throne, I whom they aim to conquer, and my just choice who alone has perished. Madame, after such a loss, amidst such alarms, don’t waste your sighs and tears on me; they are a diversion which disdains the prompt and noble pride of a burning resentment. Whoever weeps becomes weak; whoever sighs, expires; the royal soul must show more pride; and my grief must submit to the attentions of vengeance.”

[* ]See chap. 2. part 6.

[5. ]Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, by Aphra Behn, inspired Thomas Southern’s Oroonoko, 1695; later revised by Garrick as Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage, 1741.

[6. ]Act 4, sc. 3. Read “East” for “earth.”

[7. ]Corneille, The Cid, act 1, sc. 4: [Don Diego]

• O fury! O despair! O hostile age!
• Have I then lived so long only for this?
• Have I grown grey in warlike feats to see
• My laurels faded in a single day?
• My strong right arm the whole of Spain admires,
• That arm which has so often saved the realm,
• So many times buttressed a tottering throne,
• Betrays me in my need, avails me nought.
• O cruel memory of my past renown!
• So many days in one day blotted out!
• New honour fatal to my happiness!
• O lofty heights from which my honour falls!
• Must the count’s triumph dim my glory’s rays?
• Must I die unavenged or die in shame?
• Count, be the prince’s tutor. That high rank
• Cannot be held by a dishonoured man;
• Your jealous pride has, by this grave affront,
• Made me, despite the king, unfit for it.
• And now an age-chilled body’s ornament,
• Once so much feared but used in this affront
• Only for decoration, not defence,
• Go, leave henceforth the lowest of the low.
• Pass, to avenge me, into better hands.
• (trans. John Cairncross)

[8. ]Quintus Curtius Rufus: nothing is known of his dates or life, except that he flourished as a rhetorician ca. a.d. 50. The extant parts of his History of Alexander are regarded by scholars as inaccurate. The reference is to Book X.

[9. ]Tasso, Aminta, act 4, sc. 2: “Alas! Now I am made of stones, since this news does not kill me.”

[10. ]Act 4, sc. 1.

[11. ]Act 5, sc. 2.

[* ]See chap. 2. part 7.

[12. ]That, struggling oft, his Passions we may find, The Frailty, not the Virtue of his Mind.

[13. ]Act 1, sc. 2.

[14. ]Act 3, sc. 3.

[15. ]Act 2, sc. 1.

[16. ]Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, 1611.

[17. ]

• Ah! Had thy good Advice Belief obtain’d
• Without a Master Ptolemy had Reign’d,
• But Kings still chuse (Govern’d by some ill Fate)
• The worst Advice after a long debate;
• Destiny blinds them, or if any Light
• Seem to inform, it but deceives their Sight,
• And with delusive Glimmerings leads them on,
• Till they have Reach’d their own Destruction.
• (Pompey the Great.)

[18. ]Act 5, sc. 4. Read “youth” for “growth” in the first line.

[* ]Titus Livius, 1. 29. § 17. [“In this legatus of yours {. . .} there is nothing of a human being, conscript fathers, except his form and outward appearance, nothing of a Roman citizen except his bearing and garments and the sound of the Latin language. He is a pest-bringing monster, like those of which myths say that, in order to destroy mariners, they once had their abode on this side and that of the strait by which we are separated from Sicily.” Kames omits a phrase here indicated by braces.]

[19. ]Joseph Addison, The Drummer, 1715, a prose comedy.

[20. ]Alexander Pope, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, 1717.

[21. ]

• Her springs of teares she looseth foorth, and cries
• “Hither why bringst thou me, ah fortune blinde?
• Where dead (for whom I liu’d) my comfort lies,
• Where warre, for peace; trauell for rest I finde;
• Tancred, I haue thee, see thee, yet thine eies
• Lookte not upon thy loue and handmaide kinde,
• Undoe their doores, their lides fast closed seuer,
• Alas, I finde thee for to lose thee euer.”
• (Gerusalemme liberata, trans. Edward Fairfax)

[* ]Canto 20. stan. 124. 125, & 126.

[* ]Page 316.

[22. ]Colley Cibber.

[23. ]“Heavens above! My blood has turned to ice.”

[24. ]“It’s true. My pride is forced to bend. The unrelenting Aman is reduced to prayer.”

[25. ]

• What miracle disturbs and baffles me?
• The sweetness of his voice, his youth, his charm
• Make hatred imperceptibly give way
• To what? To feeling pity? Can that be?
• (Athaliah, trans. John Cairncross)

[26. ]“Oh the despairing fury of my passion!”

[27. ]Act 1, sc. 5. Read “direst cruelty” for “direct cruelty.”

[28. ]Act 3, sc. 4.

[* ]Act 1. sc. 1.

