So weeping, fmiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.

Feed not thy fovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy fweets comfort his rav'nous fenfe
But let thy fpiders that fuck up thy venom,
And heavy gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treach'rous feet,
Which with ufurping steps do trample thee.
Yield ftinging nettles to mine enemies;
And, when they from thy bofom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pr'ythee with a lurking adder;
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy fovereign's enemies.
Mock not my fenfelefs conjuration, Lords:
This earth shall have a feeling; and these stones
Prove armed foldiers, ere her native king
Shall faulter under foul rebellious arms.

Richard II. act 3. fc. 2.

Among the ancients, it was customary, after a long voyage, to falute the natal foil. A long voyage being of old a greater enterprise than at prefent, the fafe return to one's country after much fatigue and danger, was a circumstance extremely delightful; and it was natural to give the natal foil a temporary life, in order to fympathife with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Eschilus, act 3. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place one has been accutomed to, has the fame effect *.

Terror produceth the fame effect: it is com-
Philoctetes of Sophocles, at the clofe.

municated

municated in thought to every thing around, e

ven to things inanimate :

Speaking of Polyphemus,

Clamorem immenfum tollit, quo pontus et omnes
Intremuere undæ, penitufque exterrita tellus

Italiæ.

As when old Ocean roars,

Eneid. iii. 672.

And heaves huge furges to the trembling shores.

Iliad, ii. 249.

And thund'ring footsteps bake the founding fhore.

Iliad, ii. 549.

Then with a voice that book the vaulted skies.

Iliad, v. 431.

Go, view the settling fea. The ftormy wind is laid; but the billows ftill tremble on the deep, and seem to fear the blaft.

Fingal.

Racine, in the tragedy of Phedra, defcribing the fea-monfter that deftroy'd Hippolytus, conceives the fea itself to be ftruck with terror as well as the fpectators; or, to speak more accurately, transfers the terror of the fpectators to the fea, with which they were connected :

A man alfo naturally communicates his joy to all objects around, animate or inanimate :

As when to them who fail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are paft
Mozambic, off at fea north-east winds blow
Sabean odour from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Bleft; with fuch delay

Well pleas'd, they flack their courfe, and many a league Chear'd with the grateful fmell old Ocean fmiles. Paradife Loft, b. 4.

I have been profufe of examples, to show what power many paffions have to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the perfonification, if I miftake not, is fo complete as to afford an actual conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident from numberless inftances, that perfonification is not always fo complete it is a common figure in defcriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of the perfons he defcribes in this cafe, it feldom or never comes up to a conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the following examples.

First in his east the glorious lamp was feen,
Regent of day, and all th' horizon round
Invested with bright rays; jocund to run

His longitude through heav'n's high road: the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danc'd,
Shedding fweet influence. Lefs bright the moon
But oppofite, in levell'd weft was fet

His mirror, with full face borrowing her light

1

From

From him; for other light be needed none.

Paradife Loft, b. 7. 1, 370.*

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.

Romeo and Juliet, act 3. Sc. 7.,

But look, the morn, in ruffet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Hamlet, at 1. fc. 1.

It may, I prefume, be taken for granted, that, in the foregoing inftances, the perfonification, either with the poet or his reader, amounts not to a conviction of intelligence; nor that the fun, the moon, the day, the morn, are here underftood to be fenfible beings. What then is the nature of this perfonification? Upon confidering the matter attentively, I difcover that this fpecies of perfonification must be referred to the imagination the inanimate object is imagined to be a sensible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it really is fo. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raife emotions in the mind *; .and when any

The chastity of the English language, which in common u. fage diftinguishes by genders no words but what fignify beings male and female, gives thus a fine opportunity for the profopo poeia; a beauty unknown in other languages, where every word is mafculine or feminine.

$28.

See appendix, containing definitions and explanation of terms,

thing inanimate is, in imagination, fuppofed to be a fenfible being, it makes by that means a greater figure than when an idea is formed of it according to truth. The elevation, however, in this cafe, is far from being fo great, as when the perfonification amounts to an actual conviction. Thus perfonification is of two kinds. The firft, or nobler, may be termed passionate personification: the other, or more humble, descriptive perfonification; because feldom or never is perfonification in a defcription carried the length of conviction.

The imagination is fo lively and active, that its images are raised with very little effort; and this juftifies the frequent ufe of defcriptive perfonification. This figure abounds in Milton's

Allegro and Penferofo.

Abstract and general terms, as well as particular objects, are often neceffary in poetry, Such terms however are not well adapted to poetry, because they fuggeft not any image to the mind: I can readily form an image of Alexander or Achilles in wrath; but I cannot form an image of wrath in the abstract, or of wrath independent of a perfon. Upon that account, in works addreffed to the imagination, abstract terms are frequently perfonified: but this perfonification refts upon the imagination merely, not upon conviction:

Sed