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 XXI^st. ^a

Friday. Jan.^ry 14 1763

N.B. This Lecture was delivered intirely without Book

I have now finished what I have to say with regard to the 1^st Species of Writing viz. the narrative, where the business is to relate facts, and come in the next place to treat of that where the design is to prove some proposition or series of propositions. The Rules we have already given with regard to the narrative composition will with | 74 a few alterations be easily accomodated to this Species also.

We may observe also that the same rules will also be equally applicable to Poeticall compositions. For what is it which constitutes the essential difference betwixt a historical poem and a history? It is no more than this that the one is in prose and the other in verse. Now what is that induces one to write in verse ^b rather than in prose? what is his design? ^c It is certainly far more difficulte, but at the same time it is much superior in beauty and strength. It is evident therefore that the authors design in writing is to amuse us[e]. {There are many other authors besides the poets who have made it their chief design to please but they are the only writers who by the very manner in which they write fairly tell us that this is their design:} The way in which he writes is of all others best calculated to answer this end. The best prose composition, the best oratoricall ^d discourse<e> does not affect us half so much. An orator will ^e often tell us the same thing in many shape[r]s. If we should examine | 75 the best orations we will find that the 2^d, 3^d and 4^th Sentences often contain nothing more ^f than is contained in the 1^st only turnd into other words. Whereas none but the lower class have such repetitions. It is even necessary for an orator to do this, if he expects that the argument shall have its full force. Some repetition is often absolutely necessary to make us affected in ^g the manner the orator desires. But on the other hand repetition is so far from being necessary that anyone who is the least acquainted with Poetry either by writing or reading knows there is nothing more dissagreable than to have the next line or the next couplet express in other words the same thing that has been already expressed in the one before us. Mr Pope tells us that the Reason which induced him to write his Essay on man in verse rather than in Prose was that he saw he could do it in a much shorter and concise manner. 1 I much doubt indeed whether this was his real motive; but it shews he | 76 was very sensible of the great superiority of Poetry over prose in this ^h respect. I mentioned this particular of the great conciseness of poetry, not that it is one of the chief of its beauties, but as it may prove the great advantage of Poetical measures, and the great effect harmony and regular movement has on us when it commands our attention so much that we are never ⁱ necessitated to Repeat the same thing over a second time. {It is needless to prove the superiority of Poetry over prose, every ones experience and the common consent of mankind sufficientely confirm this.} One expression in this manner has more effect on us than when the orator turns it in 3 or four different shapes.

The manner however as it is so vastly more difficult than prose writing shows sufficiently that amusement and intertainment was the chief design of the poet. It is from ^j our being satisfied that this is the design of Poetry that what we call Poeticall licence has taken its ori| 77gin.

There are some men who distinguish themselves chiefly in conversation by a certain knack of telling a Story. They plainly shew by their manner, and the way in which they tell it that it is not their design to be believed; they do not care in the least whether they are or not; all they seem to have in view is to divert us by some ridiculous Story. As we perceive that this is their design, we are not very anxious whether the Story be just as they tell it or not. We give them a liberty to add to, or take from the Story what they think proper, to cut and carve as they please. For there is no story so compleatly of one sort that every circumstance tends to produce the same effect. There is no story, no adventure so intirely ridiculous that there is not som<e> part of it <of> a grave nature, there is none so melancholy but what there is some part of it ^k prosperous, nor any so | 78 prosperous that is not somewhat tinctured with adversity. Now as we are sensible of this we are not offended tho the teller of Ridiculous Stories, a talent which ^l tho it be no very eminent one is generally well received, should throw ^m out those circumstances which would tend to diminish the Ridicule of the Rest; or add others which would heighten it; nay we can even allow him to make up a story alltogether; but this seldom takes so well. {Now if we would make the Story perfectly and compleatly ridiculous or melancholy or merry we must leave out those Jarring and dissimilar Circumstances} ⁿ There are also tellers of wonderfull stories, and tellers of mournfull Lamentable ones; these as well as the others are often obliged to add or take away from their Story; as they can seldom get one that will prove so very wonderfull or so very lamentable that there is nothing in it that appears little or at least of an ordinary nature. Now these are altogether dissagreable; we know that their ^o stories are forged and yet they tell them with a grave face and appear evidently to desire we should believe them. There are even some who take pains to tell illnatured Stories, and turn a thing of a very harmless nature into a very Black and Shocking one, these deserve no quarter tho | 79 they are often too well received. The wonder teller and [and] the teller of lamentable Stories are always despised. It is only the teller of Ridiculous Stories that can be at all tollerable in conversation, as we know his design is harmless ^p so we are readily inclined to grant him some licence.

