vened imagination, cannot be the language of anguish or diftrefs. Otway, fenfible of this, has painted a scene of diftrefs in colours finely adapted to the fubject: there is fcarce a figure in it, except a fhort and natural finiile with which the fpeech is introduced. Belvidera talking to her father of her husband:

Think you faw what past at our last parting;
Think you beheld him like a raging lion,',
Pacing the earth, and tearing up his fteps,
Fate in his eyes, and roaring with the pain
Of burning fury; think you faw his one hand
Fix'd on my throat, while the extended other
Grafp'd a keen threat'ning dagger; oh, 'twas thus
We laft embrac'd, when, trembling with revenge,
He dragg'd me to the ground, and at my bofom
Presented horrid death: cry'd out, My friends!
Where are my friends? fwore, wept, rag'd, threa-
ten'd, lov'd;

For he yet lov'd, and that dear love preserv'd me
To this laft trial of a father's pity.

I fear not death, but cannot bear a thought
That that dear hand fhould do th' unfriendly office;
If I was ever then your care, now hear me;
Fly to the fenate, fave the promis'd lives
Of his dear friends, ere mine be made the facrifice.
Venice Preferv'd, A&t v.

To preferve the forefaid refemblance between words and their meaning, the fentiments of active and hurrying paffions ought to be dressed in words where fyllables prevail that are pronoun

ced

ced short or faft; for these make an impreffion of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that reft upon their objects, are best expreffed by words where fyllables prevail that are pronounced long or flow. A perfon affected with melancholy has a languid and flow train of perceptions: the expreffion beft fuited to that state of mind, is where words, not only of long but of many fyllables, abound in the compofition; and, for that reafon, nothing can be finer than the following paffage.

In those deep folitudes, and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-penfive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-mufing Melancholy reigns.

Pope, Eloifa to Abelard.

To preserve the fame refemblance, another circumftance is requifite, that the language, like the emotion, be rough or fmooth, broken or uniform. Calm and fweet emotions are beft expreffed by words that glide foftly: furprise, fear, and other turbulent paffions, require an expreffion both rough and broken.

It cannot have efcaped any diligent inquirer into nature, that, in the hurry of paffion, one generally expreffes that thing firft which is most at heart which is beautifully done in the following paffage.

* Demetrius Phalereus (of Elocution, fect. 28.) juftly obferves,

Me, me; adfum qui feci: in me convertite ferrum, O Rutuli, mea fraus omnis.

Eneid ix. 427.

Paffion has often the effect of redoubling words, the better to make them exprefs the ftrong conception of the mind. This is finely imitated in the following examples.

-Thou fun, faid I, fair light!

And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay!
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains!
And ye that live, and move, fair creatures! tell,
Tell if ye faw, how came I thus, how here-

Paradife Loft, book viii. 273.

-Both have finn'd! but thou

Against God only; I, 'gainst God and thee:
And to the place of judgment will return.
There with my cries importune Heaven, that all
The fentence, from thy head remov'd, may light
On me, fole caufe to thee of all this wo;

Me! Me! only juft object of his ire.

Paradife Loft, book x. 930.

Shakespeare is fuperior to all other writers in delineating paffion. It is difficult to say in what

part

obferves, that an accurate adjustment of the words to the thought, fo as to make them correfpond in every particular, is only proper for fedate fubjects; for that paffion speaks plain, and rejects all refinements.

part he most excels, whether in moulding every paffion to peculiarity of character, in discovering the fentiments that proceed from various tones of paffion, or in expreffing properly every different fentiment: he disgufts not his reader with general declamation and unmeaning words, too common in other writers: his fentiments are adjusted to the peculiar character and circumftances of the speaker: and the propriety is no lefs perfect between his fentiments and his diction. That this is no exaggeration, will be evident to every one of taste, upon comparing Shakespeare with other writers in fimilar paffages. If upon any occafion he fall below himfelf, it is in those scenes where paffion enters not by endeavouring in that cafe to raise his dialogue above the ftyle of ordinary converfation, he fometimes deviates into intricate thought and obfcure expreffion*: fometimes, to throw Ii3

* Of this take the following specimen :

They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our ambition; and, indeed it takes

his

From our atchievements, though perform'd at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute.

So, oft it chances in particular men,

That for fome vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,
Since Nature cannot choose his origin,)

By the o'ergrowth of fome complexion

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reafon ;

Or

his language out of the familiar, he employs rhyme. But may it not in fome measure excufe Shakespeare, I fhall not say his works, that he had no pattern, in his own or in any living language, of dialogue fitted for the theatre? At the fame time, it ought not to escape obfervation, that the ftream clears in its progress, and that in his later plays he has attained the purity and perfection of dialogue; an obfervation that, with greater certainty than tradition, will direct us to arrange his plays in the order of time. This ought to be confidered by thofe who rigidly exaggerate every blemish of the finest genius for the drama ever the world enjoyed: they ought alfo for their own fake to confider, that it is easier to discover his blemishes, which lie generally at the furface, than his beauties, which cannot be truly relished but by those who dive deep into human nature. One thing must be evident to the meaneft capacity, that wherever paffion is to be difplayed, Nature fhews itself mighty in him, and is confpicuous

by

Or by fome habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plaufive manners; that these men
Carrying, I fay, the stamp of one defect,
(Being Nature's livery, or Fortune's fcar,)
Their virtues elfe, be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,

Shall in the general cenfure take corruption
From that particular fault.

Hamlet, A 1. Sc. 7.