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feelings; and the discord is not less when elevated sentiments are dressed in low words.

This however excludes not figurative expression, which communicates to the sentiment an agreeable elevation. We are sensible of an effect directly opposite, where figurative expression is indulged beyond a just measure: the opposition between the expression and the sentiment, makes the discord appear greater than it is in reality. At the same time, figures are not equally the language of every passion: pleasant emotions elevate the mind, and vent themselves in figurative expressions; but humbling and dispiriting passions speak plain.

Figurative expressions, the work of an enlivened imagination, cannot be the language of anguish or distress.

To preserve the aforesaid resemblance between words and their meaning, the sentiments of active passions ought to be dressed in words where syllables prevail that are pronounced short or fast: for these make an impression of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that rest upon their objects, are best expressed by words where syllables prevail that are pronounced long or slow. A person affected with melancholy, has a languid train of perceptions: the expression best suited to that state of mind, is, where words, not only of long, but of many syllables, abound in the composition; and, for that reason, nothing can be finer than the following passage:

In those deep solitudes, and awful cells,

Where heavenly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns.

POPE. ELOISA TO ABELARD.

To preserve the same resemblance, another circumstance is requisite, that the language, like the emotion, be rough or smooth, broken or uniform. Calm and sweet emotions are best expressed by words that glide softly; surprise, fear, and other turbulent passions, require an expression both rough and broken. In the

hurry of passion, one generally expresses that thing first which is most at heart.

Passion has the effect of redoubling words, to make them express the strong conception of the mind. This is finely imitated in the following examples:

Thou sun, said I, fair light!

And thou, enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay!
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains!
And ye that live, and move, fair creatures! tell,
Tell, tell if ye saw, how came I thus, how here-

PARADISE LOST.-BOOK VIII. 273.

Both have sinn'd! but thou

Against God only; I, 'gainst God and thee;
And to the place of judgment will return,
There with my cries importune Heaven, that all
The sentence, from thy head remov'd, may light
On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe;
Me! me! only just object of his ire.

PARADISE LOST.-BOOK X. 930.

Shakspeare, superior to all other writers in delineating passion, excels most in moulding every passion to peculiarity of character, and in expressing properly every different sentiment; he disgusts not his reader with declamation and unmeaning words; his sentiments are adjusted to the character and circumstances of the speaker; and the propriety is no less perfect between his sentiments and his diction. If upon any occasion he fall below himself, it is in those scenes where passion enters not: by endeavoring to raise his dialogue above the style of ordinary conversation, he sometimes deviates into intricate thought and obscure expression; sometimes, to throw his language out of the familiar, he employs rhyme. But he had no pattern, in his own or in any living language, of dialogue fitted for the theatre. At the same time, the stream clears in its progress, and in his latter plays he has attained the purity and perfection of dialogue. One thing must be evident to the meanest capacity, that wherever passion is to be displayed, nature shows itself mighty in him, and is conspicuous by the most delicate propriety of sentiment and expression.

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That perfect harmony which ought to subsist among all the constituent parts of a dialogue, is a beauty no less rare than conspicuous. I shall therefore confine my quotations to the grosser errors, which every writer ought to avoid. And, first, of passion expressed in words flowing in an equal course without interruption. In the chapter above cited, Corneille is censured for the impropriety of his sentiments; and, here, for the sake of truth, I am obliged to attack him a second time. Were I to give instances from that author of the fault under consideration, I might transcribe whole tragedies; for he is no less faulty in this particular, than in passing upon us his own thoughts as a spectator, instead of the genuine sentiments of passion. Nor would a comparison between him and Shakspeare, upon the present article, redound more to his honor than the former upon the sentiments. Racine is here less incorrect than Corneille; and from him therefore I shall gather a few instances. The first shall be the description of the sea-monster in his Phædra, given by Theramene, the companion of Hippolytus. Theramene is represented in terrible agitation. Yet he gives a long, pompous, connected description of that event, dwelling upon every minute circumstance, as if he had been only a cool spectator.

The last speech of Atalide, in the tragedy of Bajazet, of the same author, is a continued discourse; and but a faint representation of the violent passion which forced her to put an end to her own life.

Corneille, however, is always sensible, generally correct, never falls low, maintains a moderate degree of dignity, without reaching the sublime, paints delicately the tender affections, but is a stranger to the genuine language of enthusiastic or fervid passion.

If, in general, the language of violent passion ought to be broken and interrupted, soliloquies ought to be so in a peculiar manner: language is intended by nature for society; and a man when alone, though he always clothes his thoughts in words, seldom gives his words

utterance, unless when prompted by some strong emotion; and even then by starts and intervals only. Shakspeare's soliloquies may be justly established as a model; for it is not easy to conceive any model more perfect.

.Corneille is not more happy in his soliloquies than in his dialogue. Take for a specimen the first scene of Cinna. Racine also is faulty in the same respect. His soliloquies are regular harangues, a chain completed in every link, without interruption or interval; that of Antiochus in Berenice* resembles a regular pleading, where the parties display their arguments at full length. The following soliloquies are equally faulty: Bajazet, Act III. Sc. 7; Mithridate, Act III. Sc. 4, and Act IV. Sc. 5; Iphigenia, Act IV. Sc. 8.

Soliloquies upon lively subjects, without any turbulence of passion, may be carried on in a continued chain of thought. If the sprightliness of the subject prompt a man to speak his thoughts in the form of a dialogue, the expression must be carried on without interruption, as in a dialogue between two persons; which justifies Falstaff's soliloquy upon honor:

What need I be so forward with Death, that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, Honor pricks me on. But how if Honor prick me off, when I come on? how then? Can Honor set a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is Honor? A word.-What is that word honor? Air: a trim reckoning.Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it: Honor is a mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism.

FIRT PART HENRY IV.-Acr V. Sc. 2.

Even without a dialogue, a continued discourse may be justified, where a man reasons in a soliloquy upon an important subject; for if in such a case it be excusable to think aloud, it is necessary that the reasoning be carried on in a chain; which justifies that ad

*Act I. Sc. 2.

mirable soliloquy in Hamlet upon life and immortality, being a serene meditation upon the most interesting of all subjects. And the same consideration will justify the soliloquy that introduces the 5th Act of Addison's Cato.

The next class of the grosser errors which all writers ought to avoid, shall be of language elevated above the tone of the sentiment; of which take the following instances:

Zara. Swift as occasion, I

Myself will fly; and earlier than the morn

Wake thee to freedom. Now 'tis late; and yet
Some news few minutes past arriv'd which seem'd
To shake the temper of the king. Who knows
What racking cares disease a monarch's bed?
Or love, that late at night still lights his lamp,
And strikes his rays through dusk, and folded lids,
Forbidding rest, may stretch his eyes awake,
And force their balls abroad at this dead hour.
I'll try.

MOURNING BRIDE.-ACT III. Sc. 4.

The language here is too pompous and labored for describing so simple a circumstance. Language too artificial or too figurative for the gravity, dignity, or importance, of the occasion, may be put in a third class.

Chimene demanding justice against Rodrigue who killed her father, instead of plain and pathetic expostulation, makes a speech stuffed with the most artificial flowers of rhetoric;-than which nothing can be contrived in language more averse to the tone of the passion: it is more apt to provoke laughter than to inspire concern or pity.

In a fourth class shall be given specimens of language too light or airy for a severe passion.

Imaginary and figurative expressions are discordant, in the highest degree, with the agony of a mother, who is deprived of two hopeful sons by a brutal murder. The following passage is in a bad taste.

Queen. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender babes!
My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!
If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,

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