consistent sentiments; third, sentiments that are pure rant and extravagance.

:

When the fable is of human affairs, every event, every incident, and every circumstance, ought to be natural, otherwise the imitation is imperfect. But an imperfect imitation is a venial fault, compared with that of running cross to nature. In the Hippolytus of Euripides,* Hippolytus, wishing for another self in his own situation, How much (says he) should I be touched with his misfortune! as if it were natural to grieve more for the misfor-tunes of another than for one's own.

Osmyn. Yet I behold her-yet-and now no more.
Turn your lights inward, Eyes, and view my thought.
So shall you still behold her-'twill not be.
O impotence of sight! mechanic sense
Which to exterior objects ow'st thy faculty,
Not seeing of election, but necessity.
Thus do our eyes, as do all common mirrors,
Successively reflect succeeding images.
Nor what they would, but must; a star or toad;
Just as the hand of chance administers!

Mourning Bride, Act II. Sc. 8.

No man, in his senses, ever thought of applying his eyes to discover what passes in his mind; far less of blaming his eyes for not seeing a thought or idea. In Moliere's L'Avare,† Harpagon being robbed of his money, seizes himself by the arm, mistaking it for that of the robber. And again he expresses himself as follows :

Je veux aller querir la justice, et faire donner la question à toute ma maison; à servantes, à valets, à fils, a fille, et a moi aussi.

This is so absurd as scarce to provoke a smile, if it be not at the author.

:

2

Of this second branch the following are exam

ples.

- Now bid me run,

And I will strive with things impossible,

Yea get the better of them.

Julius Cesar, Act II. Sc. 3.

Le Cid, Act V. Sc. last.

Vos mains seules ont droit de vaincre un invincible.

Que son nom soit beni. Que son nom soit chanté,
Que l'on celebre ses ouvrages
Au de la de l'eternité.

3

Esther, Act V. Sc. last.

Me miserable! which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair ?
Which way I fly is hell: myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me, opens wide;

To which the hell I suffer seems a heav'n.

Paradise Lost, Book IV.

Of the third branch, take the following samples.

Lucan, talking of Pompey's sepulchre,

- Romanum nomen, et omne Imperium Magno est tumuli modus. Obrue saxa Crimine plena deum. Si tota est Herculis Oete, Et juga tota vacant Bromio Nyseia; quare Unus in Egypto Magno lapis? Omnia Lagi Rura tenere potest, si nullo cespite nomen Hæserit. Erremus populi, cinerumque tuorum, Magne, metu nullas Nili calcemus arenas. L. viii. 1. 798.

Thus in Row's translation:

Where there are seas, or air, or earth, or skies,
Where-e'er Rome's empire stretches, Pompey lies.
Far be the vile memorial then convey'd!
Nor let this stone the partial gods upbraid.
Shall Hercules all Oeta's heights demand,
And Nysa's hill for Bacchus only stand;

:

While one poor pebble is the warrior's doom
That fought the cause of liberty and Rome ?
If Fate decrees he must in Egypt lie,
Let the whole fertile realm his grave supply,
Yield the wide country to his awful shade
Nor let us dare on any part to tread,
Fearful we violate the mighty dead.

The following passages are pure rant. Coriola. nus, speaking to his mother,

What is this?

Your knees to me? to your corrected son?
Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
Fillop the stars: then let the mutinous winds
Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun:

Murd'ring impossibility, to make

What cannot be, slight work,

Casar.

Coriolanus, Act V. Sc. 3.

- Danger knows full well,

That Cæsar is more dangerous than he.

We were two lions litter'd in one day,

And I the elder and more terrible.

Almahide. This day

Julius Cesar, Act II. Sc. 4.

I gave my faith to him, he his to me.

Almanzor. Good Heav'n, thy book of fate before me lay

But to tear out the journal of this day.

Or if the order of the world below,

Will not the gap of one whole day allow,

Give me that minute when she made that vow,

}

That minute ev'n the happy from their bliss might give,

And those who live in grief a shorter time would live,

So small a link if broke, th' eternal chain,

Would like divided waters join again.

Almanzor.

Conquest of Grenada, Act III.

I'll hold it fast

As life: and when life's gone, I'll hold this last.

And if thou tak'st after I am slain,

I'll send my ghost to fetch it back again.

Conquest of Grenada, Part II. Act 3.

Lyndiraxa. A crown is come, and will not fate allow,

And yet I feel something like death is near.

My guards, my guards

Let not that ugly skeleton appear.

Sure Destiny mistakes; this death's not mine;

She doats, and means to cut another line.

Tell her I am a queen-but 'tis too late;

Dying, I charge rebellion on my fate;

Bow down, ye slaves

Bow quickly down, and your submission show;

I'm pleas'd to taste an empire ere I go.

[Dies.

Conquest of Grenada, Part II. Act V.

Ventidius. But you, ere love misled your wand'ring eyes,

Were, sure, the chief and best of human race,
Fram'd in the very pride and boast of nature,
So perfect, that the gods who form'd you wonder'd

At their own skill, and cry'd, A lucky hit

Has mended our design.

Dryden, All for Love, Act I.

Not to talk of the impiety of this sentiment, it is ludicrous instead of being lofty.

The famous epitaph on Raphael is no less absurd than any of the foregoing passages:

Raphael, timuit, quo sospite, vinci
Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori.

Imitated by Pope in his Epitaph on Sir Godfrey
Kneller:

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself might die.

Such is the force of imitation; for Pope of himself would never have been guilty of a thought so extravagant.

So much upon sentiments; the language proper

for expressing them, comes next in order.

CHAPTER XVII.

Language of Passion.

AMONG the particulars that compose the social part of our nature, a propensity to communicate our opinions, our emotions, and every thing that affects us, is remarkable. Bad fortune and injustice affect us greatly; and of these we are so prone to complain, that if we have no friend nor acquaintance to take part in our sufferings, we sometimes utter our complaints aloud, even where there are none to listen.

But this propensity operates not in every state of mind. A man immoderately grieved, seeks to afflict himself, rejecting all consolation: immoderate grief accordingly is mute: complaining is struggling for consolation.

It is the wretch's comfort still to have

Some small reserve of near and inward wo,
Some unsuspected hoard of inward grief,
Which they unseen may wail, and weep, and mourn,
And glutton-like alone devour.

Mourning Bride, Act I. Sc. 1.

When grief subsides, it then and no sooner finds a tongue: we complain, because complaining is an effort to disburden the mind of its distress.*