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dark and more delicate expreffions. Where then fhall we apply for a folution of this intricate problem, which feems to penetrate deep into human nature? In my mind it will be convenient to fufpend the inquiry, till we are better acquainted with the nature of external figns, and with their operations. These articles, therefore, fhall be premised.

The external figns of paffion are of two kinds, voluntary and involuntary. The voluntary figns are also of two kinds: fome are arbitrary, fome natural. Words are obviously voluntary figns: and they are also arbitrary; excepting a few fimple founds expreffive of certain internal emotions, which founds being the fame in all languages, must be the work of nature: thus the unpremeditated tones of admiration are the fame in all men; as alfo of compaffion, refentment, and defpair. Dramatic writers ought to be well acquainted with this natural language of paffion the chief talent of fuch a writer is a ready command of the expreffions that nature dictates to every perfon, when any vivid emotion ftruggles for utterance; and the chief talent of a fine reader is a ready command of tones fuited to thefe expreffions.

The other kind of voluntary figns comprehends certain attitudes or geftures that naturally accompany certain emotions with a furprising uniformity; exceffive joy is expreffed by leaping, dancing, or fome elevation of the body: exceffive grief, by finking

finking or depreffing it and proftration and kneeling have been employed by all nations, and in all ages, to fignify profound veneration. Another circumftance, ftill more than uniformity, demonstrates thefe geftures to be natural, viz. their remarkable conformity or resemblance to the paffions that produce them*. Joy, which is a chearful elevation of mind, is expreffed by an elevation of body: pride, magnanimity courage, and the whole tribe of elevating paffions, are expreffed by external geftures that are the fame as to the circumftance of elevation, however diftinguishable in other refpects; and hence an erect pofture is a fign, or expreffion of dignity :

Two of far nobler fhape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honour clad,
In naked majefty, seem'd lords of all.

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Paradife Loft, book 4. Grief, on the other hand, as well as refpect, which deprefs the mind, cannot, for that reason, be expreffed more fignificantly than by a fimilar depreffion of the body; and hence, to be caft down, is a common phrase, fignifying to be grieved or dispirited †.

* See Chap. 2. Part 6.

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+ Instead of a complimental speech in addreffing a fuperior, the Chinese deliver the compliment in writing, the fmallness of the letters being proportioned to the degree of refpect; and the highest compliment is,

to

One would not imagine who has not given peculiar attention, that the body should be fufceptibe of fuch variety of attitude and motion, as readily to accompany every different emotion with a corresponding expreffion. Humility, for example, is expreffed naturally by hanging the head; arrogance, by its elevation; and languor or despondence by reclining it to one fide. The expreffions of the hands are manifold: by different attitudes and motions, they exprefs, defire, hope, fear; they affift us in promifing, in inviting, in keeping one at a distance; they are made inftruments of threatening, of fupplication, of praise, and of horror; they are employed in approving, in refufing, in questioning; in fhowing our joy, our forrow, our doubts, our regret, our admiration. Thefe expreffions, fo obedient to paffion, are extremely difficult to be imitated in a calm ftate: the ancients, fenfible of the advantage as well as difficulty of having thefe expreffions at command, beftowed much time and care in collecting them from obfervation, and in digesting them into a practical art, which was taught in their schools as an important branch of education. Certain founds are

by

to make the letters fo fmall as not to be legible. Here is a clear evidence of a mental connection between respect and littleness: a man humbles himself before his fuperior; and endeavours to contract himself and his hand-writing within the smallest bounds.

by nature allotted to each paffion for expreffing it externally. The actor who has thefe founds at command to captivate the ear, is mighty: if he have also proper geftures at command to captivate the eye, he is irrefiftible.

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The foregoing figns, though in a strict sense voluntary, cannot however be restrained but with the utmost difficulty when prompted by paffion. We scarce need a ftronger proof than the geftures of a keen player at bowls: obferve only how he writhes his body, in order to reftore a ftray bowl to the right track. It is one article of good breeding, to fupprefs, as much as poffible, these external figns of paffion, that we may not in company appear too warm, or too interested. The fame obfervation holds in fpeech: a paffion, it is true, when in extreme, is filent * but when less violent it must be vented in words, which have a peculiar force not to be equalled in a fedate compofition. The ease and security we have in a confident, may encourage us to talk of ourselves and of our feelings: but the caufe is more general; for it operates when we are alone as well as in company. Paffion is the caufe; for in many inftances it is no flight gratification, to vent a paffion externally by words as well as by gestures. Some paffions, when at a certain height, impel us fo ftrongly to vent them in words, that we fpeak with an audible voice even when there is none to liften. It is

* See Chap. 17.

that

that circumftance in paffion which justifies foliloquies; and it is that circumftance which proves them to be natural *. The mind fometimes favours this impulse of paffion, by bestowing a temporary fenfibility upon any object at hand, in order to make it a confident. Thus in the Winter's Talet, Antigonus addreffes himself to an infant whom he was ordered to expofe; Come, poor babe,

I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits of the dead, May

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* Though a foliloquy in the perturbation of paffion is undoubtedly natural, and indeed not unfrequent in real life; yet Congreve, who himself has penned feveral good foliloquies, yields, with more candour than knowledge, that they are unnatural; and he only pretends to justify them from neceffity. This he does in his dedication of the Double Dealer, in the following words: "When a man in a foliloquy reasons with himself, and pro's and con's, and weighs all his de"figns; we ought not to imagine, that this man ei"ther talks to us, or to himself: he is only thinking, "and thinking (frequently) fuch matter as it were in"excufable folly in him to speak. But because we 66 are concealed fpectators of the plot in agitation, and "the poet finds it neceffary to let us know the whole "mystery of his contrivance, he is willing to inform "us of this perfon's thoughts; and to that end is forced "to make use of the expedient of fpeech, no other "better way being yet invented for the communica"tion of thought."

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