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which the Iphigenia of Euripides is a proof. But a human facrifice, being altogether inconfiftent with modern manners as producing horror inftead of pity, cannot with any propriety be introduced upon a modern ftage. I must therefore condemn the Iphigenia of Racine, which, instead of the tender and fympathetic paffions, substitutes disguft and horror. Another objection occurs against every fable that deviates fo remarkably from improved notions and fentiments; which is, that if it fhould even command our belief by the authority of hiftory, it appears too fictitious and unnatural to produce a perception of reality: a human facrifice is fo unnatural, and to us fo improbable, that few will be affected with the reprefentation of it more than with a fairy tale. The objection firft mentioned strikes also against the Phedra of that author: the Queen's paffion for her stepfon, tranfgreffing the bounds of nature, creates averfion and horror rather than compaffion. The author in his preface obferves, that the Queen's paffion, however unnatural, was the effect of destiny and the wrath of the gods; and he puts the fame excufe in her own mouth. But what is the wrath of a heathen God to us Chriftians? we acknowledge no deftiny in paffion; and if love be unnatural, it never can be relifhed. A fuppofition like what our author lays hold of, Dd4 may

*See Chap. 2. Part 1. fect. 7.

may poffibly cover flight improprieties; but it will never engage our fympathy for what appears to us frantic or extravagant.

Neither can I relish the catastrophe of that tragedy. A man of taste may peruse, without difguft, a Grecian performance defcribing a feamonfter sent by Neptune to deftroy Hippolytus: he confiders, that fuch a ftory might agree with the religious creed of Greece, and may be pleased with the story, as what probably had a strong effect upon a Grecian audience. But he cannot have the fame indulgence for fuch a reprefentation upon a modern ftage; because no ftory that carries a violent air of fiction can ever move us in any confiderable degree.

In the Coepbores of Efchylus *, Oreftes is made to fay, that he was commanded by Apollo to avenge his father's murder; and yet if he obeyed, that he was to be delivered to the furies, or be ftruck with fome horrid malady: the tragedy accordingly concludes with a chorus, deploring the fate of Oreftes, obliged to take vengeance against a mother, and involved thereby in a crime againft his will. It is impoffible for any modern to bend his mind to opinions fo irrational and abfurd, which muft difguft him in perufing even a Grecian story. Again, among the Greeks, grofsly fuperftitious, it was a common opinion, that the report of a man's death was a prefage

• A₫ 2.

prefage of his death; and Oreftes, in the first act of Electra, spreading a report of his own death, in order to blind his mother and her adulterer, is even in that cafe affected with the presage. Such imbecility can never find grace with a modern audience: it may indeed produce fome compaffion for a people afflicted with abfurd terrors, fimilar to what is felt in perufing a description of the Hottentots; but fuch manners will not intereft our affections, nor attach us to the perfonages reprefented.

CHAP.

CHAP. XV.

EXTERNAL SIGNS OF EMOTIONS AND PASSIONS.

So in

O intimately connected are the foul and

body, that every agitation in the former produceth a visible effect upon the latter. There is, at the fame time, a wonderful uniformity in that operation; each clafs of emotions and paffions being invariably attended with an external appearance peculiar to itself *. Thefe external appearances or figns may not improperly be confidered as a natural language, expreffing to all beholders emotions and paffions as they arife in the heart. Hope, fear, joy, grief, are displayed externally: the character of a man can be read in his face; and beauty, which makes fo deep an impreffion, is known to refult, not so much from regular features and a fine complexion, as from good nature, good fenfe, fprightlinefs, fweetness, or other mental quality, expreffed upon the countenance. Though perfect skill in that language be rare, yet what is generally known is fufficient for the ordinary

* Omnis enim motus animi, fuum quemdam a natura habet vultum et fonum et geftum. Cicero, l. 3. De Oratore.

dinary purposes of life. But by what means we come to understand the language, is a point of fome intricacy: it cannot be by fight merely; for, upon the most attentive inspection of the human face, all that can be discerned, are figure, colour, and motion, which, fingly or combined, never can represent a paffion, nor a fentiment: the external fign is indeed visible; but to understand its meaning we must be able to connect it with the paffion that causes it, an operation far beyond the reach of eye-fight. Where, then, is the inftructor to be found that can unveil this fecret connection? If we apply to experience, it is yielded, that from long and diligent observation, we may gather, in fome measure, in what manner those we are acquainted with express their paffions externally: but with respect to ftrangers, we are left in the dark; and yet we are not puzzled about the meaning of these external expreffions in a ftranger, more than in a bofom-companion. Further, had we no other means but experience for underftanding the external figns of paffion, we could not expect any degree of skill in the bulk of individuals yet matters are fo much better ordered, that the external expreffions of paffion form a language understood by all, by the young as well as the old, by the ignorant as well as the learned: I talk of the plain and legible characters of that language: for undoubtedly we are much indebted to experience in deciphering the

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