{1}

ELEMENTS

OF

CRITICISM.

In THREE VOLUMES.

VOLUME III.

EDINBURGH:
Printed for A. Millar, London;
AND
A. Kincaid & J. Bell, Edinburgh,
MDCCLXII.

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ELEMENTS
OF
CRITICISM.

CHAP. XIX.

COMPARISONS.

COmparisons, as observed above[1]; serve two different purposes: When addressed to the understanding, their purpose is to instruct; when to the heart, their purpose is to give pleasure. With respect to the latter, a comparison may be employ’d to produce various pleasures by {4}different means. First, by suggesting some unusual resemblance or contrast: second, by setting an object in the strongest light: third, by associating an object with others that are agreeable: fourth, by elevating an object: and, fifth, by depressing it. And that comparisons may produce various pleasures by these different means, appears from what is said in the chapter above cited; and will be made still more evident by examples, which shall be given after premising some general observations.

An object of one sense cannot be compared to an object of another; for such objects are totally separated from each other, and have no circumstance in common to admit either resemblance or contrast. Objects of hearing may be compared, as also of taste, and of touch. But the chief fund of comparison are objects of sight; because, in writing or speaking, things can only be compared in idea, and the ideas of visible objects are by far more lively than those of any other sense.

It has no good effect to compare things by way of simile that are of the {5}same kind, nor to contrast things of different kinds. The reason is given in the chapter cited above; and the reason shall be illustrated by examples. The first is a resemblance instituted betwixt two objects so nearly related as to make little or no impression.

Another from Milton labours under the same defect. Speaking of the fallen angels searching for mines of gold:

The next shall be of things contrasted that are of different kinds.

This comparison has scarce any force. A man and a lion are of different species; and there is no such resemblance betwixt them in general, as to produce any strong effect by contrasting particular attributes or circumstances.

A third general observation is, That abstract terms can never be the subject of comparison, otherwise than by being personified.{7} Shakespear compares adversity to a toad, and slander to the bite of a crocodile; but in such comparisons these abstract terms must be imagined sensible beings.

I now proceed to illustrate by particular instances the different means by which comparison can afford pleasure; and, in the order above established, I shall begin with those instances that are agreeable by suggesting some unusual resemblance or contrast:

The last exertion of courage compared to the blaze of a lamp before extinguishing, Tasso Gierusalem, canto 19. st. 22.

None of the foregoing similes, as it appears to me, have the effect to add any lustre to the principal subject; and therefore the pleasure they afford, must arise from suggesting resemblances that are not obvious: I mean the chief pleasure; for undoubtedly a beautiful subject introduced to form the simile affords a separate pleasure, which is felt in the similes mentioned, particularly in that cited from Milton.

The next effect of a comparison in the{10} order mentioned, is to place an object in a strong point of view; which I think is done sensibly in the following similes.

The imitation of this beautiful simile by Ariosto, canto 1. st. 42. falls short of the original. It is also in part imitated by Pope[2].

The sight obtained of the city of Jerusalem by the Christian army, compared to that of land discovered after a long voyage, Tasso’s Gierusalem, canto 3. st. 4. The fury of Rinaldo subsiding when not opposed, to that of wind or water when it has a free passage, canto 20. st. 58.{15}

As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a high notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer[3] compares the Grecian army in point of number to a swarm of bees. In another passage[4] he compares it to that profusion of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of insects in a summer’s evening. And Milton,

Such comparisons have, by some writers[5], been condemned for the lowness of{16} the images introduced: but surely without reason; for, with regard to numbers, they put the principal subject in a strong light.

The foregoing comparisons operate by resemblance; others have the same effect by contrast:

Milton has a peculiar talent in embellishing the principal subject by associating it with others that are agreeable, which is{17} the third end of a comparison. Similes of this kind have, beside, a separate effect: they diversify the narration by new images that are not strictly necessary to the comparison: they are short episodes, which, without distracting us from the principal subject, afford great delight by their beauty and variety:

With regard to similes of this kind, it will readily occur to the reader, that when the resembling subject or circumstance is once properly introduced in a simile, the mind passes easily to the new objects, and is transitorily amused with them, without feeling any disgust at the slight interruption. Thus, in fine weather, the momentary excursions of{20} a traveller for agreeable prospects or sumptuous buildings, chear his mind, relieve him from the langour of uniformity, and without much lengthening his journey in reality, shorten it greatly in appearance.

Next of comparisons that aggrandize or elevate. These make stronger impressions than any other sort; the reason of which may be gathered from the chapter of grandeur and sublimity, and, without reasoning, will be evident from the following instances.

I beg peculiar attention to the following simile, for a reason that shall be mentioned.

The image of a falling rock is certainly not elevating[6]. Yet undoubtedly the foregoing image fires and swells the mind. It is grand therefore, if not sublime. And that there is a real, though delicate distinction, betwixt these two feelings, will be illustrated from the following simile.

A comparison by contrast may contribute to grandeur or elevation, not less than by resemblance; of which the following comparison of Lucan is a remarkable instance.

Considering that the Heathen deities possessed a rank but one degree above that of mankind, I think it scarce possible, by a single expression, to elevate or dignify more one of the human species, than is done by this comparison. I am sensible, at the same time, that such a comparison among Christians, who entertain juster notions of the Deity, would justly be reckoned extravagant and absurd.

The last article mentioned, is that of lessening or depressing a hated or disagreeable object; which is effectually done by resembling it to any thing that is low or despicable. Thus Milton, in his description of the rout of the rebel-angels, happily expresses their terror and dismay in the following simile.{24}

In the same view, Homer, I think, may be defended, in comparing the shouts of the Trojans in battle, to the noise of cranes[7], and to the bleating of a flock of sheep[8]: and it is no objection, that these are low images; for by opposing the noisy march of the Trojans to the silent and manly march of the Greeks, he certainly intended to lessen the former. Addison[9], imagining the figure that men make in the sight of a superior being, takes opportunity to mor{25}tify their pride by comparing them to a swarm of pismires.

A comparison that has none of the good effects mentioned in this discourse, but is built upon common and trifling circumstances, makes a mighty silly figure: “Non sum nescius, grandia consilia a multis plerumque causis, ceu magna navigia a plurimis remis, impelli[10].”

By this time I imagine the different purposes of comparison, and the various impressions it makes on the mind, are sufficiently illustrated by proper examples. This was an easy work. It is more difficult to lay down rules about the propriety or impropriety of comparisons; in what circumstances they may be introduced, and in what circumstances they are out of place. It is evident, that a comparison is not proper upon every occasion; a man in his cool and sedate moments, is not disposed to poetical flights, nor to sacrifice truth and reality to the delusive operations of the imagination; far less is he so disposed, when oppressed with cares, or interested in some important transaction{26} that occupies him totally. The region of comparison and of all figurative expression, lies betwixt these two extremes. It is observable, that a man, when elevated or animated by any passion, is disposed to elevate or animate all his objects: he avoids familiar names, exalts objects by circumlocution and metaphor, and gives even life and voluntary action to inanimate beings. In this warmth of mind, the highest poetical flights are indulged, and the boldest similes and metaphors relished[11]. But without soaring so high, the mind is frequently in a tone to relish chaste and moderate ornament; such as comparisons that set the principal object in a strong point of view, or that embellish and diversify the narration. In general, when by any animating passion, whether pleasant or painful, an impulse is given to the imagination; we are in that condition wonderfully disposed to every sort of figurative expression, and in particular to com{27}parisons. This in a great measure is evident from the comparisons already mentioned; and shall be further illustrated by other examples. Love, for example, in its infancy, rousing the imagination, prompts the heart to display itself in figurative language, and in similes:

Again,

The dread of a misfortune, however imminent, involving always some doubt and uncertainty, agitates the mind, and excites the imagination:

But it will be a better illustration of the present head, to give examples where comparisons are improperly introduced. I have had already occasion to observe, that similes are not the language of a man in his ordinary state of mind, going about the common affairs of life. For that reason, the following speech of a gardiner to his servants, is extremely improper.

The fertility of Shakespear’s vein betrays him frequently into this error. There is the same impropriety in another simile of his:

Rooted grief, deep anguish, terror, remorse, despair, and all the severe dispiriting passions, are declared enemies, perhaps not to figurative language in general, but undoubtedly to the pomp and solemnity of comparison.{30} Upon this account the simile pronounced by young Rutland under terror of death from an inveterate enemy, and praying mercy, is unnatural:

Nothing appears more out of place, or more aukwardly introduced, than the following simile.

Nor doth the simile which closes the first act of the same tragedy, make its appearance with a much better grace; the situation there represented, being too dispiriting for a simile. A simile is improper for one who dreads the discovery of a secret machination.

A man spent and dispirited after losing a battle, is not disposed to heighten or illustrate his discourse by similes:

Far less is a man disposed to similes who is not only defeated in a pitch’d battle, but lies at the point of death mortally wounded.

Queen Katharine, deserted by the King and in the deepest affliction upon her divorce, could not be disposed to any sallies of imagination: and for that reason, the fol{33}lowing simile, however beautiful in the mouth of a spectator, is scarce proper in her own.

Similes thus unseasonably introduced, are finely ridiculed in the Rehearsal:

A comparison is not always faultless, even where it is properly introduced. I have endeavoured above to give a general view of the different ends to which a comparison may contribute. A comparison, like other human productions, may fall short of its end; and of this defect instances are not{34} rare even among good writers. To complete the present subject, it will be necessary to make some observations upon such faulty comparisons. I begin with observing, that nothing can be more erroneous than to institute a comparison too faint: a distant resemblance or contrast, fatigues the mind with its obscurity instead of amusing it, and tends not to fulfil any one end of a comparison. The following similes seem to labour under this defect:

The latter of the two similes is good. The former, because of the faintness of the resemblance, produces no good effect, and crowds the narration with an useless image.

The next error I shall mention is a capital one. In an epic poem, or in any elevated subject, a writer ought to avoid raising a simile upon a low image, which never fails to bring down the principal subject. In general, it is a rule, that a grand object ought never to be resembled to one that is diminutive, however delicate the resemblance may be. It is the peculiar character{37} of a grand object to fix the attention, and swell the mind: in this state, it is disagreeable to contract the mind to a minute object, however elegant. The resembling an object to one that is greater, has, on the contrary, a good effect, by raising or swelling the mind. One passes with satisfaction from a small to a great object; but cannot be drawn down, without reluctance, from great to small. Hence the following similes are faulty.

To describe bees gathering honey as resembling the builders of Carthage, would have a much better effect.

The following simile has not any one beauty to recommend it. The subject is Amata the wife of King Latinus.

This simile seems to border upon the burlesque.

An error opposite to the former, is the introducing a resembling image, so elevated{40} or great as to bear no proportion to the principal subject. The remarkable disparity betwixt them, being the most striking circumstance, seizes the mind, and never fails to depress the principal subject by contrast, instead of raising it by resemblance: and if the disparity be exceeding great, the simile takes on an air of burlesque; nothing being more ridiculous than to force an object out of its proper rank in nature, by equalling it with one greatly superior or greatly inferior. This will be evident from the following comparisons.

Such a simile upon the simplest of all actions, that of opening a lock, is pure burlesque.{42}

A writer of delicacy will avoid drawing his comparisons from any image that is nauseous, ugly, or remarkably disagreeable: for however strong the resemblance may be, more will be lost than gained by such comparison. Therefore I cannot help condemning, though with some reluctance, the following simile, or rather metaphor.

The strongest objection that can lie against a comparison, is, that it consists in words only, not in sense. Such false coin, or bastard wit, does extremely well in burlesque; but is far below the dignity of the epic, or of any serious composition:{43}

There is evidently no resemblance betwixt an isicle and a woman, chaste or unchaste. But chastity is cold in a metaphorical sense, and an isicle is cold in a proper sense; and this verbal resemblance, in the hurry and glow of composing, has been thought a sufficient foundation for the simile. Such phantom similes are mere witticisms, which ought to have no quarter, except where purposely introduced to provoke laughter. Lucian, in his dissertation upon history, talking of a certain author, makes the following comparison, which is verbal merely.

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Virgil has not escaped this puerility:

Nor Tasso, in his Aminta:

Nor Boileau, the chastest of all writers; and that even in his art of poetry:{45}

Here there is no manner of resemblance but in the word drown; for there is no real resemblance betwixt being drown’d at sea, and dying of grief at land. But perhaps this sort of tinsel wit, may have a propriety in it, when used to express an affected, not a real, passion, which was the Queen’s case.{46}

Pope has several similes of the same stamp. I shall transcribe one or two from the Essay on Man, the gravest and most instructive of all his performances.

And again, talking of this same ruling or master passion.

Lord Bolingbroke, speaking of historians:

Let us vary the phrase a very little, and there will not remain a shadow of resemblance. Thus, for example:

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Racine makes Pyrrhus say to Andromaque,

And Orestes, in the same strain:

Similes of this kind put one in mind of a ludicrous French song:

Again,

A vulgar Irish ballad begins thus:

Where the subject is burlesque or ludicrous, such similes are far from being improper. Horace says pleasantly,

And Shakespear,

And this leads me to observe, that beside the foregoing comparisons, which are all serious, there is a species, the end and purpose of which is to excite gaiety or mirth. Take the following examples.

Falstaff, speaking to his page:

Desciption of Hudibras’s horse:

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CHAP. XX.

FIGURES.

THe reader must not expect to find here a complete list of the different tropes and figures that have been carefully noted by ancient critics and grammarians. Tropes and figures have indeed been multiplied with so little reserve, as to make it no easy matter to distinguish them from plain language. A discovery almost accidental, made me think of giving them a place in this work: I found that the most important of them depend on principles formerly explained; and I was glad of an opportunity to show the extensive influence of these principles. Confining myself therefore to figures that answer this purpose, I am luckily freed from much trash; without dropping, so far as I remember, any figure that merits a proper{54} name. And I begin with Prosopopœia or personification, which is justly intitled to the first place.

SECT. I.

PERSONIFICATION.

THis figure, which gives life to things inanimate, is so bold a delusion as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for operating the effect. And yet, in the language of poetry, we find variety of expressions, which, though commonly reduced to this figure, are used without ceremony or any sort of preparation. I give, for example, the following expressions. Thirsty ground, hungry church-yard, furious dart, angry ocean. The epithets here, in their proper meaning, are attributes of sensible beings. What is the effect of such epithets, when apply’d to things inanimate? Do they raise in the mind of the reader a perception of sensibility? Do they{55} make him conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether so or not, it cannot be declined in handling the present subject.

One thing is certain, that the mind is prone to bestow sensibility upon things inanimate, where that violent effect is necessary to gratify passion. This is one instance, among many, of the power of passion to adjust our opinions and belief to its gratification[12]. I give the following examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæsar, murdered in the senate-house, vents his passion in the following words.

Here Antony must have been impressed with some sort of notion, that the body of{56} Cæsar was listening to him, without which the speech would be foolish and absurd. Nor will it appear strange, after what is said in the chapter above cited, that passion should have such power over the mind of man. Another example of the same kind is, where the earth, as a common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father’s unkindness.

Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent. A soliloquy commonly answers{57} the purpose. But when a passion swells high, it is not satisfied with so slight a gratification: it must have a person to complain to; and if none be found, it will animate things devoid of sense. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the isle of Lemnos[13]; and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband’s palace, &c.[14]. Plaintive passions carry the mind still farther. Among the many principles that connect individuals in society, one is remarkable: it is that principle which makes us earnestly wish, that others should enter into our concerns and think and feel as we do[15]. This social principle, when inflamed by a plaintive passion, will, for want of a more complete gratification, prompt the mind to give life even to things inanimate. Moschus, lamenting the death of Bion, conceives that the birds, the fountains, the trees, lament with him. The shepherd,{58} who in Virgil bewails the death of Daphnis, expresseth himself thus:

Again,

Again,

Earl Rivers carried to execution, says,

King Richard having got intelligence of Bolingbroke’s invasion, says, upon his landing in England from his Irish expedition, in a mixture of joy and resentment,

Among the ancients, it was customary after a long voyage to salute the natal soil. A long voyage, was of old a greater enterprise than at present: the safe return to one’s country after much fatigue and danger, was a circumstance extremely delightful; and it was natural to give the natal soil a temporary life, in order to sympathise with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Æschilus, act 3. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place one has been accustomed to has the same effect[16].

Terror produceth the same effect. A man, to gratify this passion, extends it to every thing around, even to things inanimate:

Speaking of Polyphemus,

Racine, in the tragedy of Phedra, describing the sea-monster that destroy’d Hippolitus, conceives the sea itself to be inspired with terror as well as the spectators; or more accurately transfers from the spectators their terror to the sea, with which they were connected:

A man also naturally communicates his joy to all objects around, animate or inanimate:

I have been profuse of examples, to show what power many passions have to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the personification, if I mistake not, is so complete as to be derived from an actual conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident from numberless instances, that personification is not always so complete. Personification is a common figure in descriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of any of his personages in a fit of passion. In this case, it seldom or never comes up to a conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the following examples.

It may, I presume, be taken for granted, that, in the foregoing instances, the personification, either with the poet or his reader, amounts not to a conviction of intelligence; nor that the sun, the moon, the{64} day, the morn, are here understood to be sensible beings. What then is the nature of this personification? Upon considering the matter attentively, I discover that this species of personification must be referred to the imagination. The inanimate object is imagined to be a sensible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it really is so. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raise emotions in the mind[18]; and when any thing inanimate is, in imagination, supposed to be a sensible being, it makes by that means a greater figure than when an idea is formed of it according to truth. The elevation however in this case, is far from being so great as when the personification arises to an actual conviction; and therefore must be considered as of a lower or inferior sort. Thus personification is of two kinds. The first or nobler, may be termed passionate personification: the other, or more humble, descriptive personification; because seldom or{65} never is personification in a description carried the length of conviction.

The imagination is so lively and active, that its images are raised with very little effort; and this justifies the frequent use of descriptive personification. This figure abounds in Milton’s Allegro and Penseroso.

Abstract and general terms, as well as particular objects, are often necessary in poetry. Such terms however are not well adapted to poetry, because they suggest not any image to the mind: I can readily form an image of Alexander or Achilles in wrath; but I cannot form an image of wrath in the abstract, or of wrath independent of a person. Upon that account, in works addressed to the imagination, abstract terms are frequently personified. But this personification never goes farther than the imagination.

Thus, to explain the effects of slander, it is imagined to be a voluntary agent:

As also human passions. Take the following example.

Virgil explains fame and its effects by a still greater variety of action[19]. And Shakespear personifies death and its operations in a manner extremely fanciful:{67}

Not less successfully is life and action given even to sleep:

I shall add one example more, to show that descriptive personification may be used with propriety, even where the purpose of the discourse is instruction merely:

Hitherto our progress has been upon firm ground. Whether we shall be so lucky in the remaining part of the journey, seems doubtful. For after acquiring some knowledge of the subject, when we now look back to the expressions mentioned in the beginning, thirsty ground, furious dart, and such like, it seems as difficult as at first to say what sort of personification it is. Such expressions evidently raise not the slighted conviction of sensibility. Nor do I think they amount to descriptive personification: in the expressions mentioned, we do not so much as figure the ground or the{70} dart to be animated; and if so, they cannot at all come under the present subject. And to show this more clearly, I shall endeavour to explain what effect such expressions have naturally upon the mind. In the expression angry ocean, for example, do we not tacitly compare the ocean in a storm, to a man in wrath? It is by this tacit comparison, that the expression acquires a force or elevation, beyond what is found when an epithet is used proper to the object: for I have had occasion to show[20], that a thing inanimate acquires a certain elevation by being compared to a sensible being. And this very comparison is itself a demonstration, that there is no personification in such expressions. For, by the very nature of a comparison, the things compared are kept distinct, and the native appearance of each is preserved. It will be shown afterward, that expressions of this kind belong to another figure, which I term a figure of speech, and which employs the seventh section of the present chapter.{71}

Though thus in general we can precisely distinguish descriptive personification from what is merely a figure of speech, it is however often difficult to say, with respect to some expressions, whether they are of the one kind or of the other. Take the following instances.

With respect to these and numberless other instances of the same kind, whether they be examples of personification or of a figure of speech merely, seems to be an arbitrary question. They will be ranged under the former class by those only who are endued with a sprightly imagination. Nor will the judgement even of the same person be steady: it will vary with the present state of the spirits, lively or composed.

