The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Lecture. 16^th. ^a

Monday Dec^r 27 1762.

Having in the three or four foregoing Lectures considered the manner of describing Single objects as well internall as externall and given some particular Rules for the Describing the different Species of them, ^b and having also given you an account of the different maners of describing a character, and the principall authors who have excelled in that art; I come now to make some observations on the proper method of describing the more complex and important actions of men.

It is only the more important objects that are ever described; others less interesting are so far from being ^c thought worthy of ^d description that they are not reckon’d to deserve much of our attention. As it is mankind we are chiefly connected with it must be their | 2 actions which chiefly interest our attention; Other rationall agents we are little acquainted with and the transactions which pass amongst other animalls are never of so great importance to us as to attract our notice. ’Tis therefore the actions of men and of them such as are of the greatest importance and are most apt to draw our attention and make a deep impression on the heart, that form the ground of this species of description. The actions and perception<s> which chiefly affect us and make the deepest impression on our minds are those that are of the misfortunate kind and give us in the perception a considerable degree of Uneasiness. These are always found to be more interesting than others of the same degree of Strength if they are of a pleasant and agreable nature.

| 3 {Whence this superior influence of uneasy sensations proceeds} Whether ^e from their being less common and so ^f more distinguishd from the ordinary pitch of human happiness ^g by being greatly below it, than our most agreable perceptions are by rising above it; or whether it is thus ordered by the constitution of our nature to the end that the uneasiness of such sensations as accompany what tends to our prejudice might rouse us to be active in warding it ^h off, can not be easily determind: For tho pleasant Sensations from what is of advantage might perhaps[s] be dispensed with, and no great prejudice thereby acrue to our happiness, Yet it seems absolutely necessary that some considerable degree of uneasiness should attend what is hurtfull; for without this we should soon in all probability be altogether destroyed. But whatever be the | 4 cause of this Phenomenon ⁱ it is an undoubted fact that those actions affect us in the most sensible manner, and make the deepest impression, which give us a considerable degree of Pain and uneasiness. This is the case not only with regard to our own private actions, but with those of others. Not only in our own case, missfortunate ^j affairs chiefly affect us; but it is with the misfortunes of others that we most commonly as well as most deeply sympathise.—A Historian who related a battle and the effects attending, if he was no way interested would naturally dwell more on the misery and lamentations of the vanquished than on the triumph and exultations ^k of the Victors.

It is to be observed that no action ^l | 5 however affecting in itself, can be represented in such a manner as to be very interesting to those who had not been present at it, by a bare narration where it is described directly without taking notice of any of the effects it had on those who were either actors or spectators of the whole affair.—Had Livy when relating the Engagement of the Horatii and the Curiatii 1 told us that the Albans and Romans chose three brothers from each side to determine by the issue of their combat the fate of each nation; that they accordingly engaged; that the Curiatii killed two of the Romans, being at the same time wounded themselves; That the Remaining Roman, betaking | 6 himself as they imagined to flight, brough<t> them to follow him and by that means got the victory, which he could not have expected from an enga<ge>ment with them all at once. This would have been a direct description; but very languid and uninterresting in comparison of the other Sort where the effects of the transaction as well on the actors as the Spectators are pointed ^m out. The difference will appear very remarkable if we compare the above description to that which he has given us of the same ⁿ transaction. The Account he gives of the description ^o of Alba is another instance of great excellence in that method of description. Thucydides might have given us in a very few words the whole account of the sieze of Syracuse by the Athenians | 7 which has filled the best part of the 7^th Book of his history, but no such account could have had [a] chance of equalling the animated and affecting description he has given of that memorable event. {There are many passages in Livy and other authors that deserve to be read on account of their excellence in this art but these I think are sufficient to confirm the Generall rule that when we mean to affect the reader deeply we must have recourse to the indirect method of description, relating the effects the transaction produced both on the actors and Spectators.}