The Poet is exactly in the same condition; his design is to intertain ^q and he does not pretend that what he tells us is true; for which reason we are not offended if he make some additions to the Story he relates. But not [not] onely are ridiculous stories allowable in Poetry, but also the wonderfull and the Lamentable. The teller of Wonderfull or lamentable Stories is disagreable because he endeavours to paun them upon us for true ones. But as this is not the case of the poet, we can receive not only the Ridiculous ones but the others also. The Subjects are generally so distant we are not offended at the Poet if he imbellishes his Story with the addition of some circumstances. The Taking of Troy, the foundation of the Roman Empire, or the | 80 Life of Henry the 4^th of France 2 are not so much connected with us as to make us ^r much concernd in what way they are represented. For we do not read Homer to be instructed in the Events of the Trojan war, nor Virgil to know {the origin of the Romans} ^s ; Nor Milton to be informed in the Scripturall account of the Fall of Man ^t ; tho inde<e>d most of the particulars be brought into it, yet no one reads it to increase his faith. But ^u as it is intertainment we look for from the Poet as well as the storyteller, so we make them the same concessions. As we know that no Story is so compleatly ridiculous as to tell well without some cobling, so we know that no series of adventures are so entirely of a piece, either so wonderfull and extraord<in>ary, so lamentable or so absurd that they could compleatly answer the design of a Poet without some improvement. We therefore allow the tragic writer whose Subject is the lamentabl<e>, the Comic writer who has pitched on the ridiculous and absurd for his | 81 subject, and the Epic Poet who endeavours to interest us by a series of grand and extraordinary events, each to modell ^v his Story (or even sometimes to invent one), so as to make it all suitable to his end. {Dramatick and epick Poetry differ only in the connexion of the Scenes of Action they exhibit: in the former the persons come in themselves, in the latter the connexions are made in the person of the Poiet; he says such a person came in and said so and so or did so and so, and then came another and said and did so and so} ^w

(From hence we may see that) There is one requisite absolutely necessary both to Epic and Dramatick writing, that is, Unity of Interest. ^x The greatest Critics have laboured greatly to shew in what it is that this Requisite consists, but if we attend to it we will find that it is very easily comprehended and what we meet with in every common Story.—It is no more than this; that every part of the Story should tend to some one end, whatever that be. This we find in every nurses tale; every story of a king and a Queen, of the fairies, ghosts and suchlike, have a regular beginning, a middle and an end. There is one point which all the rest tend to bring about and in which they are wound up and the Story entirely concluded. This we find in them all whether they be of a gay or grave, of a happy and joyous or a miserable nature; it may indeed be easier in them because they are shorter, but is certainly attainable in all.—In the | 82 same manner as a Storyteller would appear to have failed in his design of raising our laughter, or at least he could not answer it so well, if he should bring in any of a grave and serious nature; So it is necessary that the poet should accommodate all his circumstances so as that they tend to bring about the main event either directly or indirectly.—A comic writer should make all the parts tend to excite our sense of Ridicule and at last conclud<e> the work with the highest piece of Ridicule which all the Rest pointed at or tended some way to bring about. The tragic ^y writer must in the same manner make all the parts of the action of a lamentable natur<e> or some way tend to bring about the great catastrophe; and so of the Epic writer.—But it is to be observed that in Comic writings the Ridicule must consist in the Characters represented: Ridicule that is founded only on the Ridiculousness of the circumstances into which the Persons are brought without regarding themselves is the lowest Species of Wit and such as is hardly tollerable in a common Story. | 83 On the other hand in tragedy or Epic Poetry the chief art does not consist in displaying the characters; but in shewing in what manner the Chief Persons in whom we are chiefly concerned ^z acted in Lamentable or difficult circumstances, and how at last they were either in the 1^st altogether oppressed by their misfortunes or extricated themselves from them. The unity in Comedy consists in the Characters, whereas in tragedy or Epic poetry it consists chiefly in managing the Circumstances.

But in no part should any thing appear to have a conterary tendency to that of the whole piece. For this reason the Scene ^a in ^a and the Scene of the Gravediggers in Hamlet tho very good s<c>enes in their Sort had better been away as the<y> have no share in bringing about the main design of the piece and are somewhat conterary to the temper of the Rest of the Scenes.

