are perfectly natural. To use them in his cool and quiet moments, when he has no great in terefts to profecute or extricate himself from, is directly against nature. For, in this ftate of things, he must seek them, if he will have them. And when he has got them, and made his best ufe of them, what do they produce? Not fubli mity, but bombaft. For it is not the figures, but the suitablenefs to the occafion, that produces either. Not that I am ignorant that there are vices in the formation of figures, as well as in their application. But these vices go under various other names. The pure fimple bombast (if I may be indulged fo bold a catachrefis) arises from putting figurative expreffion to an improper ufe. To give an inftance of what I mean. TACITUS Writes under one continued resent→ ment at the degeneracy of his times, and fpeaking of fome fumptuary laws proposed by the Senate, in 2 Ann. c. 33, he fays they decreed, Ne veftis ferica viros FOEDARET. This became the dignity of his hiftoric character and genius. But had his contemporary, Suetonius, who wrote Chronicles in the fpirit of our STOWE and HOLINGSHEAD, ufed the fame language, it would have fet his readers a laughing.

Not but figurative expreffion, even when suitable to the character, genius, and general fubVOL. I.

G

ject

ject of a writer, may ftill be misplaced. Thus, had Tacitus, fpeaking of the honours decreed to Tiberius on a certain occafion, faid with his tranflator Gordon-which of these he meant to accept or which to reject, the approaching issue of his days has BURIED in oblivion-the figure, the reader fees, would have been miferably out of place; the conceit of the burial of his intentions, on the mention of his death, being even ridiculous. But the ridicule, we may be fure, falls on the tranflator only, and not on his great original, who expreffes himself on this occafion not only with propriety, but with the greatest fimplicityquos omiferit receperitve IN INCERTO fuit ob propinquum vitæ finem. Ann. l. vi. c. 45.

I have brought these inftances to fhew that figurative expreffion is not improper, even in a fervent animated hiftorian, on a fit fubject, and in due place: much less should the tragic poet, when his characters are to be fhewn in the conflict of the ftronger paffions, be debarred the use of it.

The fhort of the matter is, in one word, this: Civil Society first of all tamés us to humanity, as Cicero expreffes it; and, in the courfe of its discipline, brings us down to one dead level. Its effect is to make us all the fame pliant, mimic, obfequious things; not unlike, in a word, (if

our pride could overlook the levity of the comparison) what we see of trained apes. But when the violent paffions arife (as in the case of these apes when the apples were thrown before them) this artificial difcipline is all fhaken off, and we return again to the free and ferocious ftate of nature. And what is the expreffion of that state? It is (as we understand by experience) a free and fiery expreffion, all made up of bold metaphors and daring figures of speech.

The conclufion is, that poetry, pure poetry, is the proper language of paffion, whether we chufe to confider it as ennobling, or debafing the human character.

There is, as I have faid, an obvious diftinction to be made (and to that the poet's rule, as explained in this note, refers) between the foft and tender, and the more vigorous paffions. When the former prevail, the mind is in a weak languid ftate; and though all allufion and ima-> gery be not improper here, yet as that fire and energy of the foul is wanting, which gives a facility of ranging over our ideas, and of feizing fuch as may be turned to any refemblance of our own condition, it will for that reafon be lefs frequent in this ftate of the mind than any other. Such imagery, too, will for the fame reafon be lefs ftriking, becaufe the fame languid affections lead to, and make us acquiefce in, a fimpler and

plainer expreffion. But univerfally in the ftronger paffions the poetical character prevails, and rifes only in proportion to the force and activity of those paffions.

To draw the whole then of what has been faid on this subject into a standing RULE for the obfervance of the dramatic poet.

"MAN is fo formed, that whether he be in "joy or grief; in confidence or despair; in er pleasure or pain; in profperity or distress; ìn "fecurity or danger; or torn and distracted by "all the various modifications of love, hate, "and fear: the imagination is inceffantly pre

fenting to the mind an infinite variety of 66 images or pictures, conformable to his fitua"tion and these pictures receive their various colouring from the habits, which his birth "and condition, his education, profeffion, and "pursuits, have induced. The reprefentation of "these is the POETRY, and a just representation, "in a great measure, the ART, of dramatic "writing."

95. ET TRAGICUS PLERUMQUE DOLET SERMONE PEDESTRI.] Dr. Bentley connects this with the following line:

[Et tragicus plerumque dolet fermone pedestri Telephus aut Peleus

for

for the fake, as he fays, of preferving the oppofation. In comoedia iratus Chremes tumido, in tragoedia Telephus pauper humili fermone utitur, This is fpecious; but, if the reader attends, he will perceive, that the oppofition is better preserved without his connection. For it will ftand thus: The poet firft afferts of comedy at large, that it fometimes raifes its voice,

Interdum tamen et vocem comoedia tollit.

Next, he confirms this general remark, by appealing to a particular inftance,

Iratufque Chremes tumido dilitigat ore,

Exactness of oppofition will require the fame method to be observed in speaking of tragedy; which accordingly is the cafe, if we follow the vulgar reading. For, firft, it is faid of tragedy, that, when grief is to be expressed, it generally condefcends to an humbler ftrain,

Et tragicus plerumque dolet fermone pedestri.

And then the general truth, as before, is illuftrated by a particular instance,

Telephus aut Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas, &c.

There is no abfurdity, as the Doctor pretends, in taking tragicus for tragœdiarum fcriptor. For the poet, by a common figure, is made to do that, which he reprefents his perfons, as doing.