Having thus at large explained the present figure, its different kinds, and the principles from whence derived; what comes next in order is to ascertain its proper province, by showing in what cases it is suitable, in what unsuitable. I begin with observing, upon passionate personification, that this figure is not promoted by every passion indifferently. All dispiriting passions are averse to it. Remorse, in particular, is too serious and severe, to be gratified by{73} a phantom of the mind. I cannot therefore approve the following speech of Enobarbus, who had deserted his master Antony.

If this can be justified, it must be upon the Heathen system of theology, which converted into deities the sun, moon, and stars.

Secondly, After a passionate personification is properly introduced, it ought to be confined strictly to its proper province, that of gratifying the passion; and no sentiment nor action ought to be exerted by the animated object, but what answers that purpose. Personification is at any rate a bold figure, and ought to be employed with great reserve. The passion of love, for ex{74}ample, in a plaintive tone, may give a momentary life to woods and rocks, that the lover may vent his distress to them: but no passion will support a conviction so far stretched, as that these woods and rocks should be living witnesses to report the distress to others:

No lover who is not crazed will utter such a sentiment: it is plainly the operation of the writer, indulging his imagination without regard to nature. The same observation is applicable to the following passage.

One must read this passage very seriously to avoid laughing. The following passage is quite extravagant: the different parts of the human body are too intimately connected with self, to be personified by the power of any passion; and after converting such a part into a sensible being, it is still worse to make it be conceived as rising in rebellion against self.

Next comes descriptive personification; upon which I must observe in general, that{76} it ought to be cautiously used. A personage in a tragedy, agitated by a strong passion, deals in strong sentiments; and the reader, catching fire by sympathy, relishes the boldest personifications. But a writer, even in the most lively description, ought to take a lower flight, and content himself with such easy personifications as agree with the tone of mind inspired by the description. In plain narrative, again, the mind, serious and sedate, rejects personification altogether. Strada, in his history of the Belgic wars, has the following passage, which, by a strained elevation above the tone of the subject, deviates into burlesk. “Vix descenderat a prætoria navi Cæsar; cum fœda illico exorta in portu tempestas, classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit: quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem, Cæsarisque fortunam[21].” Neither do I approve, in Shakespear, the speech of King John, gravely exhorting the citizens of Angiers to a surrender; though a tragic writer has much greater latitude than a hi{77}storian. Take the following specimen of this speech.

Secondly, If extraordinary marks of respect put upon a person of the lowest rank be ridiculous, not less so is the personification of a mean object. This rule chiefly regards descriptive personification: for an object can hardly be mean that is the cause of a violent passion; in that circumstance, at least, it must be an object of importance. With respect to this point, it would be in vain to set limits to personification: taste is the only rule. A poet of superior genius hath more than others the command of this figure; because he hath more than others the power of inflaming the mind. Homer appears not extravagant in animating his darts and arrows: nor Thomson in animating the seasons, the winds, the rains, the dews. He even ventures to animate the diamond, and doth it with propriety.{78}

But there are things familiar and base, to which personification cannot descend. In a composed state of mind, to animate a lump of matter even in the most rapid flight of fancy, degenerates into burlesk.

The following little better:

Speaking of a man’s hand cut off in battle:

The personification here of a hand is insufferable, especially in a plain narration; not to mention that such a trivial incident is too minutely described.

The same observation is applicable to abstract terms, which ought not to be animated unless they have some natural dignity. Thomson, in this article, is quite licentious. Witness the following instances out of many.

Thirdly, it is not sufficient to avoid improper subjects. Some preparation is necessary, in order to rouze the mind. The i{80}magination refuses its aid, till it be warmed at least, if not inflamed. Yet Thomson, without the least ceremony or preparation, introduceth each season as a sensible being:

This has violently the air of writing mechanically without taste. It is not natural, that the imagination of a writer should be so much heated at the very commencement; and, at any rate, he cannot expect such ductility in his readers: but if this practice can be justified by authority,{81} Thomson has one of no mean note: Vida begins his first eclogue in the following words.

Even Shakespear is not always careful to prepare the mind for this bold figure. Take the following instance:

Fourthly, Descriptive personification ought never to be carried farther than barely to animate the subject: and yet poets are not easily restrained from making this phantom of their own creating behave and act in every respect as if it were really a sensible{82} being. By such licence we lose sight of the subject; and the description is rendered obscure or unintelligible, instead of being more lively and striking. In this view, the following passage, describing Cleopatra on shipboard, appears to me exceptionable.

Let the winds be personified; I make no objection. But to make them love-sick, is too far stretched; having no resemblance to any natural action of wind. In another passage, where Cleopatra is also the subject, the personification of the air is carried beyond all bounds:

The following personification of the earth or soil is not less wild.

Shakespear, far from approving such intemperance of imagination, puts this speech in the mouth of a ranting lover. Neither can I relish what follows.

The chearfulness singly of a pastoral song, will scarce support personification in the lowest degree. But admitting, that a river gently flowing may be imagined a sensible being listening to a song, I cannot enter into the conceit of the river’s ordering his laurels to learn the song. Here all resem{84}blance to any thing real is quite lost. This however is copied literally by one of our greatest poets; early indeed, before maturity of taste or judgement.

This author, in riper years, is guilty of a much greater deviation from the rule. Dullness may be imagined a deity or idol, to be worshipped by bad writers: but then some sort of disguise is requisite, some bastard virtue must be bestowed, to give this idol a plausible appearance. Yet in the Dunciad, dullness, without the least disguise, is made the object of worship. The mind rejects such a fiction as unnatural; for dullness is a defect, of which even the dullest mortal is ashamed:

The following instance is stretched beyond all resemblance. It is bold to take a part{85} or member of a living creature, and to bestow upon it life, volition, and action: after animating two such members, it is still bolder to make them envy each other; for this is wide of any resemblance to reality:

Fifthly, The enthusiasm of passion may have the effect to prolong passionate personification: but descriptive personification cannot be dispatched in too few words. A minute description dissolves the charm, and makes the attempt to personify appear ridiculous. Homer succeeds in animating his darts and arrows: but such personification spun out in a French translation, is mere burlesk:

Horace says happily, “Post equitem sedet atra Cura.” See how this thought dege{86}nerates by being divided, like the former, into a number of minute parts:

The following passage is, if possible, still more faulty.

Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a single expression. Even in that case, the figure seldom has a good effect; because grief or love of the pastoral kind, are causes rather too faint for so violent an effect as imagining the winds,{87} trees, or floods, to be sensible beings. But when this figure is deliberately spread out with great regularity and accuracy through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is struck with its ridiculous appearance.

SECT. II.

APOSTROPHE.

THIS figure and the former are derived from the same principle. If, to gratify a plaintive passion, we can bestow a momentary sensibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to bestow a momentary presence upon a sensible being who is absent.

This figure is sometimes joined with the former: things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a passionate expostulation, are not only personified, but also conceived to be present.

This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving the genealogy of a family, it has no good effect:{89}

SECT. III.

HYPERBOLE.

IN this figure we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An object uncommon with respect to size, either very great of its kind or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion, like all others, prone to gratification, forces upon the mind a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality. The same effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness. Every object that produceth surprise by its singularity, is always seen in a false light while the emotion subsists: circumstances are exaggerated beyond truth; and it is not till after the emotion subsides, that things appear as they are. A writer, taking advantage of this{90} natural delusion, enriches his description greatly by the hyperbole. And the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes this figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a warm fancy.

It will be observed, that a writer is generally more successful in magnifying by a hyperbole than in diminishing: a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its power of conception; but the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to the diminishing power of a hyperbole, cites the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet. “He was owner of a bit of ground not larger than a Lacedemonian letter.[22]” But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following specimen.

Speaking of Polyphemus,

The following may also pass, though stretched pretty far.

Quintilian[23] is sensible that this figure is natural. “For,” says he, “not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or diminish beyond it; and for that reason the hyperbole is familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate.” And he adds, very justly, “That the hyperbole is then proper, when the subject of itself{93} exceeds the common measure.” From these premisses, one would not expect the following conclusion, the only reason he can find for justifying this figure of speech. “Conceditur enim amplius dicere, quia dici quantum est, non potest: meliusque ultra quam citra stat oratio.” (We are indulged to say more than enough, because we cannot say enough; and it is better to be over than under). In the name of wonder, why this slight and childish reason, when immediately before he had made it evident, that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? I could not resist this personal stroke of criticism, intended not against our author, for no human creature is exempt from error; but against the blind veneration that is paid to the ancient classic writers, without distinguishing their blemishes from their beauties.

Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected; I proceed, as in the first section, to some rules by which it ought to be governed. And in the first place, it is a capital fault to introduce an hyperbole in the de{94}scription of an ordinary object or event which creates no surprise. In such a case, the hyperbole is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, the only foundation that can support it. Take the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, viz. swimming to gain the shore after a shipwreck.

In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an hyperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion. Sorrow in particular will never prompt such a figure; and for that reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural.{95}

Thirdly, a writer, if he wish to succeed, ought always to have the reader in his eye. He ought in particular never to venture a bold thought or expression, till the reader be warmed and prepared for it. For this reason, an hyperbole in the beginning of any work can never be in its place. Example:

In the fourth place, the nicest point of all, is to ascertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overstrained it{96} has a bad effect. Longinus, in the above-cited chapter, with great propriety of thought, enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind. He compares it to a bowstring, which relaxes by overstraining, and produceth an effect directly opposite to what is intended. I pretend not to ascertain any precise boundary: the attempt would be difficult, if not impracticable. I must therefore be satisfied with an humbler task, which is, to give a specimen of what I reckon overstrained hyperboles; and I shall be also extremely curt upon this subject, because examples are to be found every where. No fault is more common among writers of inferior rank; and instances are found even among those of the finest taste; witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for an Hotspur.

Hotspur talking of Mortimer:

Speaking of Henry V.

Lastly, an hyperbole after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible. As it cannot be relished but in the hurry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is pal{98}pable in a sonnet which passeth for one of the most complete in the French language. Phillis is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars.

There is in Chaucer a thought expressed in a single line, which sets a young beauty in a more advantageous light, than the whole of this much-laboured poem.

SECT. IV.

The means or instrument conceived to be the agent.

IN viewing a group of things, we have obviously a natural tendency to bestow all possible perfection upon that particular object which makes the greatest figure. The emotion raised by the object, is, by{99} this means, thoroughly gratified; and if the emotion be lively, it prompts us even to exceed nature in the conception we form of the object. Take the following examples.

In these instances, the rage of Hercules and the force of Pirus, being the capital circumstances, are so far exalted as to be conceived the agents that produce the effects.

In the following instance, hunger being the chief circumstance in the description, is itself imagined to be the patient.

SECT. V.

A figure, which, among related objects, extends properties of one to another.

THIS figure is not dignified with a proper name, because it has been overlooked by all writers. It merits, however, place in this work; and must be distinguished from those formerly handled, as depending on a different principle. Giddy brink, jovial wine, daring wound, are examples of this figure. Here are expressions that certainly import not the ordinary relation of an adjective to its substantive. A brink, for example, cannot be termed giddy in a proper sense: neither can it be termed giddy in any figurative sense that can import any of its qualities or attributes. When we attend to the expression, we discover that a brink is termed giddy from producing that effect in those who stand on it. In the same manner a wound is said to be daring,{101} not with respect to itself, but with respect to the boldness of the person who inflicts it: and wine is said to be jovial, as inspiring mirth and jollity. Thus the attributes of one subject, are extended to another with which it is connected; and such expression must be considered as a figure, because it deviates from ordinary language.

How are we to account for this figure, for we see it lies in the thought, and to what principle shall we refer it? Have poets a privilege to alter the nature of things, and at pleasure to bestow attributes upon subjects to which these attributes do not belong? It is an evident truth, which we have had often occasion to inculcate, that the mind, in idea, passeth easily and sweetly along a train of connected objects; and, where the objects are intimately connected, that it is disposed to carry along the good or bad properties of one to another; especially where it is in any degree inflamed with these properties[24]. From this principle is derived the figure under consideration.{102} Language, invented for the communication of thought, would be imperfect, if it were not expressive even of the slighter propensities and more delicate feelings. But language cannot remain so imperfect, among a people who have received any polish; because language is regulated by internal feeling, and is gradually so improved as to express whatever passes in the mind. Thus, for example, a sword in the hand of a coward, is, in poetical diction, termed a coward sword: the expression is significative of an internal operation; for the mind, in passing from the agent to its instrument, is disposed to extend to the latter the properties of the former. Governed by the same principle, we say listening fear, by extending the attribute listening of the man who listens, to the passion with which he is moved. In the expression, bold deed, or audax facinus, we extend to the effect, what properly belongs to the cause. But not to waste time by making a commentary upon every expression of this kind, the best way to give a complete view of the subject, is to{103} exhibit a table of the different connections that may give occasion to this figure. And in viewing this table, it will be observed, that the figure can never have any grace but where the connections are of the most intimate kind.

1. An attribute of the cause expressed as an attribute of the effect.

2. An attribute of the effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.

3. An effect expressed as an attribute of the cause.

4. An attribute of a subject bestowed upon one of its parts or members.

5. A quality of the agent given to the instrument with which it operates.

6. An attribute of the agent given to the subject upon which it operates.

7. A quality of one subject given to another.

8. A circumstance connected with a subject, expressed as a quality of the subject.

From this table it appears, that the expressing an effect as an attribute of the cause, is not so agreeable as the opposite expression. The descent from cause to effect is natural and easy: the opposite direction resembles retrograde motion[25]. Panting height, for example, astonish’d thought, are strained and uncouth expressions, which{107} a writer of taste will avoid. For the same reason, an epithet is unsuitable, which at present is not applicable to the subject, however applicable it may be afterward.

Another rule regards this figure, That the property of one object ought not to be bestowed upon another with which it is incongruous:

The connection betwixt an awful superior and his submissive dependent is so intimate, that an attribute may readily be transferred from the one to the other. But awfulness cannot be so transferred, because it is inconsistent with submission.{108}

SECT VI.

Metaphor and Allegory.

A Metaphor differs from a simile, in form only, not in substance. In a simile the two different subjects are kept distinct in the expression, as well as in the thought: in a metaphor, the two subjects are kept distinct in thought only, not in expression. A hero resembles a lion, and upon that resemblance many similes have been made by Homer and other poets. But instead of resembling a lion, let us take the aid of the imagination, and feign or figure the hero to be a lion. By this variation the simile is converted into a metaphor; which is carried on by describing all the qualities of a lion that resemble those of the hero. The fundamental pleasure here, that of resemblance, belongs to thought as distinguished from expression. There is an additional pleasure which arises from the expression.{109} The poet, by figuring his hero to be a lion, goes on to describe the lion in appearance, but in reality the hero; and his description is peculiarly beautiful, by expressing the virtues and qualities of the hero in new terms, which, properly speaking, belong not to him, but to a different being. This will better be understood by examples. A family connected with a common parent, resembles a tree, the trunk and branches of which are connected with a common root. But let us suppose, that a family is figured not barely to be like a tree, but to be a tree; and then the simile will be converted into a metaphor, in the following manner.

Figuring human life to be a voyage at sea:

Figuring glory and honour to be a garland of fresh flowers:

Figuring a man who hath acquired great reputation and honour to be a tree full of fruit:

I am aware that the term metaphor has been used in a more extensive sense than I give it; but I thought it of consequence, in matters of some intricacy, to separate things that differ from each other, and to confine words within their most proper sense. An allegory differs from a metaphor; and what I would chuse to call a figure of speech, differs from both. I shall proceed to explain these differences. A metaphor is defined above to be an operation of the imagination, figuring one thing to be another. An allegory requires no operation of the imagination, nor is one thing figured to be another: it consists in chusing a subject having properties or circumstances resembling those of{112} the principal subject; and the former is described in such a manner as to represent the latter. The subject thus represented is kept out of view; we are left to discover it by reflection; and we are pleased with the discovery, because it is our own work. Quintilian[26] gives the following instance of an allegory,

and explains it elegantly in the following words: “Totusque ille Horatii locus, quo navim pro republica, fluctuum tempestates pro bellis civilibus, portum pro pace atque concordia, dicit.”

There cannot be a finer or more correct allegory than the following, in which a vineyard is put for God’s own people the Jews.

In a word, an allegory is in every respect similar to an hieroglyphical painting, excepting only, that words are used instead of colours. Their effects are precisely the same. A hieroglyphic raises two images in the mind; one seen, which represents one not seen. An allegory does the same. The representative subject is described; and it is by resemblance that we are enabled to apply the description to the subject represented.

In a figure of speech, neither is there any fiction of the imagination employ’d, nor a representative subject introduced. A figure of speech, as imply’d from{114} its name, regards the expression only, not the thought; and it may be defined, the employing a word in a sense different from what is proper to it. Thus youth or the beginning of life, is expressed figuratively by morning of life. Morning is the beginning of the day; and it is transferred sweetly and easily to signify the beginning of any other series, life especially, the progress of which is reckoned by days.

Figures of speech are reserved for a separate section; but a metaphor and allegory are so much connected, that it is necessary to handle them together: the rules for distinguishing the good from the bad, are common to both. We shall therefore proceed to these rules, after adding some examples to illustrate the nature of an allegory. Horace speaking of his love to Pyrrha, which was now extinguished, expresses himself thus.

Again,

The rules that govern metaphors and allegories, are of two kinds: those of the first kind concern the construction of a metaphor or allegory, and ascertain what are perfect and what are faulty: those of the other kind concern the propriety or impropriety of introduction, in what circumstances these figures may be admitted, and in what circumstances they are out of place. I begin with rules of the first kind; some of which coincide with those already given with respect to similes; some are peculiar to metaphors and allegories.

And in the first place, it has been observed, that a simile cannot be agreeable where the resemblance is either too strong or too faint. This holds equally in a metaphor and allegory; and the reason is the same in all. In the following instances, the resemblance is too faint to be agreeable.

The best way to judge of this metaphor, is to convert it into a simile; which would be bad, because there is scarce any resemblance betwixt lust and a cistern, or betwixt enormous lust and a large cistern.

Again,

There is no resemblance betwixt a distempered cause and any body that can be confined within a belt.

Again,

Poverty here must be conceived a fluid, which it resembles not in any manner.

Speaking to Bolingbroke banish’d for six years.

Again,

The following metaphor is strained beyond all endurance. Timur-bec, known to us by the name of Tamarlane the Great, writes to Bajazet Emperor of the Ottomans in the following terms.

Such strained figures, it is observable, are{119} not unfrequent in the first dawn of refinement. The mind in a new enjoyment knows no bounds, and is generally carried to excess, till experience discover the just medium.

Secondly, whatever resemblance subjects may have, it is wrong to put one for another if they bear no mutual proportion. Where a very high and a very low subject are compared, the simile takes on an air of burlesk; and the same will be the effect, where the one is imagined to be the other, as in a metaphor, or made to represent the other, as in an allegory.

Thirdly, these figures, a metaphor in particular, ought not to be extended to a great length, nor be crowded with many minute circumstances; for in that case it is scarcely possible to avoid obscurity. It is difficult, during any course of time, to support a lively image of one thing being another. A metaphor drawn out to any length, instead of illustrating or enlivening the principal subject, becomes disagreeable by overstraining the mind. Cowley is ex{120}tremely licentious in this way. Take the following instance:

For the same reason, however agreeable at first long allegories may be by their novelty, they never afford any lasting pleasure: witness the Fairy Queen, which with great power of expression, variety of images, and melody of versification, is scarce ever read a second time.

In the fourth place, the comparison carried on in a simile, being in a metaphor sunk, and the principal subject being imagined that very thing which it only resembles, an opportunity is furnished to describe it in terms taken strictly or literally with respect to its imagined nature. This suggests{121} another rule, That in constructing a metaphor, the writer ought to confine himself to the simplest expressions, and make use of such words only as are applicable literally to the imagined nature of his subject. Figurative words ought carefully to be avoided; for such complicated images, instead of setting the principal subject in a strong light, involve it in a cloud; and it is well if the reader, without rejecting by the lump, endeavour patiently to gather the plain meaning, regardless of the figures:

Copied from Ovid,

Let us analize this expression. That a fever may be imagined a flame, I admit; though more than one step is necessary to come at the resemblance. A fever, by heating the body, resembles fire; and it is no stretch to imagine a fever to be a fire.{122}

Again, by a figure of speech, flame may be put for fire, because they are commonly conjoined; and therefore a fever may also be imagined a flame. But now admitting a fever to be a flame, its effects ought to be explained in words that agree literally to a flame. This rule is not observed here; for a flame drinks figuratively only, not properly.