We may see from this that tragi–comedy tho the different parts be very well executed and may be very interesting, is yet a monstrous | 84 production. Thus in the Spanish Friars 3 the Tragicall part is very good and the comic part is admirable; so that the whole is no bad piece; but the parts had been much better taken seperate; the effect of the one would not have contradicted that of the other.

There is another Species of Unity viz. the Unity of Time 4 which the more severe Criticks, tho it is not necessary in the Epic Poetry, account indispensably requisite in Dramatic Writing, both tragedy and Comedy. Now let us consider in what the difference betwixt Tragedy and Epic writings consists. It is no more than that in the one case the Persons come on the stage and speak their parts, and in the other the Poet tells us that after one had spoke so and so another spoke after him. Home<r> tells us that a Captain spoke to such a company in one way, left them and spoke to another and did such or such action. Sophocles would on the other hand put these speeches in the mouths of the person<s> themselves and represent the actions as | 85 then passing before us. But from this difference it must necessarily follow that the one must be vastly shorter than the other. As the one is carried on by Dialogue the connection betwixt two parts can only be kept up by the changing of the persons, Whereas in the other the poet can in a few words, in his own person, keep up the connection. The actions of a year would take up a year to Represent them; but a poet can dispatch them in two or three words.

Shakespeare and some other English writers have been ^b chiefly guilty of omitting this; the French are generally very little; Racin<e> never supposes more time to have been taken up in the actions than in the Representations. Shakespeare on the other hand supposes often that three or four years 5 have elapsed betwixt one scen[c]e and another. The reason generally given for the bad effect of such blanks where no action<s> connecting them are represented is that it prevents our deception, we can not suppose that when we have been but ¼ of an hour in the play–house that two or three Years has past. But in reality we are never thus deceived. | 86 We know that we are in the play–house, that the persons before us are actors, and that the thing represented either happened before or perhaps never happend at all. The pleasure we have in a dramaticall performance no more arises from deception than that which <we> have in looking at Picture; No one ever imagined that he saw the Sacrifice of Iphigenia; no more did any one imagine that <he> saw king Richard the Third; Ever<y>one knows that at the one time he saw a picture and at the other Mr Garrick or some other actor. Tis not then from the interruption of the deception ^c that the bad effect of such transgressions of the unity of time proceed; It is rather from the uneasiness we feel in being kept in the dark with regard to what happened in so long a time. When in the scene before us there is supposed to have passed three or four years since the last was before us; We immediately become uneasy to know what has happened during that time. Many important events must have passed in that time which we know nothing <of>. We make a jump | 87 from one time to another without knowing what connected them. The same jump is often made in Epic Poets, but they take care to smooth it over, by telling us in a few words what happened in that time. Was this small ^d connection omitted the Jump would be as uneasy in the Epic poem as the Dramaticall performance. Le Brun ^e has represented the different actions 6 of Mary of Medicis, ^f the of ^f and other painters have represented the different transactions of an Heroick Poem. This is surely a very pretty fancy and may have a very good effect; but nothing equall to what the Poem itself would have. The Painting can only represent one moment or Point of time and the situation ^g things were in at that time; Betwixt one moment and another there must have been a very considerable time, a great number of moments must have passed; The actions of all these are unknown and can only be conjectured. {Severall Painters have emulated the Poets in giving a Suit of Actions but these labour under a defect for want of Connection; when we turn from one Picture to look at another we do not know the Persons which act there till we have studied the piece nor do we know what hath happened intermediate and preparatory to this action} ^h We are uneasy here just from | 88 the same cause as we are at an interruption of time in a drammatick performance. That it is not the ⁱ preventing our deception which occasions it may appear from this that we are not very uneasy at a small interruption, we can easily conceive what may have passed during the hour or two for which the action is suspended. We see also that these pieces tho’ they have not all the effect they would have were it not for this defect, have yet a very considerable one, which would not be the case if the whole pleasure we take in dramaticall works proceeded from the deception. ^j

