K. John. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert, We owe thee much; within this wall of flesh There is a soul counts thee her creditor, And with advantage means to pay thy love. And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished. Give me thy hand, I had a thing to say But I will fit it with some better time. By Heav'n, Hubert, I'm almost asham'd To say what good respect I have of thee.

Hubert. I am much bounden to your Majesty.

K. John. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet
But thou shalt have and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say but let it go;
The sun is in the heav'n; and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wantori, and too full of gawds,
To give me audience. If the midnight-bell
Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth
Sound one into the drowsy race of night;
If this same were a church-yard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit Melancholy
Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy-thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot Laughter keep men's eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
(A passion hateful to my purposes;)
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words;
Then, in despite of broad-ey'd watchful day,
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.
But ah, I will not-Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.

Hubert. So well, that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By Heav'n I'd do't.

K. John. Do not I know thou would'st?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend;
He is a very serpent in my way.

And, wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,

He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper.

King John, Act III. Sc. 5.

As things are best illustrated by their contraries, I proceed to faulty sentiments, disdaining to be indebted for examples to any but the most approved authors. The first class shall consist of sentiments that accord not with the passion; or, in other words, sentiments that the passion does not naturally suggest. In the second class, shall be ranged sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but unsuitable to it as tinctured by a singular character. Thoughts that properly are not sentiments, but rather descriptions, make a third. Sentiments that belong to the passion represented, but are faulty as being introduced too early or too late, make a fourth. Vicious sentiments exposed in their native dress, instead of being concealed or disguised, make a fifth. And in the last class, shall be collected sentiments suited to no character nor passion, and therefore unnatural.

The first class contains faulty sentiments of various kinds, which I shall endeavour to distinguish from each other; beginning with sentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the passion :

Othello.

O my soul's joy!

If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas

Olympus high, and duck again as low

As hell's from heaven.

Othello, Act II. Sc. 6.

This sentiment may be suggested by violent and inflamed passion, but is not suited to the calm satisfaction that one feels upon escaping danger.

Philaster. Place me, some god, upon a pyramid
Higher than hills of earth, and lend a voice
Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence
I may discourse to all the under-world
The worth that dwells in him.

Philaster of Beaumont and Fletcher, Act IV.

Second. Sentiments below the tone of the passion. Ptolemy, by putting Pompey to death, having incurred the displeasure of Cæsar, was in the utmost dread of being dethroned: in that agitating situation, Corneille makes him utter a speech full of cool reflection, that is in no degree expressive of the passion.

Ah! si je t'avois crû, je n'aurois pas de maitre,
Je serois dans le trône où le Ciel m'a fait naître ;
Mais c'est une imprudence assez commune aux rois,
D'écouter trop d'avis, et se tromper aux choix.
Le Destin les aveugle au bord du précipice,
Où si quelque lumiere en leur ame se glisse,
Cette fausse clarté dont il les eblouit,
Le plonge dans une gouffre, et puis s'evanouit.

La morte de Pompée, Act IV. Sc. 1.

In Les Freres ennemies of Racine, the second act is opened with a love-scene: Hemon talks to his mistress of the torments of absence, of the lustre of her eyes, that he ought to die no where but at her feet, and that one moment of absence is a thousand years. Antigone on her part acts the coquette; pretends she must be gone to wait on her mother and brother, and cannot stay to listen to his courtship. This is odious French gallantry, below the dignity of the passion of love: it would scarce be excusable in painting modern French manners; and is insufferable where the ancients are brought upon the stage. The manners painted in the Alexandre of the same author are not more just: French gallantry prevails there throughout.

Third. Sentiments that agree not with the tone of the passion; as where a pleasant sentiment is grafted upon a painful passion, or the contrary. In the following instances the sentiments are too gay for a serious passion :

No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do.

Again,

Eloisa to Abelard, l. 47.

Heav'n first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart;
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

Eloisa to Abelard, t. 51.

These thoughts are pretty: they suit Pope, but not Eloisa.

Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus:

Then when I am thy captive talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub; but ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm, though Heaven's King
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us'd to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of heaven star-pav'd.

Paradise Lost, Book iv.

The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage.

Fourth. Sentiments too artificial for a serious passion. I give for the first example a speech of Percy expiring:

O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my growth:
I better brook the loss of brittle life,

Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;

They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my flesh. But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;

And time, that takes survey of all the world,

Must have a stop.

First Part, Henry IV. Act V. Sc. 9.

Livy inserts the following passage in a plaintive oration of the Locrenses, accusing Pleminius the Roman legate of oppression.

In hoc legato vestro, nec hominis quicquam est, Patres Conscripti, præter figuram et speciem; neque Romani civis, præter habitum vestitumque, et sonum linguæ Latinæ. Pestis et bellua immanis, quales fretum, quondam, quo ab Sicilia dividimur, ad perniciem navigantium circumsedisse, fabulæ ferunt.*

The sentiments of the Mourning Bride are, for the most part, no less delicate than just copies of nature: in the following exception the picture is beautiful, but too artful to be suggested by severe grief.