King Henry to his son Prince Henry:

Such faulty metaphors are pleasantly ridiculed in the Rehearsal:

Fifthly, The jumbling different metaphors in the same sentence, or the beginning with one metaphor and ending with another, is commonly called a mixt metaphor. Quintilian bears testimony against it in the bitterest terms: “Nam id quoque in primis est custodiendum, ut quo ex genere cœperis translationis, hoc desinas. Multi enim, cum initium a tempestate sumpserunt, incendio aut ruina finiunt: quæ est inconsequentia rerum fœdissima.” L. 8. cap. 6. § 2.

In the sixth place, It is unpleasant to join different metaphors in the same period, even where they are preserved distinct. It is difficult to imagine the subject to be first one thing and then another in the same period without interval: the mind is distracted by the rapid transition; and when the imagination is put on such hard duty, its images are too faint to produce any good effect:

In the last place, It is still worse to jumble together metaphorical and natural expression, or to construct a period so as that it must be understood partly metaphorically partly literally. The imagination cannot follow with sufficient ease changes so sudden and unprepared. A metaphor begun and not carried on, hath no beauty; and instead of light there is nothing but obscurity and confusion. Instances of such incorrect composition are without number. I shall, for a specimen, select a few from different authors:

Speaking of Britain,

In the first line Britain is figured to be a precious stone. In the following lines, Britain, divested of her metaphorical dress, is presented to the reader in her natural appearance.{126}

The following is a miserable jumble of expressions, arising from an unsteady view of the subject betwixt its figurative and natural appearance.

Dryden, in his dedication to the translation of Juvenal, says,

This fault of jumbling the figure and plain expression into one confused mass, is not less common in allegory than in metaphor. Take the following example.{128}

Lord Halifax, speaking of the ancient fabulists: “They (says he) wrote in signs and spoke in parables: all their fables carry a double meaning: the story is one and entire; the characters the same throughout; not broken or changed, and always conformable to the nature of the creature they introduce. They never tell you, that the dog which snapp’d at a shadow, lost his troop of horse; that would be unintelligible. This is his (Dryden’s) new way of telling a story, and confounding the moral and the fable together.” After instancing from the hind and panther, he goes on thus: “What relation has the hind to our Saviour? or what notion have we of a{129} panther’s bible? If you say he means the church, how does the church feed on lawns, or range in the forest? Let it be always a church or always a cloven-footed beast, for we cannot bear his shifting the scene every line.”

A few words more upon allegory. Nothing gives greater pleasure than this figure, when the representative subject bears a strong analogy, in all its circumstances, to that which is represented. But the choice is seldom so lucky; the resemblance of the representative subject to the principal, being generally so faint and obscure, as to puzzle and not please. An allegory is still more difficult in painting than in poetry. The former can show no resemblance but what appears to the eye: the latter hath many other resources for showing the resemblance. With respect to what the Abbé du Bos[27] terms mixt allegorical compositions, these may do in poetry, because in writing the allegory can easily be distinguished from the historical part: no person{130} mistakes Virgil’s Fame for a real being. But such a mixture in a picture is intolerable; because in a picture the objects must appear all of the same kind, wholly real or wholly emblematical. The history of Mary de Medicis, in the palace of Luxenbourg, painted by Rubens, is in a vicious taste, by a perpetual jumble of real and allegorical personages, which produce a discordance of parts and an obscurity upon the whole: witness in particular, the tablature representing the arrival of Mary de Medicis at Marseilles: mixt with the real personages, the Nereids and Tritons appear sounding their shells. Such a mixture of fiction and reality in the same group, is strangely absurd. The picture of Alexander and Roxana, described by Lucian, is gay and fanciful: but it suffers by the allegorical figures. It is not in the wit of man to invent an allegorical representation deviating farther from any appearance of resemblance, than one exhibited by Lewis XIV. anno 1664; in which an overgrown chariot, intended to represent that of the sun, is{131} dragg’d along, surrounded with men and women, representing the four ages of the world, the celestial signs, the seasons, the hours, &c.: a monstrous composition; and yet scarce more absurd than Guido’s tablature of Aurora.

In an allegory, as well as in a metaphor, terms ought to be chosen that properly and literally are applicable to the representative subject. Nor ought any circumstance to be added, that is not proper to the representative subject, however justly it may be applicable figuratively to the principal. Upon this account the following allegory is faulty.

For though blood may suggest the cruelty of love, it is an improper or immaterial circumstance in the representative subject: water, not blood, is proper for a whetstone.

We proceed to the next head, which is, to examine in what circumstances these fi{132}gures are proper, in what improper. This inquiry is not altogether superseded by what is said upon the same subject in the chapter of comparisons; because, upon trial, it will be found, that a short metaphor or allegory may be proper, where a simile, drawn out to a greater length, and in its nature more solemn, would scarce be relished. The difference however is not considerable; and in most instances the same rules are applicable to both. And, in the first place, a metaphor, as well as a simile, are excluded from common conversation, and from the description of ordinary incidents.

In the next place, in any severe passion which totally occupies the mind, metaphor is unnatural. For that reason, we must condemn the following speech of Macbeth.

The next example, of deep despair, beside the highly figurative style, hath more the air of raving than of sense:

The metaphor I next introduce, is sweet and lively, but it suits not the fiery temper of Chamont, inflamed with passion. Parables are not the language of wrath venting itself without restraint:

The following speech, full of imagery, is not natural in grief and dejection of mind.

The finest picture that ever was drawn of deep distress, is in Macbeth[28], where Macduff is represented lamenting his wife and children, inhumanly murdered by the tyrant. Struck with the news, he questions the messenger over and over; not that he doubted the fact, but that his heart revolted against so cruel a misfortune. After struggling some time with his grief, he turns from his wife and children to their savage{135} butcher; and then gives vent to his resentment; but still with manliness and dignity:

This passage is a delicious picture of human nature. One expression only seems doubtful. In examining the messenger, Macduff expresses himself thus:

Metaphorical expression, I am sensible, may sometimes be used with grace, where a regular simile would be intolerable: but there are situations so overwhelming, as not to admit even the slightest metaphor. It requires great delicacy of taste to determine with firmness, whether the present case be of that nature. I incline to think it is; and{136} yet I would not willingly alter a single word of this admirable scene.

But metaphorical language is proper when a man struggles to bear with dignity or decency a misfortune however great. The struggle agitates and animates the mind:

SECT. VII.

Figure of Speech.

IN the section immediately foregoing, a figure of speech is defined, “The em{137}ploying a word in a sense different from what is proper to it;” and the new or uncommon sense of the word is termed the figurative sense. The figurative sense must have a relation to that which is proper; and the more intimate the relation is, the figure is the more happy. How ornamental this figure is to language, will not be readily imagined by any one who hath not given peculiar attention. I shall endeavour to display its capital beauties and advantages. In the first place, a word used figuratively, together with its new sense, suggests what it commonly bears: and thus it has the effect to present two objects; one signified by the figurative sense, which may be termed the principal object; and one signified by the proper sense, which may be termed accessory. The principal makes a part of the thought; the accessory is merely ornamental. In this respect, a figure of speech is precisely similar to concordant sounds in music, which, without contributing to the melody, make it harmonious. I explain myself by examples. Youth, by a figure of speech, is termed the morning of life. This{138} expression signifies youth, the principal object, which enters into the thought: but it suggests, at the same time, the proper sense of morning; and this accessory object being in itself beautiful and connected by resemblance to the principal object, is not a little ornamental. I give another example, of a different kind, where an attribute is expressed figuratively, Imperious ocean. Together with the figurative meaning of the epithet imperious, there is suggested its proper meaning, viz. the stern authority of a despotic prince. Upon this figurative power of words, Vida descants with great elegance:

In the next place, this figure possesses a signal power of aggrandising an object, by the following means. Words, which have no original beauty but what arises from their sound, acquire an adventitious beauty from their meaning. A word signifying any thing that is agreeable, becomes by that means agreeable; for the agreeableness of the object is communicated to its name[29]. This acquired beauty, by the force of custom, adheres to the word even when used figuratively; and the beauty received from the thing it properly signifies, is communicated to the thing which it is made to sig{140}nify figuratively. Consider the foregoing expression Imperious ocean, how much more elevated it is than Stormy ocean.

Thirdly, this figure hath a happy effect in preventing the familiarity of proper names. The familiarity of a proper name, is communicated to the thing it signifies by means of their intimate connection; and the thing is thereby brought down in our feeling[30]. This bad effect is prevented by using a figurative word instead of one that is proper; as, for example, when we express the sky by terming it the blue vault of heaven. For though no work made with hands can compare with the sky in magnificence, the expression however is good, by preventing the object from being brought down by the familiarity of its proper name. With respect to the degrading familiarity of proper names, Vida has the following passage.

Lastly, by this figure language is enriched and rendered more copious. In that respect, were there no other, a figure of speech is a happy invention. This property is finely touched by Vida:

The beauties I have mentioned belong to every figure of speech. Several other beauties peculiar to one or other sort, I shall have occasion to remark afterward.

Not only subjects, but qualities, actions, effects, may be expressed figuratively. Thus{142} as to subjects, the gates of breath for the lips, the watery kingdom for the ocean. As to qualities, fierce for stormy, in the expression Fierce winter: altus for profundus, altus puteus, altum mare: Breathing for perspiring, Breathing plants. Again, as to actions, the sea rages: Time will melt her frozen thoughts: Time kills grief. An effect is put for the cause, as lux for the sun; and a cause for the effect, as boum labores for corn. The relation of resemblance is one plentiful source of figures of speech; and nothing is more common than to apply to one object the name of another that resembles it in any respect. Height, size, and worldly greatness, though in themselves they have no resemblance, produce emotions in the mind that have a resemblance; and, led by this resemblance, we naturally express worldly greatness by height or size. One feels a certain uneasiness in looking down to a great depth: and hence depth is made to express any thing disagreeable by excess; as depth of grief, depth of despair. Again, height of place and time long past, produce similar feelings; and hence the ex{143}pression, Ut altius repetam. Distance in past time, producing a strong feeling, is put for any strong feeling: Nihil mihi antiquius nostra amicitia. Shortness with relation to space, for shortness with relation to time: Brevis esse laboro; obscurus fio. Suffering a punishment resembles paying a debt: hence pendere pœnas. Upon the same account, light may be put for glory, sun-shine for prosperity, and weight for importance.

Many words, originally figurative, having, by long and constant use, lost their figurative power, are degraded to the inferior rank of proper terms. Thus the words that express the operations of the mind, have in all languages been originally figurative. The reason holds in all, that when these operations came first under consideration, there was no other way of describing them but by what they resembled. It was not practicable to give them proper names, as may be done to objects that can be ascertained by sight and touch. A soft nature, jarring tempers, weight of wo, pompous phrase, beget compassion, assuage grief, break a vow, bend the eye downward, shower{144} down curses, drown’d in tears, wrapt in joy, warm’d with eloquence, loaden with spoils, and a thousand other expressions of the like nature, have lost their figurative sense. Some terms there are, that cannot be said to be either purely figurative or altogether proper: originally figurative, they are tending to simplicity, without having lost altogether their figurative power. Virgil’s Regina saucia cura, is perhaps one of these expressions. With ordinary readers, saucia will be considered as expressing simply the effect of grief; but one of a lively imagination will exalt the phrase into a figure.

To epitomise this subject, and at the same time to give a clear view of it, I cannot think of a better method, than to present to the reader a list of the several relations upon which figures of speech are commonly founded. This list I divide into two tables; one of subjects expressed figuratively, and one of attributes.{145}

FIRST TABLE.

Subjects expressed figuratively.

1. A word proper to one subject employed figuratively to express a resembling subject.

There is no figure of speech so frequent, as what is derived from the relation of resemblance. Youth, for example, is signified figuratively by the morning of life. The life of a man resembles a natural day in several particulars. The morning is the beginning of day, youth the beginning of life: the morning is chearful, so is youth; &c. By another resemblance, a bold warrior is termed the thunderbolt of war; a multitude of troubles, a sea of troubles.

No other figure of speech possesses so many different beauties, as that which is founded on resemblance. Beside the beauties above mentioned, common to all sorts, it possesses in particular the beauty of a metaphor or of a simile. A figure of speech{146} built upon resemblance, suggests always a comparison betwixt the principal subject and the accessory; and by this means every good effect of a metaphor or simile, may, in a short and lively manner, be produced by this figure of speech.

2. A word proper to the effect employ’d figuratively to express the cause.

Lux for the sun. Shadow for cloud. A helmet is signified by the expression glittering terror. A tree by shadow or umbrage. Hence the expression,

A wound is made to signify an arrow:

There is a peculiar force and beauty in this figure. The word which signifies figuratively the principal subject, denotes it to be a cause by suggesting the effect.{147}

3. A word proper to the cause, employ’d figuratively to express the effect.

Boumque labores for corn. Sorrow or grief for tears.

Blindness for darkness:

There is a peculiar energy in this figure similar to that in the former. The figurative name denotes the subject to be an effect by suggesting its cause.

4. Two things being intimately connected, the proper name of the one employ’d figuratively to signify the other.

Day for light. Night for darkness. Hence, A sudden night. Winter for a storm at sea.{148}

This last figure would be too bold for a British writer, as a storm at sea is not inseparably connected with winter in this climate.

5. A word proper to an attribute employ’d figuratively to denote the subject.

Youth and beauty for those who are young and beautiful:

Majesty for the King:

Speaking of cranes:

The peculiar beauty of this figure arises from suggesting an attribute that embellishes the subject, or puts it in a stronger light.

6. A complex term employ’d figuratively to denote one of the component parts.

Funus for a dead body. Burial for a grave.

7. The name of one of the component parts instead of the complex term.

Tœda for a marriage. The East for a country situated east from us. Jovis vestigia servat, for imitating Jupiter in general.

8. A word signifying time or place em{150}ploy’d figuratively to denote a connected subject.

Clime for a nation, or for a constitution of government: Hence the expression, Merciful clime. Fleecy winter for snow. Seculum felix.

9. A part for the whole.

The pole for the earth. The head for the person.

Tergum for the man:

Vultus for the man:

The peculiar beauty of this figure consists in marking out that part which makes the greatest figure.

10. The name of the container employ’d figuratively to signify what is contained.

Grove for the birds in it: Vocal grove. Ships for the seamen: Agonizing ships. Mountains for the sheep pasturing upon them: Bleating mountains. Zacynthus, Ithaca, &c. for the inhabitants. Ex mœstis domibus. Livy.

11. The name of the sustainer employ’d figuratively to signify what is sustained.{152}

Altar for the sacrifice. Field for the battle fought upon it: Well-fought field.

12. The name of the materials employ’d figuratively to signify the things made of them.

Ferrum for gladius.

13. The names of the Heathen deities employ’d figuratively to signify what they patronise.

Jove for the air. Mars for war. Venus for beauty. Cupid for love. Ceres for corn. Neptune for the sea. Vulcan for fire.

This figure bestows great elevation upon the subject; and therefore ought to be confined to the higher strains of poetry.

SECOND TABLE.

Attributes expressed figuratively.

1. When two attributes are connected,{153} the name of the one may be employ’d figuratively to express the other.

Purity and virginity are attributes of the same person. Hence the expression, Virgin snow for pure snow.

2. A word signifying properly an attribute of one subject, employ’d figuratively to express a resembling attribute of another subject.

Tottering state. Imperious ocean. Angry flood. Raging tempest. Shallow fears.

Black omen, for an omen that portends bad fortune:

The peculiar beauty of this figure arises from suggesting a comparison.{154}

3. A word proper to the subject, employ’d to express one of its attributes.

4. When two subjects have a resemblance by a common quality, the name of the one subject may be employ’d figuratively to denote that quality in the other.

5. The name of the instrument, made to signify the power of employing it.

The ample field of figurative expression display’d in these tables, affords great scope for reasoning and reflection. Several of the observations relating to metaphor, are applicable to figures of speech. These I{155} shall slightly retouch, with some additions peculiarly adapted to the present subject.

In the first place, as the figure under consideration is built upon relation, we find from experience, and it must be obvious from reason, that the beauty of the figure depends on the intimacy of the relation betwixt the figurative and proper sense of the word. A slight resemblance, in particular, will never make this figure agreeable. The expression, for example, drink down a secret, for listening to a secret with attention, is harsh and uncouth, because there is scarce any resemblance betwixt listening and drinking. The expression weighty crack, used by Ben Johnson for loud crack, is worse if possible: a loud sound has not the slightest resemblance to a piece of matter that is weighty. The following expression of Lucretius is not less faulty. “Et lepido quæ sunt fucata sonore.” i. 645.

The following figures of speech seem altogether wild and extravagant, the figurative{157} and proper meaning having no connection whatever. Moving softness, freshness breathes, breathing prospect, flowing spring, dewy light, lucid coolness, and many others of this false coin may be found in Thomson’s Seasons.

Secondly, the proper sense of the word ought to bear some proportion to the figurative sense, and not soar much above it, nor sink much below it. This rule, as well as the foregoing, is finely illustrated by Vida:

Thirdly, in a figure of speech, every circumstance ought to be avoided that agrees with the proper sense only, not the figurative sense; for it is the latter that expresses the thought, and the former serves for no other purpose but to make harmony:

Zacynthus here standing figuratively for the inhabitants, the description of the island is quite out of place. It puzzles the reader, by making him doubt whether the word ought to be taken in its proper or figurative sense.

The disgust one has to drink ink in reality,{159} is nothing to the purpose where the subject is drinking ink figuratively.

In the fourth place, to draw consequences from a figure of speech, as if the word were to be understood literally, is a gross absurdity, for it is confounding truth with fiction:

Sin may be imagined heavy in a figurative sense: but weight in a proper sense belongs to the accessory only; and therefore to describe the effects of weight, is to desert the principal subject, and to convert the accessory into a principal.

Ulysses speaking of Hector:

This would be very right, if there were any inconsistence in being interred in one place really and in another place figuratively.

From considering that a word employ’d in a figurative sense suggests at the same time its proper meaning, a fifth rule occurs, That to raise a figure of speech, we ought to use no word, the proper sense of which is inconsistent or incongruous with the subject: for no incongruity, far less inconsistency, whether real or imagined, ought to enter into the expression of any subject:

The foregoing rule may be extended to form a sixth, That no epithet ought to be given to the figurative sense of a word that agrees not also with its proper sense:

Seventhly, The crowding into one period or thought different figures of speech, is not less faulty than crowding metaphors in that manner. The mind is distracted in the quick transition from one image to another, and is puzzled instead of being pleased:

Eighthly, If crowding figures be bad, it is still worse to graft one figure upon another. For instance,

A falchion drinking the warriors blood is a figure built upon resemblance, which is passable. But then in the expression, lives is again put for blood; and by thus grafting one figure upon another the expression is rendered obscure and unpleasant.

Ninthly, Intricate and involved figures, that can scarce be analized or reduced to plain language, are least of all tolerable:{165}

Vulcan to the Cyclopes,

In the tenth place, When a subject is introduced by its proper name, it is absurd to attribute to it the properties of a different subject to which the word is sometimes apply’d in a figurative sense:

Neptune is here introduced personally, and not figuratively for the ocean: the description therefore, which is only applicable to the ocean, is altogether improper.

It is not sufficient, that a figure of speech be regularly constructed, and be free from blemish: it requires taste to discern when it is proper when improper; and taste, I suspect, is the only guide we can rely on. One however may gather from reflection and experience, that ornaments and graces suit not any of the dispiriting passions, nor are proper for expressing any thing grave and important. In familiar conversation, they are in some measure ridiculous. Prospero in the Tempest, speaking to his daughter Miranda, says,

No exception can be taken to the justness of the figure; and circumstances may be imagined to make it proper: but it is certainly not proper in familiar conversation.{168}

In the last place, though figures of speech have a charming effect when accurately constructed and properly introduced, they ought however to be scattered with a sparing hand: nothing is more luscious, and nothing consequently more satiating, than redundant ornament of any kind.{169}

CHAP. XXI.

Narration and Description.

HOrace, and many writers after him, give instructions for chusing a subject adapted to the genius of the author. But rules of criticism would be endless, did one descend to peculiarities in talent or genius. The aim of the present work is, to consider human nature in general, and to explore what is common to the species. The choice of a subject comes not under such a plan: but the manner of execution comes under it; because the manner of execution is subjected to general rules. These rules respect the things expressed, as well as the language or expression; which suggests a division of the present chapter into two parts; first of thoughts, and next of words. I pretend not to justify this division as entirely accurate. In discoursing{170} of the thoughts, it is difficult to abstract altogether from words; and still more difficult, in discoursing of the words, to abstract altogether from thought.