The same things may be said with regard to the Unity of Place which some criticks reckon indispensably necessary to the Dramaticall works. In an Epic poem the connection of place is easily maintaind by the poets having it in his power to connect the different actions by a few intervening words. In the dramatick works, the | 89 Unity of place can not be altogether maintaind unless the action be such as that it be all supposed to be transacted in the same place, as well as acted. Shakespeare in some of his plays breaks thro this Rule altogether; he makes one Scene be in France, and the following one in England, one at London and another at York etc. In this case the distance is so great that we are anxious to know what has happend in the intervall betwixt them. The best way, surely is to fix the action to one place if possible, as Racin<e> and Sophocles have done, and if that is not possible we should make the distance as little as possible confining the action to the same house or thereabouts. But when this rule is not observed we find the effect of the Piece may still be very considerable, which as we said before shows that it is not deception which gives us the pleasure we find in these works and in fact we nev<e>r are deceived for one moment.

| 90 There is one thing however that must be always observed, otherwise the piece can never produce any great effect; it is the Propriety of character. As comedy and Tragedy are designed to produce very different effects, so the characters they place as the principal ones must be such as are suited to produce these Conterary effects.

Kings and Nobles are what make the best characters in a Tragedy. {The misfortunes of the great as the<y> happen less frequently affect us more. There is in humane Nature a Servility which inclines us to adore our Superiors and an inhumanity which disposes us to contempt and trample under foot our inferiors} ^k We are too much ^l accustomed to the misfortunes of people below or equall with ourselves to be greatly affected by them. But the misfortunes of the great both as they seem connected with the wellfare of a multitude and as [they seem] we ^m are apt to pay great respect and attention to our superiors however unworthy are what chiefly affect us. Nay such is the temper of men, that we are rather disposed to laugh at the misfortunes of our inferiors than take part in them.

’Tis for this same principle that ⁿ persons of high rank make very bad actors in a comedy. Dukes and Princes and men of high rank, tho they be never so ridiculous in themselves, never appear the subject of Laughter ^o , | 91 the same prejudice which makes us be so highly interested in their misfortunes, makes us also imagine there is something respectable even in their follies. Persons in low life either equall or inferior to ourselves are the best characters for comedy. We can laugh heartily at the absurdity of a shoemaker or a burgess tho we can hardly prevail on ourselves to weep at his misfortunes. Farces where the characters are the lowest of any make us laugh more than the finest comedy, and on the other <hand> we can hardly enter into the humour of a comedy of the higher sort where dukes and nobles ^p are the objects of our laughter: {We can laugh at Sancho Panca in his Island 7 because we know that he was no real but only a mock governor.} We even carry this so far that we are rather apt to make sport of the misfortunes of our inferiors than sympathise with them. The Italian comedy, by applying the misfortunes of the great personages of tragedy ^q to persons in Low life and putting their speeches in their mouths, is so far from appearing lamentable, that <it> is the most ridiculous of any, tho no doubt persons in low life are as deeply affected with the passions of grief or sorrow [and] or joy as those of greater fortunes.

| v.91 {As it <is> the misfortunes or recovery of the chief persons in a tragedy that we are to be chiefly interested in, A Villain can never be a fit person for the hero of such a piece. For this reason tho Iago makes a tollerably good actor in Othello as the latter has evidently the superiority to him in our opinion: Yet Alonzo ^r in the Revenge 8 which is nothing more than Othello Spoiled is a very unfit character, as the hero Alonso has such an inferiority of parts to Zanga ^s that we should rather take him to be the principle character.} ^t

| 92 We observed before that the Ridicule ^u of Commedy consists in the Ridiculousness ^v of the characters and not of the circumstances. It will be necessary therefore that the characters should be changed. We can not always be laughing at misers, or fops, we must have a variety of characters, to make the pieces agreable. But we will find that there is no such necessity in tragedy or Epic Poetry. The Characters here are not the principall thing; The adventures or circumstances ^w and the behaviour of the different persons in these circumstances is what chiefly interests us. We are uneasy when those worthy persons are in difficult or unhappy circumstances and rejoice if they are extricated and our grief is at its height when they are altogether overwhelmed. These circumstances may be varied a thousand ways; so the Grief or concer<n> excited by the Orphan and that by Venice preserved 9 are very different.

