Doing annoyance to the treach'rous feet, And, when they from thy bofom pluck a flower, Richard II. at 3. fc. 2. be. After a long voyage it was cuftomary among the ancients to falute the natal foil. A long voyage ing of old a greater enterprise than at prefent, the fafe return to one's country after much fatigue and danger, was a delightful circumftance; and it was natural to give the natal foil a temporary life, in order to fympathife with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Efchilus, act 3. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place one has been accustomed to, has the fame effect.* Terror produceth the fame effect: it is communicated in thought to every thing around, even to things inanimate : Speaking of Polyphemus, Clamorem immenfum tollit, quo pontus et omnes Italie. Eneid. iii. 672. As when old Ocean roars, And heaves huge furges to the trembling fhores. Philoctetes of Sophocles, at the close. Iliad ii. 249. * Go, Go, view the fettling fea. The ftormy wind is laid; but the billows ftill tremble on the deep, and seem to tear the blast. Fingal. Racine, in the tragedy of Phedra, defcribing the feamonster that destroyed Hippolytus, conceives the fea itself to be ftruck with terror as well as the fpecta tors: Le flot qui l'apporta recule epouvanté. A man alfo naturally communicates his joy to all objects around, animate or inanimate : As when to them who fail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Of Arabia the Bleft; with fuch delay Well pleas'd, they flack their courfe, and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful fmell old Ocean fiiles. Paradije Loft, b. 4. I have been profufe of examples, to fhow what power many paffions have to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the perfonification, if I mistake not, is fo complete as to afford, conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident from numberlefs inftances, that perfonification is not always fo complete: it is a common figure in defcriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of the perfons he defcribes in this cafe, it feldom or never comes up to conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the following examples. First in his east the glorious lamp was feen, Invested Invefted with bright rays; jocund to run His longitude through heav'n's high road: the gray Shedding fweet influence. Lefs bright the moon, His mirror, with full face borrowing her light. Paradije Loft, b. 7. 1. 370.* Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Romeo and Juliet, a&t 3. fc. 7. But look, the morn, in ruffet mantle clad, Hamlet, act 1. f. 1. It may, I prefume, be taken for granted, that, in the foregoing inftances, the perfonification, either with the poet or his reader, amounts not to a conviction of intelligence that the fun, the moon, the day, the morn, are not here understood to be fenfible beings. What then is the nature of this perfonification? I think it must be referred to the imagination: the inanimate object is imagined to be a fenfible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it really is fo. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raise emotions in the mind;† and when any thing inanimate is, in imagination, fuppofed to be a fenfible being, it makes by that means a greater fig. ure than when an idea is formed of it according to truth. *The chastity of the English language, which in common ufage diftinguishes by genders no words but what fignify beings male and female, gives thus a fine opportunity for the profopopia; a beauty unknown in other languages, where every word is mafculine or feminine. + See Appendix, containing définitions and explanations of terms, § 28. truth. This fort of perfonification, however, is far inferior to the other in elevation. Thus perfonification is of two kinds. The firft, being more noble, may be termed paffionate perfonification: the other, more humble, defcriptive perfonification; because feldom or never is perfonification in a description carried to conviction. The imagination is fo lively and active, that its images are raised with very little effort; and this juftifies the frequent ufe of defcriptive perfonification. This figure abounds in Milton's Allegro, and Penferofo. Abstract and general terms, as well as particular objects, are often neceffary in Poetry. Such terms however are not well adapted to poetry, because they fuggeft not any image: I can readily form an image of Alexander or Achilles in wrath; but I cannot form an image of wrath in the abftract, or of wrath independent of a perfon. Upon that account, in works addreffed to the imagination, abftract terms are frequently perfonified; but fuch perfonification refts upon imagination merely, not upon conviction. Sed mihi vel Tellus optem prius ima dehifcat; Eneid. iv. 1. 24. Thus, to explain the effects of flander, it is imagined to be a voluntary agent. No, 'tis Slander; Whole edge is fharper than the fword: whofe tongue Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whofe breath Rides on the polting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world, kings, queens, and flates, Maids,. Maids, matrons: nay, the fecrets of the grave Shakespear, Cymbeline, act 3. fc. 4. As alfo human paffions: take the following ex ample. Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice For Pleafure and Revenge • Of any true decifion. Troilus and Creffida, a&t 2. Sc. 4. Virgil explains fame and its effects by a still greater variety of action.* And Shakespear perfonifies death and its operations in a manner fingularly fanciful: Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Bores through his cattle-walls, and farewell king. Not lefs fuccefsfully is life and action given even to fleep : King Henry. How many thousands of my pooreft fubjects Are at this hour aflcep! O gentle Sleep, Nature's foft nurfe, how have I frighted thee, Why rather Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, * Æneid iv. 173. Upon |