in airs and attitudes; and declare themfelves in all the diverfities of human action. This is a new field for mimic genius to range in; a great and glorious one, and which affords the noblest and most interesting objects of imitation. For the external forms themselves are grateful to the fancy, and, as being expreffive of defign, warm and agitate the beart with paffion. Hence it is, that narrative poetry, which draws mankind under every apparent confequence and effect of paffion, inchants the mind. And even the dramatic, we know, is cool and lifeless, and lofes half its efficacy, without action. This, too, is the province of picture, ftatuary, and all arts, which inform by mute figns. Nay, the mute arts may be styled, almost without a figure, in this class of imitation, the moft eloquent. For what words can exprefs airs and attitudes, like the pencil? Or, when the genius of the artifts is equal, who can doubt of giving the preference to that representation, which, ftriking on the fight, grows almost into reality, and is hardly confidered by the inraptured thought, as fiction? When paf fion fion is to be made known by outward aɛt, Homer himself yields the palm to Raphael. But our business is with the poets. And, in reviewing this their largest and most favoured stock of materials, can we do better than contemplate them in the very order, in which we before difpofed the workings of the mind itself, the causes of these appearances? 1. To begin with the affections. They have their rife, as was observed, from the very conftitution of human nature, when placed in given circumftances, and acted upon by certain occurrences. The perceptions of these inward commotions are uniformly the fame, in all; and draw along with them the fame, or fimilar fentiments and reflexions. Hence the appeal is made to every one's own confcioufness, which declares the truth or falfhood of the imitation. When thefe commotions are produced and made objective to fenfe by visible figns, is obfervation a more fallible guide, than confciousness? Or, doth experience attest these figns to be lefs fimilar and uniform, than their occafions? By no means. Take a man under the impreffion of joy, fear, grief, or any any other of the ftronger affections, and fee, if a peculiar conformation of feature, fome certain ftretch of mufcle, or contortion of limb, will not neceffarily follow, as the clear and undoubted index of his condition. Our natural curiofity is ever awake and attentive to thefe changes. And poetry fets herself at work, with eagerness, to catch and tranfcribe their various appearances. No correfpondency of representa tion, then, needs furprize us; nor any the exacteft resemblance be thought ftrange, where the object is equally prefent to all perfons. For it must be remarked of the vifible effects of MIND, as, before, of the phaenomena of the material-world, that they are, fimply, the objects of observation. So that what was concluded of thefe, will hold alfo of the others; with this difference, that the effects of internal movements do not prefent themselves fo conftantly to the eye, nor with that uniformity of appearance, as permanent external existencies. We cannot furvey them at pleasure, but as occafion offers: and we, further, find them diverfi-. fied by the character, or difguifed, in fomet degree, by the artifice, of the perfons, in 2 whom whom we observe them. But all the confequence is, that, to fucceed in this work of painting the fignatures of internal affec tion, requires a larger experience, or quicker penetration, than copying after till life. Where the proper qualifications are poffeffed, and especially in defcribing the marks of vigorous affections, different writers cannot be fuppofed to vary more confiderably, in this province of imitation, than in the other. Our trouble, therefore, on this head, may seem to be at an end. Yet it will be expected, that so general a conclufion be inforced by fome illuftrations. The paffion of LOVE is one of those affections, which bear great fway in the human nature. Its workings are violent. And, its effects on the perfon, poffeffed by it, and in the train of events, to which it gives occafion, confpicuous to all obfervers. The power of this commanding affection hath triumphed at all times. It hath given birthto fome of the greatest and most signal. tranfactions in history; and hath furnished the most inchanting fcenes of fiction. Poetry hath ever lived by it. The modern mufe hath hardly any existence without it.. Let Let us afk, then, of this tyrant paffion, whether its operations are not too familiar to fenfe; its effects too visible to the eye, to make it neceffary for the poet to go beyond himself, and the fphere, of his own obfervation, for the original of his defcriptions of it. To prevent all cavil, let it be allowed, that the figns of this paffion, I mean, the vifible effects in which it fhews itself, are various and almoft infinite. It is reproached, above all others, with the names of capricious, fantastic, and unreasonable. No wonder then, if it affume an endless variety of forms, and feem impatient, as it were, of any certain fhape or posture. Yet this Proteus of a paffion may be fixed by the magic hand of the poet. Though it can occafionally take all, yet it delights to be seen in some shapes, more than others. Some of its effects are known and obvious, and are perpetually recurring to obfervation. And these are ever fitteft to the ends of poetry; every man pronouncing of fuch reprefentations from his proper experience, that they are from nature. Nay its very irregularities may be reduced to rule. There is not, in antiquity, |