Mr ^x however reckons this one | 93 of the essentiall beauties of a heroick poem. 10 But when we consider that neither in Virgill nor Racine there is the variety of characters, there is no Variety in the Aeneid at all; Racine’s men are all of one sort and his women also have all the same character. When we consider too, that Virgill is in the Opinion of many the 1^st. of Epic Poets, but by the unive<r>sall consent he is the 2^d; that Racin<e> Is universally acknowledged to be the 2^d Tragic writer, the French perhaps preferring Corneille and the English Sophocles; When we consider, I say, that the 2^d perhaps the First of Epic poets; and the 2^d perhaps the first of Tragic Poets have not ^y the smallest share of this Beauty, we will be apt to think that it is not so very essentiall. Perhaps the great attention which these authors have paid to the Propriety, Decorum, and ^z of their works has hindered them from bringing in a variety of characters, thro all which it is almost impossible to keep up the decorum and propriety of the pieces. In this point they are indeed greatly inferior to two other Poets, Homer and Shakespear. The first of these | 94 has a vast Variety of characters and the latter still greater. But then this vast variety has often lead them into Breaches of Decency, Propriety and Uniformity of Interest. ^a As Racine seems to have studied these last mentiond perfections still more than Virgill, so he has a still less variety of characters. And in the same manner Shakespear, as the ^b incon<c>eviable variety of characters he has introduc’d far ex<c>eeds that of Homer’s, so he has paid still less regard to De<c>ency and Propriety. These Different Beauties ^c of Decorum and Variety seem incompatible when in their greatest perfection, and we are not to condemn one who excells in the one for not ^d being equally excellent in the other.

This decorum we see is very easily maintaind in the lighter pieces of Poetry such as Odes, Elegy, and Pastorall where the length of the Piece does not admit of any great variety of incidents. {Ode, Elegy and all the other smaller compositions are the exhibitions only of a Single event or action or of one Simple disposition in a person; they have not time nor connexion Sufficient to awaken great emotions} ^e —In all these Pieces the affection ^f or temper of mind they would excite should not be very violent. Great Passions as they are long of being | 95 raised in the Persons themselves so are they not to be raised in us but by a work of a considerable Length. A temper of mind that differs very little from the common tranquillity of mind is what we can best enter into, by the perusall of a piece of a small length. A painting can only present us with the action at one point of time. For this reason it is that we are more pleased with those that represent a state not far different from that we are generally in when we view the Picture; When one takes a view of the Chartoons of Raphael, it is not Paul Preaching at Athens or Elias Struck with Blindness that first attract our attention but Peter receiving the Keys, Peter feed my Sheep. This piece represents a state of mind in all the figures not much different from that we are in. {Poussin 11 used to say that the tranquill pieces were what he liked best.} Whereas the emotions in the others are so violent that it takes a considerable time before we can work ourselves up so far as to enter into the Spirit of the pieces.

| 96 In the same manner an Ode or Elegy {in which there is no odds but in the measure} which differ little from the common state of mind are what most please us Such is that on the Church yard, or Eton College by Mr Grey. 12 The best of Horaces (tho inferior to Mr Greys) are all of this sort. Pastoralls too are subject to the same rule for it matters not whether the Sentiments represented to us be in the person of the poet or in a dialogue. The Pastorall poem 13 of Mr Shenstone ^g if he had put the account he gives of the effects love had on himself into the mouth of a person in the dialogue would have been precisely similar to the 3^d pastorall of Virgil. The only difference betwixt an ode and the ordinary sort of Pastoralls is that in the one the temper of the poets mind and in the other of an other person are related.

[a]MS XXth

[b]replaces prose

[c]Why should the Taking of Troy, the fo, on v.73, deleted; see end of 79

[d]MS ortaroicall

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[1 ]In ‘To the Reader’, prefixed to Epistle i of Essay on Man in 1733, Pope explained his choice of ‘the Epistolary Way of Writing’ then in vogue; his subject, though high and of dignity, is ‘mixt with Argument, which of its Nature approacheth to Prose’. In ‘The Design’, prefixed to the whole poem in 1734, he defends his choice of verse and even rhyme: these are more striking and more memorable, and he found he could express maxims or precepts ‘more shortly this way than in prose.’ Conciseness is a source of much of the ‘force as well as grace of arguments. . . . I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandring from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning’.

[h]poetry deleted

[i]desirous deleted

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[l]a talent which replaces a character

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[o]MS there

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[2 ]Voltaire’s epic La Henriade (1723).

[r]as to make us replaces that we can

[s]v.74 note (in Hand B) replaces the particulars of the Vouyage of Æneas, deleted on 80

[t]changed from Adam

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[w]Hand B

[x]written large in MS

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[z]and who must added above line, then deleted

[a–a]two long blanks in MS (the omissions probably refer to the Porter scene in Macbeth, II.iii)

[3 ]Dryden’s comedy The Spanish fryar; or the double discovery, produced Nov. 1680, published 1681.