We observed that the emotions of Grief are those which most affect us both in reality and in description, but when these come to a very great height they are not to <be> expressed by the most accurate description even of their <effects>. No words are sufficient to convey an adequate idea of their effects. The best method in such cases is not to attempt any indirect description of the grief and concern, but barely relate the circumstances the persons were in, the state of their mind before the misfortune and the causes of their passion. It is told of an eminent painter that drawing the Sacrifice of Iphigenia, 2 he expressed a consi| 8derable degree of grief in Chalcas the augur, ^p still greater in <Ulysses>, ^q and all that his art could reach in the countenance and behaviour of Menelaus, but when he came to Agamemnon the Father of the Victim, he could <not> by all his skill express a degree of grief suitable to what then filled his breast. He thought it more prudent therefore to throw a veil over his face. In the same manner when Thucydides describes the distress and confusions of the Athenians retiring from Syracuse, 3 he did not attempt to describe it by the effects it produced on them, he chose rather to relate the circumstances of their Misfortunes and the causes of their distress | 9 and left the Reader to frame an idea of the deep concern and affliction they must have been in. Dionysius Halicarn<assensis> 4 observes that Thucydides delights much more in relating the misfortunes and distresses of his countrymen than their prosperity and so far his observation is just; But the Reason he gives for it does not appear at all probable. He says that Thucydides being banished by his countrymen was so irritated by this bad usage that he was at pains to collect every thing that tended to their dishonour and was at pains to conceal all accounts of glorious and successfull conduct, that he might by this lessen their reputation ^r . For this reason he prefers Herodotus to him, who dwells more on the prosperity and Good fortune of his Countrymen: Reckoning this to be a sign of a more humane and generous temper. | 10 But if we consider the tempers of the men as well as the nature of the thing itself we may perhaps be of a different opinion. Their ^s tempers if we may judge from their works were very different. Herodotus appears to have been of a more gay disposition, was of no great experience amongst men; which temper joind to the ^t of Old age would make him inclined to insist much on the Good fortune and happy incidents of the History. Th<u>cydides again being of an age not much given to Sallies of passion of any Sort and having seen men and things would, as it were, be hardened against the trivial and light bursts of Joy but would not from the innate goodness of his heart be insensible to the missfortunes of his fellow. He perhaps considered also that these melancholy affections were most likely to produ<c>e a good effect on the minds of his readers to soften and humanize them, whereas the others would | 11 rather tend to make the heart insensible to tender emotions. All this may ^u incline <us> to be of a different opinion from the Critic above mentiond.

We are here also to consider, that which was before hinted, that it is these uneasy emotions that chiefly affect us and give us a certain pleasing anxiety. A continued Series of Prosperity would not give us near so much pleasure in the recital as an epic poem or a tragedy which make but one continued Series of unhappy Events. Even comedy itself would not give us much pleasure if we ^v were not kept in suspense and some degree of anxiety by the cross accidents which occur and either end in or appear to threaten a misfortunate issue. For this Reason also it is not surprising that a man of an excellent heart might incline to dwell most on the dismal side of the Story.

[a]MS 15th . . . . Decr 26. Vol. ii of MS begins here

[b]I come deleted

[c]last four words replace not

[d]being related deleted

[e]this proceeds deleted

[f]on that account written above then deleted

[g]than deleted

[h]replaces them

[i]the fact i deleted

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[k]MS exhulations

[l]replaces object

[1 ]I.xxiv–xxv; I.xxix (destruction of Alba): ‘one hour laid in ruins the work of four hundred years’.

[m]MS painted

[n]replaces above

[o]for destruction?

[2 ]The most famous painting of Timanthes of Cythnus (late fifth century bc) is described by Cicero. Orator, xxii.74; Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXXV.xxxvi.73; Quintilian, II.xiii.12; Valerius Maximus, viii.11; Eustathius on Iliad, p. 1343.60. The graduated expressions of grief and the artistic principle exemplified by the veiled face of the father greatly interested eighteenth–century writers on art: e.g. Daniel Webb, An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting (1760), 158, 192, 199. Timomachos of Byzantium (first century bc) also represented the incident. S. Fazio surveys the subject in Ifigenia nella poesia e nell’arte figurata (1932).

[p]replaces Priest

[q]supplied conjecturally for blank in MS

[3 ]VII.lxxx ff. Thucydides describes the incident as the greatest of all recorded Hellenic events: for the victors the most splendid, for the vanquished the most disastrous.

[4 ]Epistula ad Pompeium, ch. iii. in The Three Literary Letters ed. W. Rhys Roberts (1901), 109, 104 ff. Dionysius thinks Herodotus more skilled at ‘beginnings’ of historical works than Thucydides: op. cit. 107 8. Cf. ii.18 n.2 below.

[r]and deleted

[s]MS There; this sentence interlined

[t]blank of nine letters in MS

[u]numbers written above change the original order This may all

[v]did deleted