תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

Bow quickly down and your fubmiffion show;
I'm pleas'd to taste an empire ere I go.

[Dies.

Conqueft of Granada, Part 2. A&t v.

Ventidius. But you, ere love misled your wand'ring

eyes,

Were, fure, the chief and beft of human race,

Fram'd in the very pride and boaft of nature,

So perfect, that the gods who form'd you wonder'd
At their own skill, ani cry'd, A lucky hit

Has mended our defign.

Dryden, All for Love, A&t 1.

Not to talk of the impiety of this fentiment, it is ludicrous inftead of being lofty.

The famous epitaph on Raphael is no lefs abfurd than any of the foregoing paffages:

Raphael, timuit, quo fofpite, vinci

Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori.

Imitated by Pope in his Epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller :

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself might die.

Such is the force of imitation; for Pope of himfelf would never have been guilty of a thought fo extravagant.

So much upon fentiments; the language proper for expreffing them, comes next in order.

CHAP.

A

CHAP. XVII.

LANGUAGE OF PASSION.

MONG the particulars that compose the focial part of our nature, a propenfity to communicate our opinions, our emotions, and every thing that affects us, is remarkable. Bad fortune and injuftice affect us greatly; and of these we are so prone to complain, that if we have no friend nor acquaintance to take part in our fufferings, we fometimes utter our complaints aloud, even where there are none to liften.

But this propenfity operates not in every state of mind. A man immoderately grieved, feeks to afflict himself, rejecting all confolation: immoderate grief accordingly is mute: complaining is ftruggling for confolation.

It is the wretch's comfort still to have

Some small reserve of near and inward wo,

Some unfuspected hoard of inward grief,

Which they unfeen may wail, and weep, and mourn. And glutton-like alone devour.

Mourning Bride, Act 1. Sc. 1.

When grief fubfides, it then and no fooner finds a tongue we complain, because complaining is an effort to disburden the mind of its diftrefs *.

Surprise

This obfervation is finely illuftrated by a story which

Herodotus

Surprise and terror are filent paffions for a different reason they agitate the mind fo violently as for a time to fufpend the exercife of its faculties, and among others the faculty of speech.

Love and revenge, when immoderate, are not more loquacious than immoderate grief. But when these paffions become moderate, they fet the tongue free, and, like moderate grief, become loquacious: moderate love, when unfuccefsful,

Herodotus records, b. 3. Cambyfes, when he conquered Egypt, made Pfammenitus the King prisoner; and for trying his conftancy, ordered his daughter to be dreffed in the habit of a flave, and to be employed in bringing water from the river; his fon alfo was led to execution with a halter about his neck. The Egyptians vented their forrow in tears and lamentations; Pfammenitus only, with a downcaft eye, remained filent. Afterward meeting one of his companions, a man advanced in years, who, being plundered of all, was begging alms, he wept bitterly, calling him by his name. Cambyfes, ftruck with wonder, demanded an answer to the following queftion: "Pfammenitus, thy mafter, Cambyfes, is defirous "to know, why, after thou hadft seen thy daughter fo "ignominiously treated, and thy fon led to execution, "without exclaiming or weeping, thou fhould be fo "highly concerned for a poor man, no way related to "thee?" Pfammenitus returned the following answer: "Son of Cyrus, the calamities of my family are too great to leave me the power of weeping; but the miffortunes of a companion, reduced in his old age to "want of bread, is a fit subject for lamentation.”

[ocr errors]

fuccessful, is vented in complaints; when fuccessful, is full of joy expreffed by words and geftures.

As no paffion hath any long uninterrupted existence *, nor beats always with an equal pulse, the language fuggested by paffion is not only unequal, but frequently interrupted and even during an uninterrupted fit of paffion, we only exprefs in words the more capital fentiments. In familiar conversation, one who vents every fingle thought is juftly branded with the character of loquacity; because fenfible people exprefs no thoughts but what make fome figure in the fame manner, we are only disposed to express the strongest pulfes of paffion, especially when it returns with impetuofity after interruption.

I formerly had occaffion to observe †, that the fentiments ought to be tuned to the paffion, and the language to both. Elevated fentiments require elevated language: tender fentiments ought to be clothed in words that are foft and flowing when the mind is depreffed with any paffion, the fentiments must be expreffed in words that are humble, not low. Words being intimately connected with the ideas they reprefent, the greatest harmony is required between them: to exprefs, for example, an humble fentiment in high founding words, is disagreeable by a difcordant

See Chap. 2. Part 3.

+ Chap. 16.

difcordant mixture of feelings; and the difcord is not lefs when elevated fentiments are dreffed in low words:

Verfibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult.
Indignatur item privatis ac prope focco

Dignis carminibus narrari coena Thyeftæ.

Horace, Ars poet. 1. 89.

This however excludes not figurative expreffion, which, within moderate bounds, communicates to the fentiment an agreeable elevation. We are fenfible of an effect directly oppofite, where figurative expreffion is indulged beyond a juft measure the oppofition between the expreffion and the fentiment, makes the difcord appear greater than it is in reality *.

At the fame time, figures are not equally the language of every paffion: pleasant emotions, which elevate or fwell the mind, vent themselves in ftrong epithets and figurative expreffion; but humbling and difpiriting paffions affect to speak plain:

Et tragicus plerumque dolet fermone pedestri
Telephus et Peleus: cum pauper et exul uterque ;
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,

Si curat cor spectantis tetigiffe querela.

Horace, Ars poet. l. 95.

Figurative expreffion, being the work of an enli

VOL. I.

I i

vened

* See this explained more particularly in Chap. 8.

« הקודםהמשך »