[4 ]On the Unities see Introduction, p. 21.

[b]most deleted

[5 ]Frequently in his history plays; and in The Winter’s Tale sixteen years explicitly elapse between Acts III and IV.

[c]MS deeption replaces action

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[6 ]Charles Le Brun (1619–90), from 1664 first Court painter in France and responsible for the decoration of the royal palaces, Vaux, Versailles, etc. His master was Poussin. The portrait of Marie de Medicis is not noted in Henry Jouin, Charles Le Brun (1889), or the catalogue of the 1963 Versailles Exhibition of Le Brun.

[f–f]two blanks in MS of six and ten letters each

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[h]Hand B; this note begins opposite Le Brun has . . . i.e. the 4th sentence of ii.87

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[j]Time follows in tiny writing; supply at the same?

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[l]replaces well

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[o]90 and 91 are on a biofolium stuck in after the first leaf of quire 74 (i.e. p. 89); at lower outer edge of v.90 is a half–erased note written vertically in Hand A: My Dear Dory

[p]replaces princes

[7 ]Barataria, of which he was made governor briefly by the Duke: Don Quixote, ii.ch.36–45.

[q]MS traegedy

[r]Hand B’s correction of Hand A’s Zara (deleted)

[8 ]Edward Young’s tragedy of jealousy The Revenge was produced and published in 1721. Zanga is Don Alonzo’s Moorish captive, taking revenge on his conqueror for his humiliation.

[s]Hand B’s correction of Hand A’s him (deleted)

[t]the v.91 notes end with the catchwords We observed Sc and are continued on 92

[u]MS riducule

[v]MS Rudiculousness

[w]may be are that which chiefly engage us, togeth deleted

[9 ]Thomas Otway’s tragedies: The Orphan; or the unhappy marriage (1680), Venice Preserv’d: or a plot discover’d (1682). On The Orphan: TMS I.ii.2.3, II.iii.3.5.

[x]blank of six letters in MS

[10 ]‘Homer has excelled all the heroic Poets that ever wrote, in the Multitude and Variety of his Characters’; ‘. . . but also in the Novelty of his Characters’ (Spectator, 273, 12 Jan. 1712). Addison goes on to praise Milton for introducing all the variety of characterization his poem was capable of. His two human persons represent in fact ‘four distinct Characters’; and Spectator 309 (23 Feb. 1712) illustrates the points made by examining the characters of the fallen angels in Paradise Lost in all their diversity. Addison claims to be elaborating an Aristotelian principle, but Aristotle had in mind ‘manners’ or mores rather than personalities.

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[c]replaces Perfections

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[f]replaces passion

[11 ]Nicolas Poussin: Lettres et propos sur l’art, ed. Anthony Blunt (1964).

[12 ]Smith often expressed his admiration of Gray: see TMS III.2.19 (‘the first poet in the English language’ if only he had ‘written a little more’), III.3.15; EPS 225 n.20, and ii.121 n.10 below. In his life of Gray (final paragraph) Johnson, who disliked Gray’s Odes, pays to the Elegy in a Country Churchyard a tribute similar to Smith’s here: ‘The Church–yard abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo’. Smith uses the word elegy in the special sense it had acquired since the publication in 1743 of James Hammond’s Love elegies, written in the year 1732. Hammond’s ‘measure’, four–line stanzas of alternately rhyming iambic pentameters, was widely imitated (especially in the circle of Shenstone and Richard Jago) in reflective or ‘moral’ elegies, the genre to which Gray’s (written ?1746, published 1751 with immediate success) belongs.

[13 ]A Pastoral Ballad by William Shenstone, earlier entitled Recollection, or the Shepherd’s Garland, first appeared anonymously as an eight–stanza imitation of Nicholas Rowe’s ‘Colin’s Complaint, or the Despairing Shepherd’ (written to the tune of ‘Grim King of the Ghosts’), in the London Magazine, Dec. 1751, 565. Written in 1743 and much revised, with a fourth section varying in successive versions from hopeful to despondent, it appeared in Dodsley’s Collection of Poems iv.348 (1755), where Smith would read it. Shenstone was attracted by Rowe’s stanza–form: anapaestic trimeters rhyming ababcdcd; that poem was said to be about Addison and the Countess of Warwick. See The Letters of William Shenstone, ed. M. Williams (1939), 74, 79, 87, 300, 421–2, 444, 633.

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