The first observation is, That the thoughts which embellish a narration ought to be chaste and solid. While the mind is intent upon facts, it is little disposed to the operarations of the imagination. Poetical images in a grave history are intolerable; and yet Strada’s Belgic history is full of poetical images. These being discordant with the subject, are disgustful; and they have a still worse effect, by giving an air of fiction to a genuine history. Such flowers ought to be scattered with a sparing hand, even in epic poetry; and at no rate are they proper, till the reader be warmed, and by an enlivened imagination be prepared to relish them: in that state of mind, they are extremely agreeable. But while we are sedate and attentive to an historical chain of facts, we reject with disdain every fiction. This Belgic history is indeed wofully vicious both in matter and form: it is stuffed with{171} frigid and unmeaning reflections, as well as with poetical flashes, which, even laying aside the impropriety, are mere tinsel.

Vida[31], following Horace, recommends a modest commencement of an epic poem; giving for a reason, that the writer ought to husband his fire. This reason has weight; but what is said above suggests a reason still more weighty: Bold thoughts and figures are never relished till the mind be heated and thoroughly engaged, which is not the reader’s case at the commencement. Shakespear, in the first part of his history of Henry VI. begins with a sentiment too bold for the most heated imagination:

The passage with which Strada begins his history, is too poetical for a subject of that kind; and at any rate too high for the beginning of a grave performance. A third reason ought to have not less influence than either of the former: A man who, upon his first appearance, endeavours to exhibit all his talents, is never relished; the first periods of a work ought therefore to be short, natural, and simple. Cicero, in his oration pro Archia poeta, errs against this rule: his reader is out of breath at the very first period, which seems never to end. Burnet begins the history of his own times with a period long and intricate.

A third rule or observation is, That where the subject is intended for entertainment solely, not for instruction, a thing ought to be described as it appears, not as it is in reality. In running, for example, the impulse upon the ground is accurately proportioned to the celerity of motion: in ap{173}pearance it is otherwise; for a person in swift motion seems to skim the ground, and scarcely to touch it. Virgil, with great taste, describes quick running according to its appearance; and thereby raises an image far more lively, than it could have been by adhering scrupulously to truth:

This example is copied by the author of Telemachus:

{174}

Again,

Fourthly, In narration as well as in description, facts and objects ought to be painted so accurately as to form in the mind of the reader distinct and lively images. Every useless circumstance ought indeed to be suppressed, because every such circumstance loads the narration; but if a circumstance be necessary, however slight, it cannot be described too minutely. The force of language consists in raising complete images[32]; which cannot be done till the reader, forgetting himself, be transported as by magic into the very place and time of the important action, and be converted, as it were, into a real spectator, beholding every thing that passes. In this view, the narrative in an epic poem ought to rival a picture{175} in the liveliness and accuracy of its representations: no circumstance must be omitted that tends to make a complete image; because an imperfect image, as well as any other imperfect conception, is cold and uninteresting. I shall illustrate this rule by several examples, giving the first place to a beautiful passage from Virgil.

The poplar, plowman, and unfledged, though not essential in the description, are circumstances that tend to make a complete image, and upon that account are an embellishment.

Again,

Horace, addressing to Fortune:

Shakespear says[33], “You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice by fanning in his face with a peacock’s feather.” The peacock’s feather, not to mention the beauty of the object, completes the image. An accurate image cannot be formed of this fanciful operation, without conceiving a particular feather; and the mind is at some loss, when this is not specified in the de{177}cription. Again, “The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse, as they would have drown’d a bitch’s blind puppies, fifteen i’ th’ litter[34].”

In the following passage, the action, with all its material circumstances, is represented so much to the life, that it could not be better conceived by a real spectator; and it is this manner of description which contributes greatly to the sublimity of the passage.

A passage I am to cite from Shakespear, falls not much short of that now mentioned in particularity of description:

The Henriade of Voltaire errs greatly against the foregoing rule: every thing is touched in a summary way, without ever descending to the circumstances of an event. This manner is good in a general history,{179} the purpose of which is to record important transactions: but in a fable, which hath a very different aim, it is cold and uninteresting; because it is impracticable to form distinct images of persons or things represented in a manner so superficial.

It is observed above, that every useless circumstance ought to be suppressed. To deal in such circumstances, is a fault, on the one hand, not less to be avoided, than the conciseness for which Voltaire is blamed, on the other. In the Æneid[35], Barce, the nurse of Sichæus, whom we never hear of before or after, is introduced for a purpose not more important than to call Anna to her sister Dido. And that it might not be thought unjust in Dido, even in this trivial incident, to prefer her husband’s nurse before her own, the poet takes care to inform his reader, that Dido’s nurse was dead. To this I must oppose a beautiful passage in the same book, where, after Dido’s last speech, the poet, supposing her{180} dead, hastens to describe the lamentation of her attendants:

As an appendix to the foregoing rule, I add the following observation, That to raise a sudden and strong impression, some single circumstance happily selected, has more power than the most laboured description. Macbeth, mentioning to his lady some voices he heard while he was murdering the King, says,

Describing Prince Henry:

The same author, speaking ludicrously of an army debilitated with diseases, says,

To draw a character is the master-stroke of description. In this Tacitus excels: his figures are natural, distinct, and complete; not a feature wanting or misplaced. Shakespear however exceeds Tacitus in the sprightliness of his figures: some characteristical circumstance is generally invented or laid hold of, which paints more to the life than many words. The following instances will explain my meaning, and at the same time prove my observation to be just.

Again,

In the following passage a character is completed by a single stroke.

Describing a jealous husband:

Congreve has an inimitable stroke of this kind in his comedy of Love for Love:

Falstaff speaking of Ancient Pistol,

Some writers, through heat of imagination, fall into contradictions; some are guilty of downright inconsistencies; and some even rave like madmen. Against such capital errors one cannot be warned to better purpose than by collecting instances. The first shall be of a contradiction, the most venial of all. Virgil speaking of Neptune:

Again,

The following examples are of downright inconsistencies.

The last article is of raving like one mad. Cleopatra speaking to the aspick:

Reasons that are common and known to every person, ought to be taken for granted: to express them is childish and interrupts the narration. Quintus Curtius, relating the battle of Issus:

Having discussed what observations occurred upon the thoughts or things expressed, I proceed to what more peculiarly concern the language or verbal dress. The language proper for expressing passion is the subject of a former chapter. Several observations there made, are applicable to the present subject; particularly, That words are{188} intimately connected with the ideas they represent, and that the representation cannot be perfect unless the emotions raised by the sound and the sense be concordant. It is not sufficient, that the sense be clearly expressed: the words must correspond to the subject in every particular. An elevated subject requires an elevated style: what is familiar, ought to be familiarly expressed: a subject that is serious and important, ought to be cloathed in plain nervous language: a description, on the other hand, addressed to the imagination, is susceptible of the highest ornaments that sounding words, metaphor, and figurative expression, can bestow upon it.

I shall give a few examples of the foregoing doctrine. A poet of any genius will not readily dress a high subject in low words; and yet blemishes of this kind are found even in some classical works. Horace observing that men, perfectly satisfied with themselves, are seldom so with their condition, introduces Jupiter indulging to each his own choice:{189}

Jupiter in wrath puffing up both cheeks, is a ludicrous expression, far from suitable to the gravity of the subject: every one must feel the discordance. The following couplet, sinking far below the subject, is not less ludicrous.

On the other hand, to raise the expression above the tone of the subject, is a fault than which none is more common. Take the following instances.

In the funeral orations of the Bishop of Meaux, the following passages are raised far above the tone of the subject.

Montesquieu, in a didactic work, L’esprit des Loix, gives too great indulgence to imagination: the tone of his language swells frequently above his subject. I give an example:

The following passage, intended, one would imagine, as a receipt to boil water, is alto{192}gether burlesque by the laboured elevation of the diction.

In a passage near the beginning of the 4th book of Telamachus, one feels a sudden bound upward without preparation, which accords not with the subject:

This obviously is copied from a similar passage in the Æneid, which ought not to have been copied, because it lies open to the same censure: but the force of authority is great.

Take another example where the words rise above the subject:

The language of Homer is suited to his subject, not less accurately than the actions and sentiments of his heroes are to their characters. Virgil, in this particular, falls short of perfection: his language is stately throughout; and though he descends at times to the simplest branches of cookery, roasting and boiling for example, yet he never relaxes a moment from the high tone[36]. In adjusting his language to his subject, no writer equals Swift. I can recollect but one exception, which at the same time is far{195} from being gross. The journal of a modern lady, is composed in a style where sprightliness is blended with familiarity, perfectly suited to the subject. In one passage, however, the poet assumes a higher tone, which corresponds neither to the subject nor to the tone of language employ’d in the rest of that piece. The passage I have in view begins l. 116. “But let me now a while survey,” &c. and ends at l. 135.

It is proper to be observed upon this head, that writers of inferior rank are continually upon the stretch to enliven and enforce their subject by exaggeration and superlatives. This unluckily has an effect opposite to what is intended: the reader, disgusted with language that swells above the subject, is led by contrast to think more meanly of the subject than it may possibly deserve. A man of prudence, beside, will be not less careful to husband his strength in writing than in walking: a writer too liberal of superlatives, exhausts his whole stock upon ordinary incidents, and reserves no share to{196} express, with greater energy, matters of importance[37].

The power that language possesses to imitate thought, goes farther than to the capital circumstances above mentioned: it reacheth even the slighter modifications. Slow action, for example, is imitated by words pronounced slow; labour or toil, by words harsh or rough in their sound. But this subject has been already handled[38].

In dialogue-writing, the condition of the speaker is chiefly to be regarded in framing the expression. The centinel in Hamlet, interrogated about the ghost, whether his watch had been quiet? answers with great{197} propriety for a man in his station, “Not a mouse stirring[39].”

I proceed to a second remark, not less important than the former. No person of reflection but must be sensible, that an incident makes a stronger impression on an eye-witness, than when heard at second hand. Writers of genius, sensible that the eye is the best avenue to the heart, represent every thing as passing in our sight; and from readers or hearers, transform us, as it were, into spectators. A skilful writer conceals himself, and presents his personages. In a word, every thing becomes dramatic as much as possible. Plutarch, de gloria Atheniensium, observes, that Thucydides makes his reader a spectator, and inspires him with the same passions as if he were an eye-witness. I am intitled to{198} make the same observation upon our countryman Swift. From this happy talent arises that energy of style which is peculiar to him: he cannot always avoid narration; but the pencil is his choice, by which he bestows life and colouring upon his objects. Pope is richer in ornament, but possesses not in the same degree the talent of drawing from the life. A translation of the sixth satire of Horace, begun by the former and finished by the latter, affords the fairest opportunity for a comparison. Pope obviously imitates the picturesque manner of his friend: yet every one of taste must be sensible, that the imitation, though fine, falls short of the original. In other instances, where Pope writes in his own style, the difference of manner is still more conspicuous.

Abstract or general terms have no good effect in any competition for amusement; because it is only of particular objects that images can be formed[40]. Shakespear’s style in that respect is excellent. Every article{199} in his descriptions is particular, as in nature; and if accidentally a vague expression slip in, the blemish is extremely discernible by the bluntness of its impression. Take the following example. Falstaff, excusing himself for running away at a robbery, says,

The particular words I object to are, instinct is a great matter, which make but a poor figure, compared with the liveliness{200} of the rest of the speech. It was one of Homer’s advantages, that he wrote before general terms were multiplied: the superior genius of Shakespear displays itself in avoiding them after they were multiplied. Addison describes the family of Sir Roger de Coverley in the following words.

The description of the groom is less lively than of the others; plainly because the expression, being vague and general, tends not to form any image. “Dives opum variarum[41],” is an expression still more vague; and so are the following.

In the fine arts, it is a rule, to put the capital objects in the strongest point of view; and even to present them oftener than once, where it can be done. In history-painting, the principal figure is placed in the front, and in the best light: an equestrian statue is placed in a centre of streets, that it may be seen from many places at once. In no composition is there a greater opportunity for this rule than in writing:

The repetitions in Homer, which are frequent, have been the occasion of much criticism. Suppose we were at a loss about the reason, might not taste be sufficient to justify them? At the same time, one must be devoid of understanding not to be sensible, that they make the narration dramatic; and give an air of truth, by making things appear as passing in our sight.

A concise comprehensive style is a great ornament in narration; and a superfluity of unnecessary words, not less than of circumstances, a great nuisance. A judicious selection of the striking circumstances, cloathed in a nervous style, is delightful. In this style, Tacitus excels all writers, ancient and modern. Instances are numberless: take the following specimen.

{205}

If a concise or nervous style be a beauty, tautology must be a blemish. And yet writers, fettered by verse, are not sufficiently careful to avoid this slovenly practice: they may be pitied, but they cannot be justified. Take for a specimen the following instances, from the best poet, for versification at least, that England has to boast of:

Redundant epithets, such as humid, in the last citation, are by Quintilian disallowed to orators, but indulged to poets[42]; because his favourite poets, in a few instances, are reduced to such epithets for the sake of versification. For instance, Prata canis albicant pruinis, of Horace, and liquidos fontes, of Virgil.

As an apology for such careless expressions, it may well suffice, that Pope, in{207} submitting to be a translator, acts below his genius. In a translation, it is hard to require the same spirit or accuracy, that is chearfully bestowed on an original work. And to support the reputation of this author, I shall give some instances from Virgil and Horace, more faulty by redundancy than any of those above mentioned:

Here I can luckily apply Horace’s rule against himself:

I close this chapter with a curious inquiry. An object, however ugly to the sight, is far from being so when represented by colours or by words. What is the cause of this difference? The cause with respect to painting is obvious. A good picture, whatever the subject be, is agreeable, because of the pleasure we take in imitation: the agreeableness of imitation overbalances the disagreeableness of the subject; and the picture upon the whole is agreeable. It requires a greater compass to explain the cause with respect to the description of an ugly object. To connect individuals in the social state, no one particular contributes more than language, by the power it{209} possesses of an expeditious communication of thought and a lively representation of transactions. But nature hath not been satisfied to recommend language by its utility merely: it is made susceptible of many beauties that have no relation to utility, which are directly felt without the intervention of any reflection[43]. And this unfolds the mystery; for the pleasure of language is so great, as in a lively description to overbalance the disagreeableness of the image raised by it[44]. This however is no encouragement to deal in disagreeable subjects; for the pleasure is out of sight greater where the subject and the description are both of them agreeable.

The following description is upon the whole agreeable, though the subject described is in itself dismal.

An unmanly depression of spirits in time of danger is not an agreeable sight; and yet a fine description or representation of it will be relished:

Objects that strike terror in a spectator, have in poetry and painting a fine effect. The picture, by raising a slight emotion of terror, agitates the mind; and in that condition every beauty makes a deep impression. May not contrast heighten the pleasure, by opposing our present security to the danger we would be in by encountering the object represented?{212}

Objects of horror must be excepted from the foregoing theory; for no description, however masterly, is sufficient to overbalance the disgust raised even by the idea of such an object. Every thing horrible ought therefore to be avoided in a description. Nor is this a severe law: the poet will avoid such scenes for his own sake, as well as for that of his reader; and to vary his descriptions, nature affords plenty of objects that disgust{214} us in some degree without raising horror. I am obliged therefore to condemn the picture of sin in the second book of Paradise Lost, though drawn with a masterly hand. The original would be a horrible spectacle; and the horror is not much softened in the copy.

Iago’s character in the tragedy of Othello, is so monstrous and satanical, as not to be sufferable in a representation: not even Shakespear’s masterly hand can make the picture agreeable.

Though the objects introduced in the following scenes, are not altogether so horrible as Sin is in Milton’s picture; yet with every person of taste, disgust will be the prevailing emotion.

CHAP. XXII.

Epic and Dramatic Compositions.

TRagedy differs from the epic more in form than in substance. The ends proposed by each are instruction and amusement; and each of them copy human actions as means to bring about these ends. They differ in the manner only of copying. Epic poetry deals in narration: Tragedy represents its facts as transacted in our sight. In the former, the poet introduces himself as an historian: in the latter he presents his actors and never himself[45].{219}

This difference, regarding form only, may be thought slight; but the effects it occasions, are by no means so. What we see, makes a stronger impression than what we learn from others. A narrative poem is a story told by another: facts and incidents passing upon the stage, come under our own observation; and are beside much enlivened by action and gesture, expressive of many sentiments beyond the reach of language.{220}

A dramatic composition has another property, independent altogether of action. A dialogue makes a deeper impression than a narration: because in the former persons express their own sentiments; whereas in the latter sentiments are related at second hand. For that reason, Aristotle, the father of critics, lays it down as a rule, That in an epic poem the author ought to take every opportunity to introduce his actors, and to confine the narrative part within the narrowest bounds[46]. Homer understood perfectly the advantage of this method; and his poems are both of them in a great measure dramatic. Lucan runs to the opposite extreme; and is guilty of a still greater fault: the Pharsalia is stuffed with cold and languid reflections; the merit of which the author assumes to himself, and deigns not to share with his personages. Nothing can be more impertinent, than a chain of such reflections, which suspend the battle of Pharsalia after the leaders had made their speech{221}es, and the two armies are ready to engage[47].

Aristotle, from the nature of the fable, divides tragedy into simple and complex. But it is of greater moment, with respect to dramatic as well as epic poetry, to found a distinction upon the different ends attained by such compositions. A poem, whether dramatic or epic, that hath no tendency beyond moving the passions and exhibiting pictures of virtue and vice, may be distinguished by the name of pathetic. But where a story is purposely contrived to illustrate some important lesson of morality, by showing the natural connection betwixt disorderly passions and external misfortunes, such composition may be denominated moral[48]. It indeed conveys moral instruc{222}tion with a perspicuity that is not exceeded by the most accurate reasoning; and makes a deeper impression than any moral discourse can do. To be satisfied of this, we need but reflect, that a man whose affections are justly balanced, hath a better chance to escape misfortunes, than one who is a slave to every passion. Indeed, nothing is more evident, than the natural connection that vice hath with misery, and virtue with happiness; and such connection may be illustrated, by stating a fact as well as by urging an argument. Let us assume, for example, the following moral truths, That discord among the chiefs, renders ineffectual all common measures; and that the consequences of a slightly-founded quarrel, fostered by pride and arrogance, are not less fatal than those of the grossest injury. These truths may be inculcated, by the quarrel betwixt Agamemnon and Achilles at the siege of Troy. In this view, it ought to be the poet’s chief aim, to invent proper cir{223}cumstances, presenting to our view the natural consequences of such discord. These circumstances must seem to arise in the common course of human affairs: no accidental or unaccountable event ought to be indulged; for the necessary or probable connection betwixt vice and misery, is learned from no events but what are governed by the characters and passions of the persons represented. A real event of which we see no cause, may be a lesson to us; because what hath happened may again happen: but this cannot be inferred from a story that is known to be fictitious.

Many are the good effects of such compositions. A pathetic composition, whether epic or dramatic, tends to a habit of virtue, by exciting emotions that produce good actions, and avert us from those that are vicious or irregular[49]. It likewise, by its frequent pictures of human woes, humanizes the mind, and fortifies us in bearing our own misfortunes. A moral composition must obviously produce the same good effects, because by being moral it doth{224} not cease to be pathetic. It enjoys beside an excellence peculiar to itself: for it not only improves the heart, as above mentioned, but instructs the head by the moral it contains. For my part, I cannot imagine any entertainment more suited to a rational being, than a work thus happily illustrating some moral truth; where a number of persons of different characters are engaged in an important action, some retarding, others promoting, the great catastrophe; and where there is dignity of style as well as of matter. A work of this kind, has our sympathy at command, and can put in motion the whole train of the social affections. We have at the same time great mental enjoyment, in perceiving every event and every subordinate incident connected with its proper cause. Our curiosity is by turns excited and gratified; and our delight is consummated at the close, upon finding, from the characters and situations exhibited at the commencement, that every circumstance down to the final catastrophe is natural, and that the whole in conjunction make a regular chain of causes and effects.{225}

Considering an epic and dramatic poem as the same in substance, and having the same aim or end, it might be thought that they are equally fitted for the same subjects. But considering their difference as to form, there will be found reason to correct that thought, at least in some degree. Many subjects may indeed be treated with equal advantage in either form; but the subjects are still more numerous for which one of the forms is better qualified than the other; and there are subjects proper for the one and not for the other. To give some slight notion of the difference, as there is no room here for enlarging upon every article, I observe, that dialogue is better qualified for expressing sentiments, and narrative for displaying facts. These peculiarities tend to confine each within certain limits. Heroism, magnanimity, undaunted courage, and the whole tribe of the elevated virtues, figure best in action: tender passions and the whole tribe of sympathetic affections, figure best in sentiment. What we feel is the most remarkable in the latter: what we perform is the most remarkable in the{226} former. It clearly follows, that tender passions are more peculiarly the province of tragedy, grand and heroic actions of epic poetry[50].

