the top of the tree, is a higher creature, than the generous horse that ftands grafing below? So that after all were I to fhew the reader inftances of the true fublime, I fhould make choice of fuch as thefe: Aude hofpes contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum Finge deo. Virg. Aen. VIII, 369. And in Milton. V, 350. "Mean while our primitive great fire, to meet "His godlike gueft, walks forth: without more "train "Accompanied than with his own compleat "Perfections; in himself was all his state: "More folemn than the tedious pomp that waits "On princes, when their rich retinue long "Of horses led, and grooms befmear'd with gold "Dazzles the crowd, and fets them all agape. 9. Kexors. Virg. Aen. VII, 813. ୨ Turbaque miratur matrum, et profpectat euntem, Servius, INHIANS, ftupore quodam in ore patefado. SECT. SECT. XII. UT to return. What manners are to the fable, fuch are fentiments to manners; and fentiments properly exprefs the manners. In the 'fentiments, truth, nature, probability, and likelihood, are entirely to be regarded. * Refpicere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo Doctum imitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces. Poetic truth, and likelihood, Horace means; fuch fentiments, as exhibit the truth of cha n 1. The perfons must not only have manners, but sentiments conformable to thofe manners. Now Sentiments Savoia, are the difcourfes by which men make known something, or difcover their opinions: diavolar de, in ocois Réfores ἀποδεικνύεσί τι, ἢ καὶ ἀποφαίνονται γνώμην. Ariftot. περὶ ποιητ. κεφ. 5. And prefently after, Διάνοια δὲ, ἐν οἷς ἀποδεικνύεσί τι ὡς ἐξῖν, ἢ ὡς ἐκ ἐςὶν, ἢ καθόλει τι ἀποφαίνονται. Again, Κεφ. ιθ. Ἔτι δὲ κατὰ τὴν διάνοιαν ταῦτα, [lege τοιαῦτα,] ὅσα ὑπὸ τὸ λόγε δεν παρασκευασθῆναι μέρη δὲ τέτων, τό,τε ἀποδεικνῦναι, καὶ τὸ λύειν, καὶ τὸ πάθη παρασκευάζειν· οἷον, ἔλεον, ἢ φόβον, ἡ ὀργὴν, καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, καὶ ἔτι μέρες θα σμικρότηλα. joμimpórala. Now all fuch things belong to fentiments, which are the proper apparatus of poetic discourse : their parts are to demonftrate, to folve, and to raise the paffions, as pity, fear, anger, and the like; and to encrcafe and diminish. 2. Hor. art. poet. 317. Dr. Bentley, not reflecting how to feparate hiftorical from poetical truth, has altered this paffage in his edition; he reads, racters, the nature and difpofitions of mankind. In this light Shakespeare is moft admirable. Can the ambitious, and jealous man have sentiments more expreffive of their manners, than what the poet gives to Macbeth and Othello? Mark Antony, as Plutarch informs us, affected the Afiatic manner of speaking, which much refembled his own temper, being ambitious, unequal, and very rodomontade. And 3 Cicero in his Brutus, mentioning the Afiatic manner, gives it the following character: Aliud autem genus eft non tam fententiis frequentatum, quàm verbis volucre, atque incitatum; qualis nunc eft Afia tota; nec flumine folum orationis, fed etiam exornato, et faceto genere verborum. This ftyle our poet has very artfully, and learnedly interfperfed in Antony's fpeeches. He thus addreffes Cleopatra, Let Rome in Tyber melt, and the wide arch And again, 5 The fhirt of Neffus is upon me; teach me Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage. 3. Cic. in Brut. five de claris orator. f. 95. & f. 13. Hinc Afiatici oratores non contemnendi quidem nec celeritate, nec copiâ, fed parum preffi, et nimis redundantes. 4. Antony and Cleop. Act I. 5. Ant. and Cleop. A&t IV. alluding to the story in Ovid, Met. IX, 217. Sophocles in Trachin. y. 790, &c. Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o'th’moon ; Nor with lefs art has Shakespeare expreffed the coquetry of the wanton Cleopatra. When he describes nature diftorted and depraved, as in = the characters of the Clown, the Courtier, the Fool, or Madman; how juftly conformable are the fentiments to the feveral characters? One would think it impoffible that Falstaff should talk otherwise, than Shakespeare has made him talk: and what not a little fhews the genius of our poet, he has kept up the spirit of his humour through three plays, one of which he wrote at the request of queen Elizabeth. For which reason, if 'tis true what Dryden tells us, fpeaking of Mercutio's character in Romeo and Juliet, that Shakespeare faid himself, he was forced to kill him in the third act, to prevent being killed by him it must be his diffidence and modesty that made him fay this; for it never could be thro' barrenness of invention, that Mercutio's sprightly wit was ended in the third act; but because there was no need of him, or his wit any longer. The variety of humour, exhibited in the feveral characters, deferves no lefs our ad 6 Dryden's defence of the epilogue: or an effay on the dramatic poetry of the last age. miration; and whenever he forms a different perfon, he forms a different kind of man. But when he exercises his creative art, and makes a 7 new creature, a bag-born whelp, not bonoured with a human shape; he gives him manners, as difproportion'd, as his fhape, and fentiments proper for fuch manners. If on the contrary nature is to be pictured in more beautiful colours; if the hero, the friend, the patriot, or prince appears, the thoughts and fentiments alone give an air of majesty to the poetry, without confidering even the lofty expreffions and fublimity of the diction. What can be more affecting and paffionate than king Lear? How does the ghoft in Hamlet raife and terrify the imagination of the audience? In a word, the fentiments are fo agreable to the characters, fo juft and natural, yet fo animated and tranfported, that one would think no other could be poffibly used, more proper to the ends he proposes, whether it be to approve or difapprove, to magnify or diminish, to ftir or to calm the paffions. Ut fibi quivis Speret idem; fudet multum, fruftraque laboret THE laft and loweft is the diction or expreffion, which should indeed be fuitable to 7. Caliban, in the Tempeft. the |