eye

K. John. Do not I know thou would'st?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine
On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend;
He is a very ferpent in my way;

And, wherefoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me. Doft thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.

King John, act 3. fc. 5.

As things are beft illuftrated by their contraries, I proceed to collect from claffical authors, fentiments that appear faulty. The firft clafs fhall confift of fentiments that accord not with the paffion; or, in other words, fentiments that the paffion reprefented does not naturally fuggeft. In the fecond class, fhall be ranged fentiments that may belong to an ordinary paffion, but unfuitable to it as tinctured by a fingular character. Thoughts that properly are not fentiments, but rather defcriptions, make a third. Sentiments that belong to the paffion reprefented, but are faulty as being introduced too early or too late, make a fourth. Vicious fentiments exposed in their native dress, instead of being concealed or disguised, make a fifth. And in the last clafs, fhall be collected fentiments fuited to no character or paffion, and therefore unnatural.

The first class contains faulty fentiments of various kinds, which I fhall endeavour to distinguish from each other. And firft fentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the paffion.

Othello.

Ο

Q my foul's joy! If after every tempeft come fuch calms,

May the winds blow till they have waken'd death: And let the labouring bark climb hills of feas

Olympus high, and duck again as low

As hell's from heaven!

Othello, act 2. fc. 6.

Ch. XVI. This fentiment is too ftrong to be fuggested by fo flight a joy as that of meeting after a storm at sea. Philafter. Place me, fome god, upon a pyramid Higher than hills of earth, and lend a voice Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence I may difcourfe to all the under world The worth that dwells in him.

Philafter of Beaumont and Fletcher, að 4.

Secondly, Sentiments below the tone of the paffion. Ptolemy, by putting Pompey to death, having incurred the difpleasure of Cæfar, was in the utmost dread of being dethroned. In this agitating fituation, Corneille makes him utter a fpeech full of cool reflection, that is in no degree expreffive of the paffion.

Ah! fi je t'avois crû, je n'aurois pas de maître,
Je ferois dans le trône où le Ciel m'a fait naître ;
Mais c'eft une imprudence affez commune aux rois,
D'ecouter trop d'avis, et fe tromper au choix.
Le Deftin les aveugle au bord du précipice,
Ou fi quelque lumiere en leur ame fe gliffe,
Cette fauffe clarté dont il les eblouit,
Le plonge dans une gouffre, et puis s'evanouit.
La mort de Pompée, act 4. fc. 1.

In Les Freres ennemies of Racine, the fecond act is opened with a love-fcene. Hemon talks to his miftress of the torments of abfence, of the luftre of her eyes, that he ought to die no where but at her feet, and that one moment of abfence was a thoufand years. Antigone on her part acts the coquette, and pretends she must be gone to wait on her mother and brother, and cannot ftay to liften to his. courtship. This is odious French gallantry, below the dignity of the paffion of love. It would fcarce be excufable in painting modern French

manners;

manners; and is infufferable where the ancients are brought upon the stage. The manners painted in the Alexandre of the fame author are not more just. French gallantry prevails there throughout.

Third. Sentiments that agree not with the tone of the paffion; as where a pleasant fentiment is grafted upon a painful paffion, or the contrary. In the following inftances the fentiments are too gay for a ferious paffion.

No happier task thefe faded eyes purfue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.

Again,

Eloifa to Abelard, l. 47.

Heav'n first taught letters for fome wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or fome captive maid;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love infpires,
Warm from the foul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excufe the blufh, and pour out all the heart;
Speed the foft intercourfe from foul to foul,
And waft a figh from Indus to the pole.

Eloifa to Abelard, l. 51.

These thoughts are pretty; they fuit Pope extremely, but not Eloifa.

Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus:

Then when I am thy captive talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub; but ere then
Far heavier load thyfelf expect to feel

From my prevailing arm, though Heaven's King
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us'd to the yoke, draw'ft his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of heav'n star-pav'd.
Paradife Loft, book 4.

The

The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage.

Fourth. Sentiments too artificial for a serious paffion. I give for the first example a speech of Piercy expiring:

O, Harry, thou haft robb'd me of my growth:
I better brook the lofs of brittle life,

Than those proud titles thou haft won of me;
They wound my thoughts, worse than thy fword
my flesh.

But thought's the flave of life, and life time's fool;
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.

First part, Henry IV. act 5. fc. 9.

Livy inferts the following paffage in a plaintive oration of the Locrenfes accufing Pleminius the Roman legate of oppreffion.

"In hoc legato veftro, nec hominis quicquam eft, "Patres Confcripti, præter figuram et fpeciem; "neque Romani civis, præter habitum veftitum

que, et fonum linguæ Latinæ. Peftis et bellua "immanis, quales fretum, quondam, quo ab Si"cilia dividimur, ad perniciem navigantium cir66 cumsedisse, fabulæ ferunt *."

Congreve shows a fine taste in the fentiments of the Mourning Bride. But in the following paffage the picture is too artful to be fuggested by severe grief:

Almeria. O no! Time gives increase to my

flictions.

The circling hours, that gather all the woes
Which are diffus'd through the revolving year,
Come heavy-laden with th' oppreffing weight
To me; with me, fucceffively, they leave

* Titus Livius, I. 29. § 17.

af

The

1

The fighs, the tears, the groans, the restlefs cares,
And all the damps of grief, that did retard their flight,
They shake their downy wings, and scatter all
The dire collected dews on my poor head 1;
Then fly with joy and swiftness from me.
Act 1. fc. I.

In the fame play, Almeria feeing a dead body, which he took to be Alphonfo's, expreffes fentiment strained and artificial, which nature fuggefts not to any perfon upon fuch an occasion:

Had they, or hearts, or eyes, that did this deed?
Could eyes endure to guide fuch cruel hands?
Are not my eyes guilty alike with theirs,
That thus can gaze, and yet not turn to stone?
-I do not weep! The fprings of tears are dry'd,
And of a fudden I am calm, as if

All things were well; and yet my husband's mur

der'd!

Yes, yes, I know to mourn! I'll fluice this heart, To fource of woe, and let the torrent loofe.

Act 5. fc. 11.

Lady Trueman. How could you be so cruel to defer giving me that joy which you knew 1 must receive from your prefence? You have robb'd my life of fome hours of happiness that ought to have been in it.

Drummer, at 5.

Pope's Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expreffes delicately the moft tender concern and forrow for the deplorable fate of a perfon of worth. A poem of this kind, deeply ferious and pathetic, rejects all fiction with difdain. We therefore can give no quarter to the following paffage, which is eminently difcordant with the fubject. It is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease. It

would