I have no occasion to say more upon the epic, considered as peculiarly adapted to certain subjects. But as dramatic subjects are more complex, I must take a narrower view of them; which I do the more willingly, in order to clear a point thrown into great obscurity by critics.

In the chapter of emotions and passions[51], it is occasionally shown, that the subject best fitted for tragedy is the story of a man who has himself been the cause of his misfortune. But this man must neither be deeply guilty nor altogether innocent. The misfortune must be occasioned by a fault incident to human nature, and therefore venial. Misfortunes of this kind, call forth the whole force of the social affections, and{227} interest the spectator in the warmest manner. An accidental misfortune, if not extremely singular, doth not greatly move our pity. The person who suffers, being innocent, is freed from the greatest of all torments, viz. the anguish of mind occasioned by remorse:

A criminal, on the other hand, who brings misfortunes upon himself, excites little pity, for a different reason. His remorse, it is true, aggravates his distress, and swells the first emotions of pity: but then our hatred to the criminal blending with pity, blunts its edge considerably. Misfortunes that are not innocent nor highly criminal, partake the advantages of each extreme: they are attended with remorse to embitter the distress, which raises our pity to a great height; and the slight indignation we have at a venial fault, detracts not sen{228}sibly from our pity. For this reason, the happiest of all subjects for tragedy, if such a one could be invented, would be where a man of integrity falls into a great misfortune by doing an innocent action, but which by some singular means he conceives to be criminal. His remorse aggravates his distress; and our compassion, unrestrained by indignation, rises to its highest pitch. Pity comes thus to be the ruling passion of a pathetic tragedy; and by proper representation, may be raised to a height scarce exceeded by any thing felt in real life. A moral tragedy takes in a larger field; for, beside exercising our pity, it raises another passion, selfish indeed, but which deserves to be cherished equally with the social affections. When a misfortune is the natural consequence of some wrong bias in the temper, every spectator who is conscious of some such defect in himself, takes the alarm, and considers that he is liable to the same misfortune. This consideration raises in him an emotion of fear or terror; and it is by this emotion, frequently reiterated in a variety of moral tragedies, that the{229} spectators are put upon their guard against the disorders of passion.

The commentators upon Aristotle and other critics, have been much graveled about the account given of tragedy by this author, “That by means of pity and terror it refines in us all sorts of passion.” But no one who has a clear conception of the end and effects of a good tragedy, can have any difficulty about Aristotle’s meaning. Our pity is engaged for the persons represented, and our terror is upon our own account. Pity indeed is here made to stand for all the sympathetic emotions, because of these it is the capital. There can be no doubt, that our sympathetic emotions are refined or improved by daily exercise; and in what manner our other passions are refined by terror I have just now said. One thing is certain, that no other meaning can justly be given to the foregoing doctrine than that now mentioned; and that it was really Aristotle’s meaning, appears from his 13th chapter, where he delivers several propositions agreeable to the doctrine as here explained. These, at the same time, I the rather chuse{230} to mention; because, so far as authority can go, they confirm the foregoing reasoning about the proper subjects for tragedy. His first proposition is, That it being the province of tragedy to excite pity and terror, an innocent person falling into adversity ought never to be the subject. This proposition is a necessary consequence of his doctrine as explained: a subject of this nature may indeed excite pity and terror; but the former in an inferior degree, and the latter in no degree for moral instruction. The second proposition is, That we must not represent a wicked person emerging from misery to good fortune. This excites neither terror nor compassion, nor is agreeable in any respect. The third is, That the misfortunes of a wicked person ought not to be represented. Such representation may be agreeable in some measure upon a principle of justice: but it will not move our pity; or any degree of terror, except in those of the same vicious disposition with the person represented. His last proposition is, That the only character fit for{231} representation lies in the middle, neither eminently good nor eminently bad; where the misfortune is not the effect of deliberate vice, but of some involuntary fault, as our author expresses it[52]. The only objection I find to Aristotle’s account of tragedy, is, that he confines it within too narrow bounds, by refusing admittance to the pathetic kind. For if terror be essential to tragedy, no representation deserves that name, but where the misfortunes exhibited are caused by a wrong balance of mind, or some disorder in the internal constitution. Such misfortunes always suggest moral instruction; and by such misfortunes only can terror be excited for our improvement.

Thus Aristotle’s four propositions above mentioned, relate solely to tragedies of the moral kind. Those of the pathetic kind, are not confined within so narrow limits. Subjects fitted for the theatre, are not in such plenty, as to make us reject innocent{232} misfortunes which rouse our sympathy, though they inculcate no moral. With respect to subjects of this kind, it may indeed be a doubtful question, whether the conclusion ought not always to be happy. Where a person of integrity is represented as suffering to the end under misfortunes purely accidental, we depart discontented, and with some obscure sense of injustice; for seldom is man so submissive to the course of Providence, as not to revolt against the tyranny and vexations of blind chance: he will be inclined to say, This ought not to be. I give for an example the Romeo and Juliet of Shakespear, where the fatal catastrophe is occasioned by Friar Laurence’s coming to the monument a minute too late. Such a story we think of with regret: we are vexed at the unlucky chance, and go away dissatisfied. This is a temper of mind which ought not to be cherished; and for that reason, I vote for excluding stories of this kind from the theatre. The misfortunes of a virtuous person arising from necessary causes, or from a chain of unavoidable circumstances, will, I am apt to think,{233} be considered in a different light. Chance affords always a gloomy prospect, and in every instance gives an impression of anarchy and misrule. A regular chain, on the other hand, of causes and effects, directed by the general laws of nature, never fails to suggest the hand of Providence; to which we submit without resentment, being conscious that submission is our duty[53]. For that reason, we are not dissatisfied with the distresses of Voltaire’s Mariamne, though redoubled on her till the moment of her death, without the least fault or failing on her part. Her misfortunes are owing to a cause extremely natural, and not unfrequent, the jealousy of a barbarous husband. The fate of Desdemona in the Moor of Venice, affects us in the same manner. We are not so easily reconciled to the fate of Cordelia in King Lear: the causes of her misfortune, are by no means so evident, as to exclude the gloomy notion of chance. In short, it appears, that a perfect character suffering under misfortunes is qualified{234} for being the subject of a pathetic tragedy, provided chance be excluded. Nor is it altogether inconsistent with a moral tragedy: it may successfully be introduced as an under-part, supposing the chief place to be filled with an imperfect character from which a moral can be drawn. This is the case of Desdemona and Mariamne just now mentioned; and it is the case of Monimia and Belvidera, in Otway’s two tragedies, The Orphan, and Venice preserv’d.

I had an early opportunity to unfold a curious doctrine, That fable operates on our passions, by representing its events as passing in our sight, and by deluding us into a conviction of reality[54]. Hence, in epic and dramatic compositions, it is of importance to employ every means that may promote the delusion, such as the borrowing from history some noted event, with the addition of circumstances that may answer the author’s purpose. The principal facts are known to be true; and we are disposed to extend our belief to every circumstance.{235} But in chusing a subject that makes a figure in history, greater precaution is necessary than where the whole is invented. In the first place, no circumstances must be added, but such as connect naturally with what are known to be true: history may be supplied, but it must not be contradicted. In the next place, a pure fable, entirely new with respect to the persons as well as the incidents, may be supposed an ancient or a modern story. But if the poet build upon truth, the subject he chuses must be distant in time, or at least in place; for he ought by all means to avoid the familiarity of persons and events nearly connected with us. Familiarity ought more especially to be avoided in an epic poem, the peculiar character of which is dignity and elevation. Modern manners make but a poor figure in such a poem[55].{236}

After Voltaire, no writer, it is probable, will think of erecting an epic poem upon a recent event in the history of his own country. But an event of this kind is perhaps not altogether unqualified for tragedy. It was admitted in Greece, and Shakespear has employ’d it successfully in several of his pieces. One advantage it possesses above fiction, that of more readily engaging our belief, which tends above any other particular to raise our sympathy. The scene of comedy is generally laid at home: familiarity is no objection; and we are peculiarly sensible of the ridicule of our own manners.

After a proper subject is chosen, there appears to me some delicacy in dividing it into parts. The conclusion of a book in an epic poem, or of an act in a play, cannot be altogether arbitrary; nor be intended for so slight a purpose as to make the parts of equal length. The supposed pause at the end of every book, and the real pause at the end of every act, ought always to coincide with some pause in the action. In this re{237}spect, a dramatic or epic poem, ought to resemble a sentence or period in language, divided into members that are distinguished from each other by regular pauses: or it ought to resemble a piece of music, having a full close at the end, preceded by imperfect closes that contribute to the melody. Every act therefore ought to close with some incident that makes a pause in the action; for otherwise there can be no pretext for interrupting the representation. It would be absurd to break off in the very heat of action: against this every one would exclaim. The absurdity still remains, though the action relents, if it be not actually suspended for some time. This rule is also applicable to an epic poem; though there a deviation from the rule is less remarkable, because it is in the reader’s power to hide the absurdity, by proceeding instantly to another book. The first book of the Paradise Lost, ends without any regular close, perfect or imperfect: it breaks off abruptly, where Satan, seated on his throne, is prepared to make a speech to the convocated host of the fall’n angels; and the second book be{238}gins with the speech. Milton seems to have copied the Æneid, of which the two first books are divided much in the same manner. Neither is there any proper pause at the end of the fifth book of the Æneid. There is no proper pause at end of the seventh book of Paradise Lost, nor at the end of the eleventh.

Hitherto I have carried on together the epic and dramatic compositions. I proceed to handle them separately, and to mention circumstances peculiar to each, beginning with the epic kind. In a theatrical entertainment, which employs both the eye and the ear, it would be a monstrous absurdity to introduce upon the stage invisible beings in a visible shape. But it has been much disputed, whether such beings may not be properly introduced in an epic poem. If we rest upon the authority of practice, we must declare for the affirmative; and Boileau[56], among many other critics, is a stout champion for this sort of machinery. But waving authority, which is apt to im{239}pose upon the judgement, let us draw what light we can from reason. I begin with a preliminary remark, That this matter is but indistinctly handled by critics. It is laid down above, that several passions incite the mind to animate its objects[57]: the moral virtues become so many goddesses, and even darts and arrows are inspired with life and action. But then it must not be overlooked, that such personification, being the work of imagination, is descriptive only, and assumes not even an appearance of truth[58]. This is very different from what is termed machinery, where deities, angels, devils, or other supernatural powers, are introduced as real personages, mixing in the action, and contributing to the catastrophe; and yet these two things are constantly jumbled together in the reasoning. The poetical privilege of animating insensible objects for the sake of description, cannot be controverted, because it is founded on a natural principle. But has the privilege of machinery, if it be a privilege, the{240} same good foundation? Far from it: nothing can be more unnatural. Its effects, at the same time, are deplorable. First, it gives an air of fiction to the whole; and prevents that impression of reality which is requisite to interest our affections, and to move our passions[59]. This of itself is sufficient to explode machinery, whatever entertainment it may give to readers of a fantastic taste or irregular imagination. And next, were it possible to disguise the fiction, and to delude us into a notion of reality, which I think can hardly be, an insuperable objection would still remain, which is, that the aim or end of an epic poem can never be accomplished in any perfection where machinery is introduced. Virtuous emotions cannot be raised successfully but by the actions of those who are endued with passions and affections like our own, that is, by human actions. And as for moral instruction, it is evident, that we can draw none from beings who act not upon the same principles with us. A fable in Æso{241}p’s manner is no objection to this reasoning. His lions, bulls, and goats, are truly men under disguise: they act and feel in every respect as human beings; and the moral we draw is founded on that supposition. Homer, it is true, introduces the gods into his fable; and he was authorised to take that liberty by the religion of his country; it being an article in the Grecian creed, that the gods often interpose visibly and bodily in human affairs. I must however observe, that Homer’s deities do no honour to his poems. Fictions that transgress the bounds of nature, seldom have a good effect: they may inflame the imagination for a moment, but will not be relished by any person of a correct taste. Let me add, that of whatever use such fictions may be to a mean genius, an able writer has much finer materials of Nature’s production for elevating his subject, and making it interesting.

Boileau, a strenuous advocate for the Heathen deities, as observed, declares against angels and devils, though supported by the religious creed of his country. One would be apt to imagine, that a critic fa{242}med for his good taste, could have no other meaning than to justify the employing Heathen deities for enlivening or elevating the description. But as the Heathen deities make not a better figure in poetical language than angels and devils, Boileau, in pleading for the former, certainly meant, if he had any distinct meaning, that these may be introduced as actors. And, in fact, he himself is guilty of this glaring absurdity, where it is not so pardonable as in an epic poem. In his ode upon the taking of Namur, he demands with a most serious countenance, whether the walls were built by Apollo or Neptune; and in relating the passage of the Rhine, anno 1672, he describes the god of that river as fighting with all his might to oppose the French monarch. This is confounding fiction with reality at a strange rate. The French writers in general run into this error: wonderful! that they should not be sensible how ridiculous it is.

That this is a capital error in the Gierusalleme liberata, Tasso’s greatest admirers must acknowledge. A situation can never{243} be intricate, nor the reader ever in pain about the catastrophe, so long as there is an angel, devil, or magician, to lend a helping hand. Voltaire, in his essay upon epic poetry, talking of the Pharsalia, observes judiciously, “That the proximity of time, the notoriety of events, the character of the age, enlightened and political, joined with the solidity of Lucan’s subject, deprived him of all liberty of poetical fiction.” Is it not amazing, that a critic who reasons so justly with respect to others, can be so blind with respect to himself? Voltaire, not satisfied to enrich his language with images drawn from invisible and superior beings, introduces them into the action. In the sixth canto of the Henriade, St Louis appears in person, and terrifies the soldiers; in the seventh canto, St Louis sends the god of Sleep to Henry; and, in the tenth, the demons of Discord, Fanaticism, War, &c. assist Aumale in a single combat with Turenne, and are chased away by a good angel brandishing the sword of God. To blend such fictitious personages in the same action with mortals,{244} makes a bad figure at any rate; and is intolerable in a history so recent as that of Henry IV. This singly is sufficient to make the Henriade a short-liv’d poem, were it otherwise possessed of every beauty. I have tried serious reasoning upon this subject; but ridicule, I suppose, will be found a more successful weapon, which Addison has applied in an elegant manner: “Whereas the time of a general peace is, in all appearance, drawing near; being informed that there are several ingenious persons who intend to shew their talents on so happy an occasion, and being willing, as much as in me lies, to prevent that effusion of nonsense which we have good cause to apprehend; I do hereby strictly require every person who shall write on this subject, to remember that he is a Christian, and not to sacrifice his catechism to his poetry. In order to it, I do expect of him in the first place, to make his own poem, without depending upon Phœbus for any part of it, or calling out for aid upon any of the muses by name. I do likewise positively{245} forbid the sending of Mercury with any particular message or dispatch relating to the peace; and shall by no means suffer Minerva to take upon her the shape of any plenipotentiary concerned in this great work. I do further declare, that I shall not allow the destinies to have had an hand in the deaths of the several thousands who have been slain in the late war; being of opinion that all such deaths may be very well accounted for by the Christian system of powder and ball. I do therefore strictly forbid the fates to cut the thread of man’s life upon any pretence whatsoever, unless it be for the sake of the rhyme. And whereas I have good reason to fear, that Neptune will have a great deal of business on his hands in several poems which we may now suppose are upon the anvil, I do also prohibit his appearance, unless it be done in metaphor, simile, or any very short allusion; and that even here he be not permitted to enter, but with great caution and circumspection. I desire that the same rule may be extended to his{246} whole fraternity of Heathen gods; it being my design to condemn every poem to the flames in which Jupiter thunders, or exercises any other act of authority which does not belong to him. In short, I expect that no Pagan agent shall be introduced, or any fact related which a man cannot give credit to with a good conscience. Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to several of the female poets in this nation, who shall still be left in full possession of their gods and goddesses, in the same manner as if this paper had never been written.” Spectator, Nº 523.

The marvellous is indeed so much promoted by machinery, that it is not wonderful to find it embraced by the bulk of writers, and perhaps of readers. If indulged at all, it is generally indulged to excess. Homer introduces his deities with no greater ceremony than his mortals; and Virgil has still less moderation: an over-watched pilot cannot fall asleep and drop into the sea by natural means: the two{247} lovers, Æneas and Dido, cannot take the same bed, without the immediate interposition of superior powers. The ridiculous in such fictions, must appear even through the thickest vail of gravity and solemnity.

Angels and devils serve equally with the Heathen deities, as materials for figurative language, perhaps better among Christians, because we believe in them, and not in the Heathen deities. But every one is sensible, as well as Boileau, that the invisible powers in our creed make a much worse figure as actors in a modern poem, than the invisible powers in the Heathen creed did in ancient poems. The reason I take to be what follows. The Heathen deities, in the opinion of their votaries, were beings elevated one step only above mankind, actuated by the same passions, and directed by the same motives; therefore not altogether improper to mix with mankind in an important action. In our creed, superior beings are placed at such a mighty distance from us, and are of a nature so different, that with no propriety can they appear with us upon the same stage. Man is a creature so much in{248}ferior, that he loses all dignity when set in opposition.

There seems to be no doubt, that an historical poem admits the embellishment of allegory, as well as of metaphor, simile, or other figure. Moral truth, in particular, is finely illustrated in the allegorical manner. It amuses the fancy to find abstract terms, by a sort of magic, converted into active beings; and it is delightful to trace a general proposition in a pictured event. But allegorical beings should be confined within their own sphere; and never be admitted to mix in the principal action, nor to co-operate in retarding or advancing the catastrophe. This would have a still worse effect, than the introduction of invisible powers; and I am ready to assign the reason. An historical fable affords entertainment chiefly by making us conceive its personages to be really existing and acting in our presence: in an allegory, this agreeable delusion is denied; for we must not imagine an allegorical personage to be a real being, but the figure only of some virtue or vice; otherwise the allegory is lost. The impression{249} of real existence, essential to an epic poem, is inconsistent with that figurative existence which is essential to an allegory; and therefore no method can be more effectual to destroy the impression of reality, than to introduce allegorical beings co-operating with those whom we conceive to be really existing. The love-episode in the Henriade[60], is insufferable by the discordant mixture of allegory with real life. This episode is copied from that of Rinaldo and Armida in the Gierusalemme liberata, which hath no merit to intitle it to be copied. An allegorical object, such as fame in the Æneid, and the temple of love in the Henriade, may find place in a description: but to introduce Discord as a real personage, imploring the assistance of Love as another real personage, to enervate the courage of the hero, is making these figurative beings act beyond their sphere, and creating a strange jumble of discordant materials, viz. truth and fiction. The allegory of Sin and Death in the Paradise Lost, is, I pre{250}sume, not generally relished, though it is not entirely of the same nature with what I have been condemning. The Paradise Lost is not confined to the history of our first parents; and in a work comprehending the achievements of superior beings, there is more room for fancy than where it is confined to human actions.

What is the true notion of an episode? or how is it to be distinguished from what is really a part of the principal action? Every incident that promotes or retards the catastrophe, must be a part of the principal action. This clears the nature of an episode; which may be defined, “An incident connected with the principal action, but which contributes not either to advance or retard it.” The descent of Æneas into hell doth not advance or retard the catastrophe; and therefore is an episode. The story of Nisus and Euryalus, producing an alteration in the affairs of the contending parties, is a part of the principal action. The family-scene in the sixth book of the Iliad is of the same nature: by Hector’s retiring from the field of battle to visit his{251} wife, the Grecians got liberty to breathe, and even to press upon the Trojans. It being thus the nature of an episode to break the unity of action, it ought never to be indulged unless to refresh and unbend the mind after the fatigue of a long narration. This purpose of an episode demands the following properties. It ought to be well connected with the principal action: it ought to be short: and it ought to be lively and interesting.

