prompting violence and mischief, are noted by the most conspicuous external signs, in order to put us upon our guard: thus anger and revenge, especially when sudden, display themselves on the countenance in legible characters. The external signs again of every passion that threatens danger, raise in us the passion of fear; which frequently operating without reason or reflection, moves us, by a sudden impulse, to avoid the impending danger. These external signs are subservient to morality, and this beautiful contrivance makes us cling to the virtuous, and abhor the wicked. Finally, the external signs of passion are a strong indication, that man is, by his very constitution, framed to be open and sincere. Nature herself, candid and sincere, intends that mankind should preserve the same character, by cultivating simplicity and truth, and banishing every sort of dissimulation that tends to mischief.

REVIEW.

What is the effect of the intimate connexion of soul and body? How are the external signs of passion divided?—the voluntary signs?

Are words all arbitrary?

What are the other voluntary signs?

Give examples.

How are the hands used in expressing passions?

What did the ancients teach?

How are the involuntary signs of passions distinguished?

How do pleasant passions express themselves?

How do painful ones?

What is the effect of the external signs of bad passions?

What do they prove with respect to the intentions of Nature?

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.

Each passion has a certain tone, to which every sentiment proceeding from it, ought to be tuned with the greatest accuracy. To awaken passion, a writer must be something more than an eye-witness of what he describes.

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 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 Shakspeare, 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.

To set this matter in the clearest light, I shall add

example to precept. The first examples shall be of sentiments that appear the legitimate offspring of pas sion; to which shall be opposed what are descriptive only, and illegitimate: and in making this comparison, I borrow my instances chiefly from Shakspeare, who for genius in dramatic composition stands uppermost in the rolls of fame.

Sentiments dictated by a violent and perturbed pas

sion:

Lear.

Filial ingratitude!
Is it not, as if this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to 't?-But I will punish home;
No, I will weep no more.- -In such a night
-Pour on, I will endure.

To shut me out!

In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
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
Fron 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 III. Sc. 4.

Sentiments arising from remorse and despair:

Othello. Behold! I have a weapon:

A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh. I've seen the day,
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 control 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 utmost 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? O ill starr'd wench!
***** When we shall meet at compt,

This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it.

OTHELLO.-ACT V. Sc. 2.

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

In the tragedy of Cinna, Æmilia, after the 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. These passions, raised at once to the utmost pitch, and being at first too big for utterance, must, for some moments, be expressed by violent gestures only 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. Æmilia is made to behave in a very different manner: with extreme coolness she describes her own situation, as if she were merely a spectator, or rather the poet that takes the task off her hands.

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

So much in general upon the genuine sentiments of passion. I proceed to particular observations. Passions seldom continue uniform any considerable time: they generally fluctuate, swelling and subsiding in a quick succession; and the sentiments cannot be just unless they correspond to such fluctuation. Accordingly, climax never shows better than in expressing a swelling passion: thus

Almeria.

OROONOKO.-ACT II. Sc. 2.

How hast thou charm'd
The wildness of the waves and rocks to this?
That thus relenting they have giv'n thee back
To earth, to light and life, to love and me?

MOURNING BRIDE.--ACT I. Sc. 7.

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

MACBETH. ACT IV. Sc. 3.

The following passage expresses finely the progress

of conviction:

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

MOURNING BRIDE.-ACT II. Sc. 6.

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

If ever I do yield or give consent,

By any action, word, or thought, to wed

Another lord, may then just heav'n shower down, &c.

MOURNING BRIDE.-ACT I. Sc. 1.

The different stages of a passion, and its different directions, from birth to extinction, must be carefully represented in their order; because otherwise the sentiments, by being misplaced, will appear forced and unnatural. Resentment, 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 thinks 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.

K