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Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vifion? is this a dream? do I fleep? Mr Ford, awake; awake, Mr Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, Mr Ford! this 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the leacher; he is at my houfe; he cannot 'fcape me; 'tis impoffible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpennypurse, nor into a pepper-box. But left the devil that guides him should aid him, I will fearch impoffible places, though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame.

Merry Wives of Windsor, A& 111. Sc. laft.

Thefe foliloquies are accurate and bold copies of nature in a paffionate foliloquy one begins with thinking aloud; and the ftrongeft feelings only, are expreffed; as the fpeaker warms, he begins to imagine one liftening, and gradually flides into a connected difcourfe.

How far diftant are foliloquies generally from thefe models? So far, indeed, as to give disgust inftead of pleasure. The firft fcene of Iphigenia in Tauris difcovers that Princefs, in a foliloquy, gravely reporting to herself her own history. There is the fame impropriety in the first scene of Alceftes, and in the other introductions of Euripides, almoft without exception. Nothing can be more ridiculous: it puts one in mind of a moft curious device in Gothic paintings, that of making every figure explain itself by a written label iffuing from its mouth. The defcrip

tion

tion which a parafite, in the Eunuch of Terence *, gives of himself, makes a sprightly foliloquy : but it is not confiftent with the rules of propriety; for no man, in his ordinary state of mind, and upon a familiar fubject, ever thinks of talking aloud to himself. The fame objection lies against a foliloquy in the Adelphi of the fame author t. The foliloquy which makes the third fcene, act third, of his Heicyra, is infufferable; for there Pamphilus, foberly and circumftantially, relates to himself an adventure which had happened to him a moment before.

Corneille is not more happy in his foliloquies than in his dialogue. Take for a specimen the first scene of Cinna.

Racine alfo is extremely faulty in the fame refpect. His foliloquies are regular harangues, a chain completed in every link, without interruption or interval: that of Antiochus in Berenice resembles a regular pleading, where the parties pro and con difplay their arguments at full length. The following foliloquies are equally faulty: Bajazet, act 3. fc. 7.; Mithridate, act 3. and act 4. fc. 5.; Iphigenia, act 4. fc. 8.

fc. 4.

Soliloquies upon lively or interefting subjects, but without any turbulence of paffion, may be carried on in a continued chain of thought. If, for example, the nature and sprightliness of the fubject

* A& 2. Sc. 2 † A&1. Sc. I.

† Act 1. Sc. 2.

fubject prompt a man to speak his thoughts in the form of a dialogue, the expreffion must be carried on without break or interruption, as in a dialogue between two perfons; which juftifies Falstaff's foliloquy upon honour:

What need I be fo forward with Death, that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, Honour pricks me on. But how if Honour prick me off, when I come on? how then? Can Honour fet a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is Honour? A word.-What is that word bonour? Air; a trim reckoning.Who hath it? He that dy'd a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it infenfible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not fuffer it. Therefore I'll none of it; honour is a mere fcutcheon; and fo ends my catechism. Firft Part, Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 2.

And even without dialogue, a continued difcourfe may be juftified, where a man reafons in a foliloquy upon an important fubject; for if in fuch a cafe it be at all excufable to think aloud, it is neceffary that the reafoning be carried on in a chain; which juftifies that admirable foliloquy in Hamlet upon life and immortality, being a ferene meditation upon the most interesting of all fubjects. And the fame confideration will justify the foliloquy that introduces the 5th act of Addifon's Cato.

The

The next class of the groffer errors which all writers ought to avoid, fhall be of language elevated above the tone of the sentiment; of which take the following inftances:

Zara. Swift as occafion, I

Myfelf will fly; and earlier than the morn
Wake thee to freedom. Now 'tis late; and yet
Some news few minutes paft arriv'd, which feem'd
To shake the temper of the King.--Who knows
What racking cares disease a monarch's bed?
Or love, that late at night ftill lights his lamp,
And ftrikes his rays through dusk, and folded lids,
Forbidding reft, may ftretch his eyes awake,
And force their balls abroad at this dead hour,
I'll try.

Mourning Bride, A 111. Sc. 4.

The language here is undoubtedly too pompous and laboured for defcribing fo fimple a circumstance as abfence of fleep. In the following paffage, the tone of the language, warm and plaintive, is well fuited to the paffion, which is recent grief: but every one will be fenfible, that in the laft couplet fave one, the tone is changed, and the mind fuddenly elevated to be let fall as fuddenly in the last couplet :

Il déteft à jamais fa coupable victoire,

Il renonce à la cour, aux humains, à la gloire;
Et fe fuïant lui-même, au milieu des deferts,
Il va cacher fa peine aut bout de l'univers;

La

La, foit que le foleil rendît le jour au monde,
Soit qu'il finit fa course au vafte feine de l'onde,
Sa voix faifoit redire aux echos attendris,

Le nom, le trifte nom, de fon malheureux fils.
Henriade, chant. viii. 229.

Language too artificial or too figurative for the gravity, dignity, or importance, of the occafion, may be put in a third clafs.

Chimene demanding juftice against Rodrigue who killed her father, inftead of a plain and pathetic expoftulation, makes a speech ftuffed with the most artificial flowers of rhetoric:

Sire, mon pere eft mort, mes yeux ont vû son sang
Couler à gros bouillons de fon généreux flanc;
Ce fang qui tant de fois garantit vos murailles,
Ce fang qui tant de fois vous gagna des battailes,
Ce fang qui, tout forti, fume encore de courroux
De fe voir répandu pour d'autres que pour vous,
Qu'au milieu des hazards n'ofoit verfer la guerre,
Rodrigue en votre cour vient d'en couvrir la terre.
J'ai couru fur le lieu fans force, et fans couleur :
Je l'ai trouvé fans vie. Excufez ma douleur,
Sire; la voix me manque à ce recit funeste,

Mes pleurs et mes foupirs vous diront mieux le refte.

And again,

Son flanc étoit ouvert, et, pour mieux m'emouvoir, Son fang fur la pouffiere écrivoit mon devoir;

Ou

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