Next, upon the peculiarities of a dramatic poem. And the first I shall mention is a double plot; being naturally led to it by what is said immediately above. One of these double plots must be of the nature of an episode in an epic poem; for it would distract the spectator, instead of entertaining him, if he were forc’d to attend, at the same time, to two capital plots equally interesting. An under-plot in a tragedy has seldom a good effect; because a passionate piece cannot be too simple. The sympathetic emotions once roused, cling to their objects, and cannot bear interruption:{252} when a subject fills the mind, it leaves no room for any separate concern[61]. Variety is more tolerable in comedy, which pretends only to amuse, without totally occupying{253} the mind. But even here, to make a double plot agreeable, a good deal of art is requisite. The under-plot ought not to vary greatly in its tone from that which is principal: passions may be varied, but discordant passions are unpleasant when jumbled together. This is a solid objection to tragi-comedy. For this reason, I blame the Provok’d Husband: all the scenes that bring the family of the Wrongheads into action, being ludicrous and farcical, agree very ill with the sharpness and severity of the principal subject, exhibiting the discord betwixt Lord Townly and his lady. The same objection touches not the double plot of the Careless Husband: the different subjects are sweetly connected; and have only so much variety as to resemble shades of colours harmoniously mixed. But this is not all. The under plot ought to be connected with the principal action, so as to employ the same persons: the intervals or pauses of the principal action ought to be filled with the under-plot; and both ought to be concluded together. This is the case of the Merry Wives of Windsor.{254}

Violent action ought to be excluded from the stage. While the dialogue runs on, a thousand particulars concur to delude us into an impression of reality; genuine sentiments, passionate language, and persuasive gesture. The spectator once engaged, is willing to be deceived, loses sight of himself, and without scruple enjoys the spectacle as a reality. From this absent state, he is roused by violent action: he wakes as from a pleasing dream, and gathering his senses about him, finds all to be a fiction. Horace delivers the same rule; and sounds it upon the reason given:

The French critics, as it appears to me, misapprehend the reason of this rule. Shedding blood upon the stage, say they, is barbarous and shocking to a polite audience. This no doubt is an additional reason for excluding bloodshed from the{255} French stage, supposing the French to be in reality so delicate. But this evidently is not the reason that weighed with the Greeks: that polite people had no notion of such delicacy; witness the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes, passing behind the scene, as represented by Sophocles. Her voice is heard calling out for mercy, bitter expostulations on his part, loud shrieks upon her being stabb’d, and then a deep silence. I appeal to every person of feeling, whether this scene be not more horrible, than if the deed had been committed in sight of the spectators upon a sudden gust of passion. According to the foregoing reasoning of the French critics, there is nothing to exclude from the stage a duel occasioned by an affair of honour, because in it there is nothing barbarous or shocking to a polite audience: yet a scene of this nature is excluded from the French stage; which shows, without more argument, that these critics have misapprehended the rule laid down by Horace. If Corneille, in representing the affair betwixt Horatius and his sister, upon which murder{256} ensues behind the scene, had no other view than to remove from the spectators a scene of horror, he certainly was in a capital mistake: for murder in cold blood, which in some measure was the case as represented, is more horrible even where the conclusive stab is not seen, than the same act performed on the stage by violent and unpremeditated passion, as suddenly repented of as committed. I heartily agree with Addison[62], that no part of this incident ought to have been represented, but reserved for a narrative, with all the alleviating circumstances possible in favour of the hero. This is the only method to avoid the difficulties that unqualify this incident for representation, a deliberate murder on the one hand, and on the other a violent action performed on the stage, which must rouse the spectator from his dream of reality.

I shall finish with a few words upon the dialogue; which ought to be so conducted as to be a true representation of nature. I{257} talk not here of the sentiments, nor of the language; for these come under different heads. I talk of what properly belongs to dialogue-writing; where every single speech, short or long, ought to arise from what is said by the former speaker, and furnish matter for what comes after, till the end of the scene. In this view, the whole speeches, from first to last, represent so many links, all connected together in one regular chain. No author, ancient or modern, possesses the art of dialogue equal to Shakespear. Dryden, in this particular, may justly be placed as his opposite. He frequently introduces three or four persons speaking upon the same subject, each throwing out his own sentiments separately, without regarding what is said by the rest. I give for an example the first scene of Aurenzebe. Sometimes he makes a number club in relating an event, not to a stranger, supposed ignorant of it, but to one another, for the sake merely of speaking. Of this notable sort of dialogue, we have a specimen in the first scene of the first part of the Conquest of Granada. In the second part of the same tragedy,{258} scene second, the King, Abenamar, and Zulema, make their separate observations, like so many soliloquies, upon the fluctuating temper of the mob. It puts one in mind of a pastoral, where two shepherds are introduced reciting couplets alternately, each in praise of his own mistress, as if they were contending for a prize.

The bandying sentiments in this manner, beside an unnatural air, has another bad effect. It stays the course of the action, because it is not productive of any consequence. In Congreve’s comedies, the action is often suspended to make way for a play of wit. But of this more particularly in the chapter immediately following.{259}

CHAP. XXIII.

The three Unities.

THe first chapter unfolds the pleasure we have in a chain of connected facts. In histories of the world, of a country, of a people, this pleasure is but faint; because the connections are slight or obscure. We find more entertainment in biography, where the incidents are connected by their relation to one person, who makes a figure and commands our attention. But the greatest entertainment of the kind, is afforded by the history of a single event, supposing it to be interesting. The history of one event produceth a more entire connection among the parts, than the history of one person. In the latter, the circumstances are not otherwise connected than by their relation to that person: in the{260} former, the circumstances are connected by the strongest of all relations, that of cause and effect. Thus, the circumstances of a single event, having a mutual connection extremely intimate, form a delightful train: we survey with peculiar pleasure a number of facts that give birth to each other; and we pass with ease and satisfaction from the first to the last.

But this subject merits a more particular discussion. When we consider the chain of causes and effects in the material world, independent of purpose, design, or thought, we find a train of incidents in succession, without beginning, middle, or end. Every thing that happens is both a cause and an effect: it is the effect of something that goes before, and the cause of one or many things that follow. One incident may affect us more, another less; but all of them, great and small, are so many links in the universal chain. The mind, in viewing these incidents, cannot rest or settle ultimately upon any one; but is carried along in the train without any close.{261}

But when the intellectual world is taken under view, in conjunction with the material, the scene is varied. Man acts with deliberation, will, and choice; he acts with a view to some end, glory, for example, or riches, or conquest, the procuring happiness to individuals, or to his country in general; and he proposes means and lays schemes to attain the end proposed. Here is recognised a capital end or event, connected with subordinate events or incidents by the relation of causation. In running over a series of subordinate events, we cannot rest upon any one; because they are presented to us as means only, leading to some end. But we rest with satisfaction upon the ultimate event; because there, the purpose, the plan, the aim, of the chief person or persons, is completed and brought to a final conclusion. This indicates a beginning, a middle, and an end, of what Aristotle calls an entire action[63]. The story naturally begins with describing those circumstances which move the distinguished person to form a plan, in{262} order to compass some desired event. The prosecution of that plan, and the obstructions, carry the reader into the heat of action. The middle is properly where the action is the most involved; and the end is where the event is brought about, and the design accomplished.

A design or plan thus happily perfected, after many obstructions, affords wonderful delight to the reader. And to produce this delight, a principle mentioned above[64] mainly contributes; a principle that disposes the mind to complete every work commenced, and in general to carry every thing to its ultimate conclusion.

I have given the foregoing example of a plan laid down and completed, because it affords the clearest conception of a beginning, a middle, and an end, in which consists unity of action: and indeed stricter unity cannot be imagined than in this case. But an action may have unity, or a beginning, middle, and end, without so intimate a relation of parts. The catastrophe{263} may be different from what is intended or desired; which is frequently the case in our best tragedies. The Æneid is an instance of means employ’d to produce a certain event, and these means crowned with success. The Iliad is formed upon a different model. It begins with the quarrel betwixt Achilles and Agamemnon: it goes on to describe the several effects produced by that cause; and ends in a reconciliation. Here is unity of action, no doubt, a beginning, a middle, and an end: it must however be acknowledged, that the Æneid is more happy in point of connection. The mind hath a propensity to go forward in the chain of history: it keeps always in view the expected event; and when the incidents or under-parts are connected together by their relation to the event, the mind runs sweetly and easily along them. This pleasure we have in the Æneid. But it is not altogether so pleasant, as in the Iliad, to connect effects by their common cause; for such connection forces the mind to a continual retrospect: looking backward is like walking backward.{264}

But Homer’s plan is still more imperfect, for another reason, That the events described are but imperfectly connected with the wrath of Achilles as their cause. His wrath did not exert itself in action; and the misfortunes of his countrymen were but negatively the effects of his wrath, by depriving them of his assistance.

If unity of action be a capital beauty in a fable imitative of human affairs, a double action must be a capital defect, by carrying on together two trains of unconnected objects. For the sake of variety, we indulge an under-plot that contributes to the principal event. But two unconnected events are a great deformity; and it lessens the deformity but a very little, to engage the same actors in both. Ariosto is quite licentious in this particular: he carries on at the same time a plurality of unconnected stories. His only excuse is, that his plan is perfectly well adjusted to his subject; for every thing in the Orlando Furioso is wild and extravagant.

To state facts according to the order of time, is the most natural and the most{265} simple method: a method however not so essential, in an historical fable especially, as not to yield to some conspicuous beauties[65]. If a noted story, cold and simple in its first movements, be made the subject of an epic poem, the reader may be hurried into the heat of action, reserving the preliminaries for a conversation-piece, if it shall be thought necessary. This method, at the same time, being dramatic, hath a peculiar beauty, which narration cannot reach[66]. Romance-writers, who give little attention to nature, deviate in this particular, among many, from a just standard. They make no difficulty of presenting to the reader, without the least preparation, unknown persons engaged in some adventure equally unknown. In Cassandra, two personages, who afterward are discovered to be the heroes of the story, start up completely armed upon the banks of the Euphrates, and engage in a single combat[67].{266}

A play analyzed, is a chain of connected facts, of which each scene makes a link. Each scene, accordingly, ought to produce some incident relative to the catastrophe or ultimate event, by advancing or retarding it. If no incident be produced, such a scene, which may be termed barren, ought not to be indulged, because it breaks the unity of action. A barren scene can never be intitled to a place, because the chain is complete without it. In the Old Bachelor, the 3d scene of act 2. and all that follow to the end of that act, are mere conversation-pieces, without any consequence. The 10th and 11th scenes, act 3. Double Dealer, the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th scenes, act 1. Love for Love, are of the same kind. Neither is The Way of the World entirely guiltless of such scenes. It will be no justification, that they help to display characters. It were better, like{267} Dryden, in his dramatis personæ, to describe characters beforehand, which would not interrupt the chain of action. But a writer of genius has no occasion for such artifice: he can display the characters of his personages much more to the life in sentiment and action. How successfully is this done by Shakespear! in whose works there is not to be found a single barren scene.

Upon the whole, it appears, that all the facts in an historical fable, ought to have a mutual connection by their common relation to the grand event or catastrophe. And this relation, in which the unity of action consists, is equally essential to epic and dramatic compositions.

How far the unities of time and of place are essential, is a question of greater intricacy. These unities were strictly observed in the Grecian and Roman theatres; and they are inculcated by the French and English critics as essential to every dramatic composition. In theory, these unities are also acknowledged by our best poets, though their practice is seldom correspondent: they are often forc’d to take liberties, which they{268} pretend not to justify, against the practice of the Greeks and Romans, and against the solemn decision of their own countrymen. But in the course of this inquiry it will be made evident, that the example of the ancients ought, upon this point, to have no weight with us, and that our critics are guilty of a mistake, in admitting no greater latitude of place and time than was admitted in Greece and Rome.

Suffer me only to premise, that the unities of place and time, are not, by the most rigid critics, required in a narrative poem. In such a composition, if it pretend to copy nature, these unities would be absurd; because real events are seldom confined within narrow limits either of place or of time. And yet we can follow history, or an historical fable, through all its changes, with the greatest facility. We never once think of measuring the real time by what is taken in reading; nor of forming any connection betwixt the place of action and that which we occupy.

I am sensible, that the drama differs so far from the epic, as to admit different rules.{269} It will be observed, “That an historical fable, which affords entertainment by reading solely, is under no limitation of time or of place, more than a genuine history; but that a dramatic composition cannot be accurately represented, unless it be limited, as its representation is, to one place and to a few hours; and therefore that no fable can be admitted but what has these properties, because it would be absurd to compose a piece for representation that cannot be justly represented.” This argument, I acknowledge, has at least a plausible appearance; and yet one is apt to suspect some fallacy, considering that no critic, however strict, has ventured to confine the unities of place and of time within so narrow bounds[68].{270}

A view of the Grecian drama, and a comparison betwixt it and our own, may perhaps help to relieve us from this dilemma. If they be differently constructed, as shall by and by be made evident, it is possible that the foregoing reasoning may not be applicable with equal force to both. This is an article, that, with relation to the present subject, has not, so far as I know, been examined by any writer.

All authors agree, that the first notion of tragedy in Greece, was derived from the hymns in praise of Bacchus, which were sung in parts by a chorus. Thespis, to relieve the singers, and for the sake of variety, introduced one actor; who gave a narrative of the subject, and sometimes represented one or other personage. Eschylus, introducing a second actor, formed the dialogue; by which the performance became dramatic: and the actors were multiplied when the subject represented made it necessary. But still, the chorus, which gave a beginning to tragedy, was considered as an essential part of its constitution. In the first scene, generally, are unfolded the pre{271}liminary circumstances that lead to the grand event. This scene is by Aristotle termed the prologue. In the second scene, where the action properly begins, the chorus is introduced, which, as originally, continues upon the stage during the whole performance. Sophocles adheres to this plan religiously. Euripides is not altogether so correct. In some of his pieces it becomes necessary to remove the chorus. But this is seldom done; and when done, matters are so ordered as that their absence is but momentary. The chorus often mix in the dialogue; and when the dialogue happens to be suspended, the chorus, during the interval, is employ’d in singing. Nor does the removal of the chorus, when that unusual step is risked, interrupt the representation. They never leave the stage of their own accord, but at the command of some principal personage who constantly waits their return.

Thus the Grecian drama is a continued representation without any interruption; a circumstance that merits attention. A continued representation without a pause, af{272}fords not opportunity to vary the place of action; and has withal a very short duration. To a representation so confined in place and time, the foregoing reasoning is strictly applicable. A real or feigned action that is brought to a conclusion after considerable intervals of time and frequent change of place, cannot accurately be copied in a representation that admits of no latitude in either. Hence it is, that the unities of place and of time, were, or ought to have been, strictly observed in the Grecian tragedies. This is made necessary by the very constitution of their drama; for it is absurd to compose a tragedy that cannot be justly represented.

Modern critics, who for our drama pretend to establish rules founded on the practice of the Greeks, are guilty of an egregious blunder. The unities of place and of time, so much vaunted, were in Greece, as we see, a matter of necessity, not of choice. I am now ready to show, that if we submit to these fetters, it must be from choice not necessity. This will be evident upon taking a view of the construc{273}tion of our drama, which differs widely from that of Greece; whether more or less perfect, is a separate question, which shall be handled afterward. By dropping the chorus, an opportunity is afforded to split our drama into parts or acts, which in the representation are distinguished by intervals of time; and during these intervals, the stage is totally evacuated and the spectacle suspended. This construction qualifies our drama for subjects spread through a wide space both of time and of place. The time supposed to pass during the suspension of the representation, is not measured by the time of the suspension; nor is any connection formed, betwixt the box we sit in and the place where things are supposed to be transacted in our absence: and by that means, many subjects can be justly represented in our theatres, for which there was no place in those of ancient Greece. This doctrine may be illustrated, by comparing a modern play to a set of historical pictures: let us suppose them five in number, and the resemblance will be complete. Each of the pictures resembles an act in one{274} of our plays. There must necessarily be the strictest unity of place and of time in each picture; and the same necessity requires these two unities during each act of a play, because during an act there is no interruption in the spectacle. Now, when we view in succession a number of such historical pictures, let it be, for example, the history of Alexander by Le Brun, we have no difficulty to conceive, that months or years have passed betwixt the subjects exhibited in two different pictures, though the interruption is imperceptible in passing our eye from the one to the other. We have as little difficulty to conceive a change of place, however great. In this matter, there is truly no difference betwixt five acts of a modern play and five such pictures. Where the representation is suspended, we can with the greatest facility suppose any length of time or any change of place. The spectator, it is true, may be conscious, that the real time and place are not the same with what are employ’d in the representation, even including the intervals. But this is a work of reflection; and by the same reflec{275}tion he may also be conscious, that Garrick is not King Lear, that the playhouse is not Dover cliffs, nor the noise he hears thunder and lightning. In a word, during an interruption of the representation, it is not more difficult for a spectator to imagine himself carried from place to place, and from one period of time to another, than at once, when the scene first opens, to be carried from London to Rome, or from the present time two thousand years back. And indeed, it must appear ridiculous, that a critic, who makes no difficulty of supposing candle-light to be sun-shine, and some painted canvasses a palace or a prison, should affect so much difficulty in imagining a latitude of place or of time in the story, beyond what is necessary in the representation.

There are, I acknowledge, some effects of great latitude in time that ought never to be indulged in a composition for the theatre. Nothing can be more absurd, than at the close to exhibit a full grown person who appears a child at the beginning. The mind rejects as contrary to all proba{276}bility, such latitude of time as is requisite for a change so remarkable. The greatest change from place to place hath not altogether the same bad effect. In the bulk of human affairs place is not material; and the mind, when occupied with an interesting event, is little regardful of minute circumstances. These may be varied at will, because they scarce make any impression.

But though I have thus taken arms to rescue modern poets from the slavish fetters of modern critics, I would not be understood to justify liberty without any reserve. An unbounded licence with relation to place and time, is faulty for a reason that seems to have been overlooked: it never fails to break in upon the unity of action. In the ordinary course of human affairs, single events, such as are fit to be represented on the stage, are confined to a narrow spot, and generally employ no great extent of time. We accordingly seldom find strict unity of action in a dramatic composition, where any remarkable latitude is indulged in these particulars. I must say farther, that a composition which employs but one{277} place, and requires not a greater length of time than is necessary for the representation, is so far the more perfect: because the confining an event within so narrow bounds, contributes to the unity of action; and also prevents that labour, however slight, which the mind must undergo in imagining frequent changes of place and many intervals of time. But still I must insist, that the limitation of place and time which was necessary in the Grecian drama, is no rule to us; and therefore that though such limitation adds one beauty more to the composition, it is at best but a refinement, which may justly give place to a thousand beauties more substantial. And I may add, that it is extremely difficult, I was about to say impracticable, to contract within the Grecian limits, any fable so fruitful of incidents in number and variety as to give full scope to the fluctuation of passion.

It may now appear, that critics who put the unities of place and of time upon the same footing with the unity of action, making them all equally essential, have not attended to the nature and construction of the{278} modern drama. If they admit an interrupted representation, with which no writer finds fault, it is plainly absurd to condemn the greatest advantage it procures us, that of representing many interesting subjects excluded from the Grecian stage. If there needs must be a reformation, why not restore the ancient chorus and the ancient continuity of action? There is certainly no medium: for to admit an interruption without relaxing from the strict unities of place and of time, is in effect to load us with all the inconveniencies of the ancient drama, and at the same time to with-hold from us its advantages.

And therefore the only proper question is, whether our model be or be not a real improvement. This indeed may justly be called in question; and in order to a fair comparative trial, some particulars must be premised. When a play begins, we have no difficulty to enter into the scene of action, however distant it be in time or in place. We know that the play is a representation only: and the imagination, with facility, accommodates itself to every circumstance. Our situation is very different{279} after we are engaged. It is the perfection of representation to hide itself, to impose upon the spectator, and to produce in him an impression of reality, as if he were spectator of a real event[69]. Any interruption annihilates this impression: he is roused out of his waking dream, and unhappily restored to his senses. So difficult it is to support this impression of reality, that much slighter interruptions than the interval betwixt two acts are sufficient to dissolve the charm. In the 5th act of the Mourning Bride, the three first scenes are in a room of state; the fourth in a prison. This change is operated by shifting the scene, which is done in a trice. But however quick the transition may be, it is impracticable to impose upon the spectators so far as to make them conceive that they are actually carried from the palace to the prison. They immediately reflect, that the palace and prison are imaginary, and that the whole is a fiction.