[29. ]Act 1, sc. 1:

• Side with the Gods, declare yourself for Fate,
• Draw not on us their Thunder and their Hate,
• Ask not how firstly, wherefor they chastise,
• But worship him whom they would have to Rise,
• Approve of their dresses, applaud their Will,
• And whom they frown on in Obedience kill.
• By divine vengeance on all side persu’d
• Pompey invokes your Aegypt in the fewd;
• His head that he has shifted so to save,
• Falling your Royal Company would have;
• His present coming I unfriendly deem,
• Th’effect of Hatred rather than Esteem;
• ’Tis to Destroy you, hither now to fly,
• And can you doubt if he deserve to Dye?
• He should have come with Bays upon his brows,
• And with Success have seconded our Vows;
• With Feasts and Triumphs then we had receiv’d him,
• ’Tis his own Fate, not we that have deceiv’d him,
• Not him, but his ill Fortune we neglect,
• For to his person we would pay Respect;
• Caesar subdu’d, by the same Sword had Dy’d,
• With which less willingly we pierce his side;
• Under his Ruine you must shelter take,
• And in this Storm his Death your harbour make,
• Which though the World should reckon as a Crime,
• Is but a Just compliance with the time;
• The strict regard of Justice does annoy
• The power of Crowns, and policy Destroy;
• ’Tis the Prerogative of Kings to spare
• Nothing when they their own Destruction fear;
• He wants no Danger whom the care of Right
• Keeps from Injustice when ’tis requisite;
• Who to his Royal Power no bound, would have
• To his own Conscience must not be a slave.
• (Pompey the Great)

[* ]Act 2. sc. 1.

[† ]Beginning of act 2.

[‡ ]Act 3. sc. 3. at the close.

[* ]A certain author says humorously, “Les mots mêmes d’amour et d’amant sont bannis de l’intime société des deux sexes, et relegués avec ceux de chaine et de flame dans les Romans qu’on ne lit plus.” And where nature is once banished, a fair field is open to every fantastic imitation, even the most extravagant. [“Even the words for love and loving are banished from intimate society between the sexes, and replaced by those of bond and passion from the Roman authors whom no one any longer reads.”]

[30. ] [Maxime]

What, betray my friend?

[Euphorbus]

All’s fair in love; a true lover knows no friends.

[31. ]

• My queen, this Storm is laid without much harm,
• A great Commotion gave a great Alarm;
• But when I left you I began to find
• A greater Tumult in my Troubled mind.
• Love, my most powerful passion made me hate
• Success and greatness, Curse the cruel fate
• That rais’d me, since thus great I cannot spare
• My self one hour of Joy, but some new Care
• Still calls me from you, yet I straight again
• Am reconcil’d to Fortune, and restrain
• My Causeless passion, nay, adore my Bays,
• Since they my Hopes as well as Person raise
• To that auspicious height from whence I see,
• So fair a prospect of Felicity,
• That I dare hope Requital of my Flame,
• Though my Ambitious Love make you his Aim.
• You may now Caesar with like ardour meet,
• Kings cast their Crown and Sceptres at my feet
• But if the world a Monarch yet contains,
• Who more deserves the Glory of your Charms
• On whose high Throne you might with greater State
• Give Laws to Nations, and Dispose of Fate,
• By Force of Arms I would my Title prove,
• His Rival less for Empire than for Love,
• Nor should I hope you would my Flames allow,
• Till I had made so great a Rival bow;
• These were the Ambitious hopes which have thus farr
• Engag’d your Caesar in a Civil Warr,
• And that I might this glorious right maintain,
• I conquer’d Pompey on Pharsalia’s Plain;
• When e’er I fought, your Beauty did afford
• Strength to my Arm, and Sharpness to my Sword,
• And all the fair Success I had in Arms,
• Were the Effects of your Bright Beauties Charms,
• Which in my Breast did first this Passion move,
• And now has Rais’d me Equal to your Love,
• Since I without a Rival am become
• Master of all the World and Head of Rome:
• These are my Titles that my Valour gave,
• Which love innobles by the name of Slave,
• And I am more than Blest if you approve
• And perfect the success of humble love.
• (Pompey the Great)

[* ]Act 4. sc. 5.

[† ]Act 4. sc. 7.

[32. ]“I’ll call the police, and have all my household put to the torture, maids, valets, son, daughter, even myself” (trans. George Graveley and Ian Maclean, Oxford University Press, 1968).

[33. ]Act 2, sc. 1.

[34. ] [Don Rodrigue]

Your hands alone have the right to vanquish the invincible.

[35. ]“May his name be blessed. May his name be sung. May his works be celebrated {for all times and for all ages,} unto eternity.” Kames omits the phrase in braces.

[36. ]Kames uses Nicholas Rowe’s verse translation of Lucan, 1718. In the Latin text Kames transposes “tumuli est” in line 2, and reads “Egypto Magno” for “Egypto Magni.”

[37. ]Act 2, sc. 2.

[38. ]The correct text is

• Ille hic est Raphael, timuit quo sospite vinci
• Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori

The epitaph was composed by Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), for the tomb of his great friend Raphael (1483–1520) in Santa Maria Rotonda (The Pantheon) in Rome. A favored translation in the eighteenth century was by William Harrison (1685–1713), minor poet and friend of both Swift and Addison:

• Here Raphael lies, by whose untimely end
• Nature both lost a rival and a friend.