Figurative expreffion is the work of an enlivened imagination, and for that reason cannot be the language of anguish or distress. A scene of this kind is painted by Otway in colours finely adapted to the subject. There is scarce a figure in it, except a short and natural fimile with which the fpeech is introduced.

Belvidera talking to her father of her hufband:

Think you faw what pafs'd at our last parting;
Think you beheld him like a raging lion,
Pacing the earth, and tearing up
his steps,
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 last embrac❜d, when, trembling with revenge,
He dragg'd me to the ground, and at my bosom
Prefented horrid death; cry'd out, My friends,
Where are my friends? swore, wept, rag'd, threa-
ten'd, lov'd;

For he yet lov'd, and that dear love preferv'd me
To this last 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 ;
D d

VOL. II.

Fly

Fly to the fenate, fave the promis'd lives

Of his dear friends, ere mine be made the facrifice.

Venice preferv'd, alt 5.

resemblance betwixt

To preserve this words and their meaning, the sentiments of active and hurrying paffions ought to be dreffed in words where fyllables prevail that are pronounced fhort or faft; for these make an impreffion of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that reft upon their objects, are beft expreffed by words where fyllables prevail that are pronounced long or flow. A person affected with melancholy has a languid and flow train of perceptions. The expreffion beft suited to this state of mind, is where words not only of long but of many fyllables abound in the compofition. 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 preferve the fame resemblance, another

circumstance

circumstance is requifite, that the language conformable to 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 escaped any diligent inquirer into nature, that in the hurry of paffion, one generally expreffes that thing first which is most at heart. This is beautifully done in the following paffage.

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 express the ftrong conception of the mind. This is finely reprefented in the following examples:

-Thou fun, faid I, fair light!

And thou enlighten'd earth, fo fresh and gay! Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains! And ye that live, and move, fair creatures! tell

Г

Tell, if ye faw, how came I thus, how here.-
Paradife Loft, b. viii. 273.

Both have finn'd! but thou

Against God only; I, 'gainft God and thee:
And to the place of judgement will return.
There with my cries importune Heav'n; that all
The fentence, from thy head remov'd, may light
On me, fole cause to thee of all this woe;
Me! Me! only just object of his ire.

Paradife Loft, book x. 930.

Shakespear is fuperior to all other writers in delineating paffion. It is difficult to fay in what part he most excels, whether in moulding every paffion to peculiarity of character, in discovering the fentiments that proceed from various tones of passion, or in expreffing properly every different fentiment. He imposes not upon his reader, general declamation and the falfe coin of unmeaning words, which the bulk of writers deal in. His fentiments are adjusted, with the greateft propriety, to the peculiar character and circumstances of the speaker; and the propriety is not lefs perfect betwixt his fentiments and his diction. That this is no exaggeration,

aggeration, will be evident to every one of tafte, upon comparing Shakespear with other writers, in fimilar paffages. If upon any occafion he fall below himself, is in those scenes where paffion enters not. By endeavouring in this cafe to raise his dialogue above the style of ordinary conversation, he sometimes deviates into intricate thought and obfcure expreffion*. Sometimes, to

* Of this take the following fpecimen :

They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrafe
Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes

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 chufe his origin),
By the o'ergrowth of fome complexion
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
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 scar),
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, aft 1. fc. 7.

throw