From these premisses one will be naturally led, at first view, to declare against{280} the frequent interruptions in the modern drama. It will occur, “That every interruption must have the effect to banish the dream of reality, and with it to banish our concern, which cannot subsist while we are conscious that all is a fiction; and therefore that in the modern drama sufficient time is not afforded for the fluctuation and swelling of passion, like what is afforded in the Grecian drama, where there is no interruption.” This reasoning, it must be owned, has a specious appearance: but we must not turn faint-hearted upon the first repulse; let us rally our troops for a second engagement.

Considering attentively the ancient drama, we find, that though the representation is never interrupted, the principal action is suspended not less frequently than in the modern drama. There are five acts in each; and the only difference is, that in the former, when the action is suspended, as it is at the end of every act, opportunity is taken of the interval to employ the chorus in singing. Hence it appears, that{281} the Grecian continuity of representation cannot have the effect to prolong the impression of reality. To banish this impression, a suspension of the action while the chorus is employ’d in singing, is not less operative than a total suspension both of the representation and action.

But to open a larger view, I am ready to show, that a continued representation, without a single pause even in the principal action, so far from an advantage, would be really an imperfection; and that a representation with proper pauses, is better calculated for moving the audience, and making the strongest impressions. Representation cannot very long support an impression of reality: when the spirits are exhausted by close attention and by the agitation of passion, an uneasiness ensues, which never fails to banish the waking dream. Now supposing an act to employ as much time as can easily be given with strict attention to any incident, a supposition that cannot be far from the truth; it follows, that the impression of reality would not be prolonged beyond the space of an act, even supposing{282} a continued representation. Hence it appears, that a continued representation without any pause, would be a bad contrivance: it would break the attention by overstraining it, and produce a total absence of mind. In this respect, the four pauses have a fine effect. By affording to the audience a seasonable respite when the impression of reality is gone, and while nothing material is in agitation, they relieve the mind from its fatigue; and consequently prevent a wandering of thought at the very time possibly of the most interesting scenes.

In one article indeed, the Grecian model has greatly the advantage: its chorus, during an interval, not only preserves alive the impressions made upon the audience, but also prepares their hearts finely for new impressions. In our theatres, on the contrary, the audience, at the end of every act, are in a manner solicited to withdraw their thoughts from what has been passing, and to trifle away the time the best way they can. Thus in the intervals betwixt the acts, every warm impression is banished; and the spectators begin the next act cool and in{283}different, as at the commencement of the play. Here is a gross malady in our theatrical representations; but a malady that luckily is not incurable. To revive the Grecian chorus, would be to revive the Grecian slavery of place and time. But I can figure a detached chorus coinciding with a pause in the representation, as the ancient chorus did with a pause in the principal action. What objection, for example, can there lie against music betwixt the acts, vocal and instrumental, adapted to the subject? Such detached chorus, beside admitting the same latitude that we enjoy at present as to time and place, would have more than one happy effect: it would recruit the spirits; and it would preserve entire, the tone, if not the tide, of passion. The music that comes first, ought to accord with the tone of the preceding passion, and be gradually varied till it accord with the tone of the passion that is to succeed in the next act. The music and the representation would both of them be gainers by their conjunction; which will thus appear. Music that accords with the present tone{284} of mind, is, upon that account, doubly agreeable; and accordingly, though music singly hath not power to raise any passion, it tends greatly to support a passion already raised. Further, music, though it cannot of itself raise a passion, prepares us for the passion that follows: by making chearful, tender, melancholy, or animated impressions, music has power to dispose the heart to various passions. Of this power, the first scene of the Mourning Bride is a shining instance: without the preparation of soft music in a melancholy strain, it would be extremely difficult to enter all at once into Almeria’s deep distress. In this manner, music and representation support each other delightfully: the impression made upon the audience by the representation, is a fine preparation for the music that succeeds; and the impression made by the music, is a fine preparation for the representation that succeeds. It appears to me clear, that, by some such contrivance, the modern drama may be improved, so as to enjoy the advantage of the ancient chorus without its slavish limitation {285}of place and time. And as to music in particular, I cannot figure any plan that would tend more to its improvement. Composers, those for the stage at least, would be reduced to the happy necessity of studying and imitating nature; instead of indulging, according to the present fashion, in wild, fantastic, and unnatural conceits. But we must return to our subject, and finish the comparison betwixt the ancient and the modern drama.

The numberless improprieties forc’d upon the Grecian dramatic poets by the constitution of their drama, are, of themselves one should think, a sufficient reason for preferring that of the moderns, even abstracting from the improvement proposed. To prepare the reader for this article, it must be premised, that as in the ancient drama the place of action never varies, a place necessarily must be chosen to which every person may have access without any improbability. This confines the scene to some open place, generally the court or area before a palace; which excludes from the Grecian theatre transactions within doors, though these commonly are the most{286} important. Such cruel restraint is of itself sufficient to cramp the most pregnant invention; and accordingly the Grecian writers, in order to preserve unity of place, are reduced to woful improprieties. In the Hippolytus of Euripides[70], Phedra, distressed in mind and body, is carried without any pretext from her palace to the place of action, is there laid upon a couch unable to support herself upon her limbs, and made to utter many things improper to be heard by a number of women who form the chorus. What is still worse, her female attendant uses the strongest intreaties to make her reveal the secret cause of her anguish; which at last Phedra, contrary to decency and probability, is prevailed upon to do in presence of this very chorus[71]. Alcestes, in Euripides, at the point of death, is brought from the palace to the place of action, groaning and lamenting her untimely fate[72]. In the Trachiniens of Sophocles[73], a secret is imparted to Dejanira, the wife{287} of Hercules, in presence of the chorus. In the tragedy of Iphigenia, the messenger employ’d to carry Clitemnestra the news that Iphigenia was sacrificed, stops short at the place of action, and with a loud voice calls the Queen from her palace to hear the news. Again, in the Iphigenia in Tauris, the necessary presence of the chorus forces Euripides into a gross absurdity, which is to form a secret plot in their hearing[74]; and to disguise the absurdity, much courtship is bestowed on the chorus, not one woman but a number, to engage them to secrecy. In the Medea of Euripides, that princess makes no difficulty, in presence of the chorus, to plot the death of her husband, of his mistress, and of her father the King of Corinth, all by poison. It was necessary to bring Medea upon the stage, and there is but one place of action, which is always occupied by the chorus. This scene closes the second act; and in the end of the third, she frankly makes the chorus her confidents in ploting the murder of her own{288} children. Terence, by identity of place, is often forc’d to make a conversation within doors be heard on the open street: the cries of a woman in labour are there heard distinctly.

The Grecian poets are not more happy with respect to time than with respect to place. In the Hippolytus of Euripides, that prince is banished at the end of the fourth act. In the first scene of the following act, a messenger relates to Theseus the whole particulars of the death of Hippolytus by the sea-monster. This remarkable event must have employ’d many hours; and yet in the representation it is confined to the time employ’d by the chorus upon the song at the end of the 4th act. The inconsistency is still greater in the Iphigenia in Tauris[75]. The song could not exhaust half an hour; and yet the incidents supposed to have happened in that time, could not naturally be transacted in less than half a day.

The Grecian artists are not less frequently obliged to transgress another rule, derived{289} also from a continued representation, which is, that the place of action must constantly be occupied; for the very least vacuity is an interruption of the representation. Sophocles, with regard to this rule as well as others, is generally correct. But Euripides cannot bear such restraint: he often evacuates the stage, and leaves it empty for others in succession. Iphigenia in Tauris, after pronouncing a soliloquy in the first scene, leaves the place of action, and is succeeded by Orestes and Pylades. They, after some conversation, walk off; and Iphigenia re-enters, accompanied with the chorus. In the Alcestes, which is of the same author, the place of action is void at the end of the third act. It is true, that to cover this irregularity, and to preserve the representation in motion, Euripides is extremely careful to fill the stage without loss of time. But this is still an interruption, and a link of the chain broken: for during the change of the actors, there must always be a space of time, when we cannot justly say, that the stage is occupied by either set. It makes indeed a more remarkable inter{290}ruption, to change the place of action as well as the actors; but that was not practicable upon the Grecian stage.

It is hard to say upon what model Terence has formed his plays. Having no chorus, there is a cessation in the representation at the end of every act. But advantage is not taken of this cessation, even to vary the place of action. The street is always chosen, where every thing passing may be seen by every person: and by this choice, the most sprightly and interesting parts of the action, which commonly pass within doors, are excluded; witness the last act of the Eunuch. He hath submitted to the same slavery with respect to time. In a word, a play with a regular chorus, is not more confined in place and time than his plays are. Thus a zealous sectary follows implicitly ancient forms and ceremonies, without once considering whether their introductive cause be still subsisting. Plautus, of a bolder genius than Terence, makes good use of the liberty afforded by an interrupted representation: he varies the place of action upon all occasions, when the variation suits his purpose.{291}

The intelligent reader will by this time understand, that I plead for no change of place in our plays but after an interval, nor for any latitude in point of time but what falls in with an interval. The unities of place and time ought to be strictly observed during each act; for during the representation, there is no opportunity for the smallest deviation from either. Hence it is an essential requisite, that during an act the stage be always occupied; for even a momentary vacuity makes an interval. Another rule is not less essential: it would be a gross breach of the unity of action, to exhibit upon the stage two separate actions at the same time; and therefore to preserve this unity, it is necessary that each personage introduced during an act, be linked to those in possession of the stage, so as to join all in one action. These things follow from the very conception of an act, which admits not the slightest interruption. The moment the representation is intermitted, there is an end of that act; and we have no other notion of a new act, but where after a pause or interval, the representation{292} is again put in motion. French writers, generally speaking, are extremely correct in this particular: the English, on the contrary, are so irregular as scarce to deserve a criticism: actors not only succeed each other in the same place without connection; but, what is still worse, they frequently succeed each other in different places. This change of place in the same act, ought never to be indulged; for, beside breaking the unity of the act, it has a disagreeable effect. After an interval, the mind can readily accommodate itself to any place that is necessary, just as readily as at the commencement of the play; but during the representation, the mind rejects change of place. From the foregoing censure must be excepted the Mourning Bride of Congreve, where regularity concurs with the beauty of sentiment and of language, to make it one of the most complete pieces England has to boast of. I must acknowledge, however, that in point of regularity, this elegant performance is not altogether unexceptionable. In the four first acts, the unities of place and time are strictly observed;{293} but in the last act, there is a capital error with respect to unity of place. In the three first scenes of that act, the place of action is a room of state, which is changed to a prison in the fourth scene: the chain of the actors withal is broken; for the persons introduced in the prison, are different from those who made their appearance in the room of state. This remarkable interruption of the representation, makes in effect two acts instead of one: and therefore, if it be a rule, that a play ought not to consist of more acts than five, this performance is so far defective in point of regularity. I may add, that even admitting six acts, the irregularity would not be altogether removed, without a longer pause in the representation than is allowed in the acting; for it requires more than a momentary interruption, to enable the imagination readily to accommodate itself to a new place, or to prorogation of time. In The Way of the World, of the same author, unity of place is preserved during every act, and a stricter unity of time during the whole play than is necessary.{294}

CHAP. XXIV.

Gardening and Architecture.

THe books that have been composed upon architecture and upon embellishing ground, abound in practical instruction necessary for a mechanic: but in vain would we rummage them for rational principles to improve our taste. In a general system, it might be thought sufficient to have unfolded the principles that govern these and other fine arts, leaving the application to the reader: but as I would neglect no opportunity of illustrating these principles, I propose to give a specimen of their application to gardening and architecture, being favourite arts, though I profess no peculiar skill in either.

Gardening was at first an useful art: in the garden of Alcinoous, described by Homer, we find nothing done for pleasure{295} merely. But gardening is now improved into a fine art; and when we talk of a garden without any epithet, a pleasure garden, by way of eminence, is understood. The garden of Alcinoous, in modern language, was but a kitchen-garden. Architecture has run the same course. It continued many ages an useful art merely, before it aspired to be classed with the fine arts. Architecture therefore and gardening must be handled in a twofold view, as being useful arts as well as fine arts. The reader however will not here expect rules for improving any work of art in point of utility. It is no part of my plan to treat of any useful art as such. But there is a beauty in utility; and in discoursing of beauty, that of utility ought not to be neglected. This leads us to consider gardens and buildings in different views: they may be destined for use solely, for beauty solely, or for both. Such variety in the destination, bestows upon gardening and architecture a great command of beauties complex not less than various, which makes it difficult to form an accurate taste in these arts. And hence{296} that difference and wavering of taste which is more remarkable here than in any art that has but a single destination.

Architecture and gardening cannot otherwise entertain the mind, than by raising certain agreeable emotions or feelings; and before we descend to particulars, these arts shall be presented in a general view, by showing what are the emotions or feelings that can be raised by them. Poetry, as to its power of raising emotions, possesses justly the first place among the fine arts; for scarce one emotion of human nature is beyond its reach. Painting and sculpture are more circumscribed, having the command of no emotions but what are produced by sight. They are peculiarly successful in expressing painful passions, which are display’d by external signs extremely legible[76]. Gardening, beside the emotions of beauty by means of regularity, order, proportion, colour, and utility, can raise emotions of grandeur, of sweetness, of gaiety, melancholy, wildness, and even of surprise or{297} wonder. In architecture, regularity, order, and proportion, and the beauties that result from them, are still more conspicuous than in gardening. But with respect to the beauty of colour, architecture is far inferior. Grandeur can be expressed in a building, perhaps more successfully than in a garden; but as to the other emotions above mentioned, architecture hitherto has not been brought to the perfection of expressing them distinctly. To balance this defect, architecture can display the beauty of utility in the highest perfection.

But gardening possesses one advantage, which never can be equalled in the other art. A garden may be so contrived, as in various scenes to raise successively all its different emotions. But to operate this delicious effect, the garden must be extensive, so as to admit a slow succession: for a small garden, comprehended at one view, ought to be confined to one expression[77]: it may be gay, it may be sweet, it may be gloomy; but an attempt to mix these, would create{298} a jumble of emotions not a little unpleasant. For the same reason, a building, even the most magnificent, is necessarily confined to one expression.

Architecture, considered as a fine art, instead of rivaling gardening in its progress toward perfection, seems not far advanced beyond its infant-state. To bring it to maturity, two things mainly are wanted. First, A greater variety of parts and ornaments than it seems provided with. Gardening here has greatly the advantage: it is provided with such plenty and such variety of materials, that it must be the fault of the artists, if the spectator be not entertained with different scenes, and affected with various emotions. But materials in architecture are so scanty, that artists hitherto have not been successful in raising emotions, other than those of beauty and grandeur. With respect to the former, there are indeed plenty of means, regularity, order, symmetry, simplicity; and with respect to the latter, the addition of size is sufficient. But though it be evident, that every building ought to have a certain character or expres{299}sion suitable to its destination; yet this is a refinement which artists have scarce ventured upon. A death’s head and bones employ’d in monumental buildings, will indeed produce an emotion of gloom and melancholy: but every ornament of this kind, if these can be termed so, ought to be rejected, because they are in themselves disagreeable. The other thing wanted to bring the art to perfection, is, to ascertain the precise impression made by every single part and ornament, cupolas, spires, columns, carvings, statues, vases, &c. For in vain will an artist attempt rules for employing these, either singly or in combination, until the different emotions or feelings they produce be distinctly explained. Gardening in this particular hath also the advantage. The several emotions raised by trees, rivers, cascades, plains, eminences, and other materials it employs, are understood; and the nature of each can be described with some degree of precision, which is done occasionally in the foregoing parts of this work.{300}

In gardening as well as in architecture, simplicity ought to be the governing taste. Profuse ornament hath no better effect than to confound the eye, and to prevent the object from making an impression as one entire whole. An artist destitute of genius for capital beauties, is naturally prompted to supply the defect by crowding his plan with slight embellishments. Hence in gardens, triumphal arches, Chinese houses, temples, obelisks, cascades, fountains, without end; and hence in buildings, pillars, vases, statues, and a profusion of carved work. Thus a woman who has no just taste, is apt to overcharge every part of her dress with ornament. Superfluity of decoration hath another bad effect: it gives the object a diminutive look. An island in a wide extended lake, makes it appear larger; but an artificial lake, which must always be little, appears still less by making an island in it[78].

In forming plans for embellishing a field, an artist void of taste deals in straight lines,{301} circles, squares; because these show best upon paper. He perceives not, that to humour and adorn nature is the perfection of his art; and that nature, neglecting regularity, reacheth superior beauties by distributing her objects in great variety with a bold hand. A large field laid out with strict regularity, is stiff and artificial. Nature indeed, in organized bodies comprehended under one view, studies regularity; which, for the same reason, ought to be studied in architecture: but in large objects, which cannot otherwise be surveyed than in parts and by succession, regularity and uniformity would be useless properties, because they cannot be discovered by the eye[79]. Nature therefore, in her large works, neglects these properties; and in copying nature the artist ought to neglect them.

Having thus far carried on a comparison betwixt gardening and architecture, I proceed to rules peculiar to each; and I begin{302} with gardening. The simplest idea of a garden, is that of a spot embellished with a number of natural objects, trees, walks, polish’d parterres, flowers, streams, &c. One more complex comprehends statues and buildings, that nature and art may be mutually ornamental. A third approaching nearer perfection, is of objects assembled together, in order to produce, not only an emotion of beauty, essential to gardens of every kind, but also some other particular emotion, grandeur, for example, gaiety, or any other of those above mentioned. The most perfect idea of a garden is an improvement upon the third, requiring the adjustment of the several parts, in such a manner as to inspire all the different emotions that can be raised by gardening. In this idea of a garden, the arrangement is an important circumstance; for it has been shown, that some emotions figure best in conjunction, and that others ought always to appear in succession and never in conjunction. I have had occasion to observe above[80], that when the most opposite emo{303}tions, such as gloominess and gaiety, stillness and activity, follow each other in succession, the pleasure on the whole will be the greatest; but that opposite or dissimilar emotions ought not to be united, because they produce an unpleasant mixture[81]. For that reason, a ruin, affording a sort of melancholy pleasure, ought not to be seen from a flower-parterre, which is gay and chearful. But to pass immediately from an exhilerating object to a ruin, has a glorious effect; for each of the emotions is the more sensibly felt by being contrasted with the other. Similar emotions, on the other hand, such as gaiety and sweetness, stillness and gloominess, motion and grandeur, ought to be raised together; for their effects upon the mind are greatly heightened by their conjunction[82].

Kent’s method of embellishing a field, is admirable. It is painting a field with beautiful objects, natural and artificial, disposed like colours upon a canvas. It requires indeed more genius to paint in the{304} gardening way. In forming a landscape upon a canvas, no more is required but to adjust the figures to each other: an artist who lays out ground in Kent’s manner, has an additional task, which is to adjust his figures to the several varieties of the field.

One garden must be distinguished from a plurality; and yet it is not obvious wherein the unity of a garden consists. A notion of unity is indeed suggested from viewing a garden surrounding a palace, with views from each window, and walks leading to every corner. But there may be a garden without a house. In this case, I must pronounce, that what makes it one garden, is the unity of design, every single spot appearing part of a whole. The gardens of Versailles, properly expressed in the plural number, being no fewer than sixteen, are indeed all of them connected with the palace, but have scarce any mutual connection: they appear not like parts of one whole, but rather like small gardens in contiguity. Were these gardens at some distance from each other, they would have a better effect. Their junction breeds con{305}fusion of ideas, and upon the whole gives less pleasure than would be felt in a slower succession.

Regularity is required in that part of a garden which joins the dwelling-house; for being considered as a more immediate accessory, it ought to partake the regularity of the principal object[83]. But in proportion to the distance from the house considered as{306} the centre, regularity ought less and less to be studied. In an extensive plan, it hath a fine effect to lead the mind insensibly from regularity to a bold variety giving an impression of grandeur. And grandeur ought to be studied as much as possible, even in a more confined plan, by avoiding a multiplicity of small parts[84]. Nothing contributes more to grandeur, than a right disposition of trees. Let them be scattered extremely thin near the dwelling-house, and thickened in proportion to their distance: distant eminences to be filled with trees, and laid open to view. A small garden, on the other hand, which admits not grandeur, ought to be strictly regular.

Milton, describing the garden of Eden, prefers justly the grand taste to that of regularity.

In the manner of planting a wood or thicket, much art may be display’d. A common centre of walks, termed a star, from whence are seen a number of remarkable objects, appears too artificial to be agreeable. The crowding withal so many objects together, lessens the pleasure that would be felt in a slower succession. Abandoning therefore the star, being stiff and formal, let us try to substitute some form more natural, that will lay open all the remarkable objects in the neighbourhood. This may be done by openings in the wood at various distances, which, in walking, bring successively under the eye every object as by accident. Some openings display single objects, some a plurality in a line, and some a rapid succession of them. In this plan, the mind at intervals is roused and cheared by agreeable objects; and the scene is greatly heightened by the surprise it occasions when we stumble,{308} as it were, upon objects of which we had no expectation.

As gardening is not an inventive art, but an imitation of nature, or rather nature itself ornamented; it follows necessarily, that every thing unnatural ought to be rejected with disdain. Statues of wild beasts vomiting water, a common ornament in gardens, prevails in those of Versailles. Is this ornament in a good taste? A jet d’eau, being purely artificial, may, without disgust, be tortured into a thousand shapes: but a representation of what really exists in nature, admits not any unnatural circumstance. These statues therefore in the gardens of Versailles must be condemned: and yet so insensible has the artist been to just imitation, as to have display’d his vicious taste without the least colour or disguise. A lifeless statue of an animal pouring out water, may be endured without much disgust. But here the lions and wolves are put in violent action: each has seized its prey, a deer or a lamb, in act to devour. And yet, instead of extended claws and open mouth, the whole, as by a hocus-pocus trick, is con{309}verted into a different scene: the lion, forgetting his prey, pours out water plentifully; and the deer, forgetting its danger, performs the same operation; a representation not less absurd than that in the opera, where Alexander the Great, after mounting the wall of a town besieged, turns about and entertains his army with a song.

In gardening, every lively exhibition of what is beautiful in nature has a fine effect: on the other hand, distant and faint imitations are displeasing to every one of taste. The cutting evergreens in the shape of animals, is a very ancient practice; as appears from the epistles of Pliny, who seems to be a great admirer of this puerile conceit. The propensity to imitation gave birth to this practice; and has supported it wonderfully long, considering how faint and insipid the imitation is. But the vulgar, great and small, devoid of taste, are entertained with the oddness and singularity of a resemblance, however distant, betwixt a tree and an animal. An attempt, in the gardens of Versailles, to imi{310}tate a grove of trees by a group of jets d’eau, appears, for the same reason, not less ridiculous.

In laying out a garden, every thing trivial or whimsical ought to be avoided. Is a labyrinth then to be justified? It is a mere conceit, like that of composing verses in the shape of an axe or an egg. The walks and hedges may be agreeable; but in the form of a labyrinth, they serve to no end but to puzzle. A riddle is a conceit not so mean; because the solution is a proof of sagacity, which affords no aid in tracing a labyrinth.

The gardens of Versailles, executed with infinite expence by men at that time in high repute, are a lasting monument of a taste the most vicious and depraved. The faults above mentioned, instead of being avoided, are chosen as beauties, and multiplied without end. Nature, it would seem, was deemed too vulgar to be imitated in the works of a magnificent monarch; and for that reason preference was given to things unnatural, which probably were mistaken for supernatural. I have often a{311}mused myself with a fanciful resemblance betwixt these gardens and the Arabian tales. Each of them is a performance intended for the amusement of a great king: in the sixteen gardens of Versailles there is no unity of design, more than in the thousand and one Arabian tales: and, lastly, they are equally unnatural; groves of jets d’eau, statues of animals conversing in the manner of Æsop, water issuing out of the mouths of wild beasts, give an impression of fairy-land and witchcraft, not less than diamond-palaces, invisible rings, spells and incantations.

A straight road is the most agreeable, because it shortens the journey. But in an embellished field, a straight walk has an air of stiffness and confinement: and at any rate is less agreeable than a winding or waving walk; for in surveying the beauties of a fine field, we love to roam from place to place at freedom. Winding walks have another advantage: at every step they open new views. In short, the walks in a field intended for entertainment, ought not to have any appearance of a road. My inten{312}tion is not to make a journey, but to feast my eye with the beauties of art and nature. This rule excludes not long straight openings terminating upon distant objects. These, beside variety, never fail to raise an emotion of grandeur, by extending in appearance the size of the field. An opening without a terminating object, soon closes upon the eye: but an object, at whatever distance, continues the opening; and deludes the spectator into a conviction, that the trees which confine the view are continued till they join the object. Straight walks also in recesses do extremely well: they vary the scenery, and are favourable to meditation.

An avenue ought not to be directed in a straight line upon a dwelling-house: better far an oblique approach in a waving line, with single trees and other scattered objects interposed. In a direct approach, the first appearance continues the same to the end: we see a house at a distance, and we see it all along in the same spot without any variety. In an oblique approach, the intervening objects put the house seemingly{313} in motion: it moves with the passenger, and appears to direct its course so as hospitably to intercept him. An oblique approach contributes also to variety: the house being seen successively in different directions, takes on at every step a new figure.

A garden on a flat ought to be highly and variously ornamented, in order to occupy the mind and prevent its regretting the insipidity of an uniform plain. Artificial mounts in this view are common: but no person has thought of an artificial walk elevated high above the plain. Such a walk is airy, and tends to elevate the mind: it extends and varies the prospect: and it makes the plain, seen from a height, appear more agreeable.

Whether should a ruin be in the Gothic or Grecian form? In the former, I say; because it exhibits the triumph of time over strength, a melancholy but not unpleasant thought. A Grecian ruin suggests rather the triumph of barbarity over taste, a gloomy and discouraging thought.

Fountains are seldom in a good taste. Statues of animals vomiting water, which{314} prevail every where, stand condemned. A statue of a whale spouting water upward from its head, would in one sense be natural, as whales of a certain species have that power. The design however would scarce be relished, because its singularity would give it the appearance of being unnatural. There is another reason against it, that the figure of a whale is in itself not agreeable. In the many fountains in and about Rome, statues of fishes are frequently employ’d to support a large basin of water. This unnatural conceit cannot be otherwise explained, than by the connection betwixt water and the fish that swim in it; which by the way is a proof of the influence that even the slighter connections have on the mind. The only good design for a fountain I have met with, is what follows. In an artificial rock, rugged and abrupt, there is a cavity out of sight at the top: the water, convey’d to it by a pipe, pours or trickles down the broken parts of the rock, and is collected into a basin at the foot: it is so contrived, as to make the water fall in sheets or in rills at pleasure.{315}

Hitherto a garden has been treated as a work intended solely for pleasure, or, in other words, for giving impressions of intrinsic beauty. What comes next in order is the beauty of a garden destined for use, termed relative beauty[85]; and this branch shall be dispatched in a few words. In gardening, luckily, relative beauty need never stand in opposition to intrinsic beauty. All the ground that can be requisite for use, makes but a small proportion of an ornamented field; and may be put in any corner without obstructing the disposition of the capital parts. At the same time, a kitchen-garden or an orchard is susceptible of intrinsic beauty; and may be so artfully disposed among the other parts, as by variety and contrast to contribute to the beauty of the whole. In this respect, architecture is far more intricate, as will be seen immediately: for there, it being often requisite to blend intrinsic and relative beauty in the same building, it becomes a difficult task to attain both in any perfection.{316}

As gardening is brought to greater perfection in China than in any other known country, an account of the means practised by Chinese artists to inspire all the various emotions of gardening, will be a fine illustration of the foregoing doctrine. In general, it is an indispensable law with them, never to deviate from nature: but in order to produce that degree of variety which is pleasing, every method is used that is consistent with nature. Nature is strictly imitated in the banks of their artificial lakes and rivers; which sometimes are bare and gravelly, sometimes covered with wood quite to the brink of the water. To flat spots adorned with flowers and shrubs, are opposed others steep and rocky. We see meadows covered with cattle; rice-grounds that run into the lakes; groves into which enter navigable creeks and rivulets. These generally conduct to some interesting object, a magnificent building, terraces cut in a mountain, a cascade, a grotto, an artificial rock, and other such inventions. Their artificial rivers are generally serpentine; sometimes narrow, noisy, and rapid; sometimes{317} deep, broad, and slow: and to make the scene still more active, mills and other moving machines are often erected. In the lakes are interspersed islands; some barren, surrounded with rocks and shoals; others inriched with every thing that art and nature can furnish. Even in their cascades they avoid regularity, as forcing nature out of its course: the waters are seen bursting out from among the caverns and windings of the artificial rocks; here an impetuous cataract, there many lesser falls: and in its passage, the water is often impeded by trees and heaps of stones, that seem brought down by the violence of the current. Straight lines, generally avoided, are sometimes indulged, in order to take the advantage of any interesting object at a distance, by directing openings upon it.

Sensible of the influence of contrast, the Chinese artists deal in sudden transitions, and in opposing to each other, forms, colours, and shades. The eye is conducted, from limited to extensive views, and from lakes and rivers to plains, hills, and woods: to dark and gloomy colours, are opposed{318} the more brilliant: the different masses of light and shade are disposed in such a manner, as to render the composition distinct in its parts, and striking on the whole. In plantations, the trees are artfully mixed according to their shape and colour; those of spreading branches with the pyramidal, and the light with the deep green. They even introduce decay’d trees, some erect, and some half out of the ground[86]. In order to heighten contrast, much bolder strokes are risked. They sometimes introduce rough rocks, dark caverns, trees ill formed and seemingly rent by tempests, or blasted by lightning, a building in ruins or half consumed by fire. But to relieve the mind from the harshness of such objects, they are always succeeded by the sweetest and most beautiful scenes.

The Chinese study to give play to the imagination. They hide the termination of their lakes: the view of a cascade is fre{319}quently interrupted by trees, through which are seen obscurely the waters as they fall. The imagination once roused, is disposed to magnify every object.

Nothing is more studied in Chinese gardens than to raise wonder or surprise. In scenes calculated for that end, every thing appears like fairy-land; a torrent, for example, convey’d under ground, producing an uncommon sound that puzzles a stranger to guess what it may be; and, to increase our wonder by multiplying such uncommon sounds, the rocks and buildings are contrived with cavities and interstices. Sometimes one is led insensibly into dark caverns, terminating unexpectedly in a landscape inriched with all that nature affords the most delicious. At other times, beautiful walks insensibly conduct us to a rough uncultivated field, where bushes briers and stones interrupt the passage: when we look about for an outlet, some rich prospect unexpectedly opens to view. Another artifice is, to obscure some capital part by trees or other interposed objects: our curiosity is raised to know what lies beyond; and after a few{320} steps, we are greatly surprised with some scene totally different from what was expected.

I close these cursory observations upon gardening, with a remark that must touch every reader. Rough uncultivated ground, dismal to the eye, inspires peevishness and discontent. May not this be one cause of the harsh manners of savages? In a field richly ornamented, are collected beautiful objects of various kinds. Such a field displays in full lustre, the goodness of the Deity and the ample provision he has made for our happiness; which must fill every spectator, with gratitude to his Maker and with benevolence to his fellow-creatures. Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular, and even vicious, emotions: but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot but promote every good affection. The gaiety and harmony of mind it produceth, must naturally incline the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others by acts of humanity and kindness.{321}

Having finished what occurred on gardening, I proceed to rules and observations that more peculiarly concern architecture. Architecture being an useful as well as a fine art, buildings and parts of buildings must be distinguished into three kinds, viz. what are intended for utility solely, what for ornament solely, and what for both. A building intended for utility solely, such as detached offices, ought in every part to correspond precisely to that intention. The least deviation from use, though contributing to ornament, will be disagreeable. For every work of use being considered as a means to an end, its perfection as a means is the capital circumstance; and every other beauty, in opposition, is neglected as improper and impertinent. In things again intended for ornament, such as pillars, obelisks, triumphal arches, beauty solely ought to be regarded. A Heathen temple must be considered as merely ornamental; for being dedicated to some deity, and not intended for habitation, it is susceptible of any figure and any embellishment that fancy can suggest and beauty require. The great diffi{322}culty of contrivance, respects buildings that are intended for pleasure as well as for use. These ends, employing different and often opposite means, are with difficulty reconciled. In palaces, and other buildings sufficiently extensive to admit a variety of useful contrivance, regularity justly takes the lead. But in dwelling-houses that are too small for variety of contrivance, utility ought to prevail; neglecting regularity so far as it stands in opposition to convenience.

Intrinsic and relative beauty being founded on different principles, must be handled separately; and I begin with relative beauty, as of the greater importance.

The proportions of a door, are determined by the use to which it is destined. The door of a dwelling-house, which ought to correspond to the human size, is confined to seven or eight feet in height, and three or four in breadth. The proportions proper for the door of a barn or coach-house, are widely different. Another consideration enters. To study intrinsic beauty in a coach-house or barn, intended merely for use, is obviously improper. But a dwell{323}ing-house may admit ornaments; and the principal door of a palace demands all the grandeur that is consistent with the foregoing proportions dictated by utility. It ought to be elevated and approached by steps; and it may be adorned with pillars supporting an architrave, or in any other beautiful manner. The door of a church ought to be wide, in order to afford an easy passage for a multitude. The wideness, at the same time, regulates the height, as will appear by and by. The size of windows ought to be proportioned to that of the room they serve with light; for if the apperture be not sufficiently large to convey light to every corner, the room is dark and gloomy. Steps of stairs ought to be accommodated to the human figure, without regarding any other proportion: these steps accordingly are the same in large and in small buildings, because both are inhabited by men of the same size.

I proceed to consider intrinsic beauty blended with that which is relative. A cube in itself is more agreeable than a parallelopipedon, which will constantly hold in small{324} figures. But a large building in the form a cube, appears lumpish and heavy; while the other figure, set on its smaller base, is by its elevation more agreeable: and hence the beauty of a Gothic tower. But let us suppose this parallelopipedon destin’d for a dwelling house, to make way for relative beauty. Here utility prevails over elevation and a parallelopipedon, inconvenient by its height, is set upon its larger base. The loftiness is gone; but that loss is more than compensated by additional convenience; and for that reason the form of a building spread more upon the ground than raised in height, is always preferred for a dwelling-house, without excepting even the most sumptuous palace.

With respect to the divisions within, utility requires that the rooms be rectangular; for otherwise void spaces will be left of no use. A hexagonal figure leaves no void spaces; but then it determines the rooms to be all of one size, which is extremely inconvenient. A cube will at first be pronounced the most agreeable figure; and this may hold in a room of a moderate size.{325} But in a very large room, utility requires a different figure. The chief convenience of a great room, is unconfined motion. This directs us to the greatest length that can be obtained. But a square room of a great size is inconvenient, by removing far from the hand, chairs and tables, which, when unemploy’d, must be ranged along the sides of the room. Utility therefore requires a large room to be a parallelogram. This figure, at the same time, is the best calculated for receiving light; because, to avoid cross-light, all the windows ought to be in one wall; and if the opposite wall be at such distance as not to be fully lighted, the room must be obscure. The height of a room exceeding nine or ten feet, has little or no relation to utility; and therefore proportion is the only rule for determining the height when above that number of feet.

As all artists who deal in the beautiful are naturally prone to entertain the eye, they have great opportunity to exert their taste upon palaces and sumptuous buildings, where, as above observed, intrinsic beauty ought to have the ascendant over that which{326} is relative. But such propensity is unhappy with respect to private dwelling-houses; because in these, relative beauty cannot be display’d in any perfection, without abandoning intrinsic beauty. There is no opportunity for great variety of form in a small house; and in an edifice of this kind, internal convenience has not hitherto been happily adjusted to external regularity. I am apt to believe, that an accurate coincidence here, is beyond the reach of art. And yet architects always split upon this rock; for they never will give over attempting to reconcile these two incompatibles. How else should it be accounted for, that of the endless variety of private dwelling-houses, there is not one to be found, that is generally agreed upon as a good pattern? The unwearied propensity to make a house regular as well as convenient, forces the architect, in some articles, to sacrifice convenience to regularity, and in others, regularity to convenience. By this means, the house, which turns out neither regular nor convenient, never fails to displease. The faults are ob{327}vious, and the difficulty of doing better is known to the artist only[87].

Nothing can be more evident, than that the form of a dwelling-house ought to be suited to the climate; and yet no error is more common, than to copy in Britain the form of Italian houses; not forgetting even those parts that are purposely contrived for air, and for excluding the sun. I shall give one or two instances. A colonnade along the front of a building, hath a fine effect in Greece and Italy, by producing coolness and obscurity, agreeable properties in warm and luminous climates. The cold climate of Britain is altogether averse to this ornament. A colonnade therefore, can never be proper in this country, unless when employ’d to communicate with a detached building. Again, a logio opening the house to the north, contrived in Italy for gathering cool air, is, if possible, still more improper for this climate. Scarce endurable in summer, it, in{328} winter, exposes the house to the bitter blasts of the north, and to every shower of snow and rain.

Having discussed what appeared necessary to be said upon relative beauty, singly considered, or in combination with intrinsic beauty, the next step is, to view architecture as one of the fine arts, and to examine those buildings and parts of buildings that are solely calculated to please the eye. In the works of nature, grand and magnificent, variety prevails. The timid hand of art, is guided by rule and compass. Hence it is, that in works which imitate nature, the great art is to hide every appearance of art; which is done by avoiding regularity and indulging variety. But in works of art that are original and not imitative, such as architecture, strict regularity and uniformity ought to be studied so far as consistent with utility.

In buildings intended to please the eye, proportion is not less essential than regularity and uniformity; for we are so framed by nature, as to be pleased equally with each of these. By many writers it is taken for granted, that in all the parts of a building{329} there are certain strict proportions which please the eye; precisely as there are certain strict proportions of sound which please the ear; and that in both the slightest deviation is equally disagreeable. Others again seem to relish more a comparison betwixt proportion in numbers and proportion in quantity; and hold that the same proportions are agreeable in both. The proportions, for example, of the numbers 16, 24, and 36 are agreeable; and so, say they, are the proportions of a room, the height of which is 16 feet, the breadth 24, and the length 36. This point, with relation to the present subject, being of importance, the reader will examine it with attention and impartiality. To refute the notion of a resemblance betwixt musical proportions and those of architecture, it might be sufficient to observe in general, that the one is addressed to the ear, the other to the eye; and that objects of different senses have no resemblance, nor indeed any relation to each other. But more particularly, what pleases the ear in harmony, is not the proportion of the strings of the instrument, but of the sounds that{330} these strings produce. In architecture, on the contrary, it is the proportion of different quantities that pleases the eye, without the least relation to sound. Beside, were quantity here to be the sole ground of comparison, we have no reason to presume, that there is any natural analogy betwixt the proportions that please in a building and the proportions of strings that produce concordant sounds. I instance in particular an octave, the most complete of all concords. An octave is produced by two strings of the same tension and diameter, and as to length in the proportion of one to two. I do not know, that this proportion will be agreeable in any two parts of a building. I add, that concordant notes are produced by wind instruments, which, as to proportion, appear not to have even the slightest resemblance to a building.

With respect to the other notion instituting a comparison betwixt proportion in numbers and proportion in quantity, I urge, that number and quantity are so distinct from each other, as to afford no probability of any natural relation betwixt them. Quan{331}tity is a real quality of every substance or body: number is not a real quality, but merely a conception that arises upon viewing a plurality of things in succession. Because an arithmetical proportion is agreeable in numbers, have we any reason to conclude that it must also be agreeable in quantity? At this rate, a geometrical proportion and many others, ought also to be agreeable in both. A certain proportion may coincide in both; and among an endless variety of proportions, it would be wonderful, if there never should be a coincidence. One example is given of this coincidence, in the numbers 16, 24, and 36; but to be convinced that it is merely accidental, we need but reflect, that the same proportions are not applicable to the external figure of a house, and far less to a column.

That we are framed by nature to relish proportion as well as regularity, is indisputable: but that agreeable proportion, like concord in sounds, is confined to certain precise measures, is not warranted by experience: on the contrary, we learn from experience, that various proportions are e{332}qually agreeable, that proportion is never tied down to precise measures but admits more and less, and that we are not sensible of disproportion till the difference betwixt the quantities compared become the most striking circumstance. Columns evidently admit different proportions, equally agreeable. The case is the same in houses, rooms, and other parts of a building. And this opens an interesting reflection. The foregoing difference betwixt concord and proportion, is an additional instance of that admirable harmony which subsists among the several branches of the human frame. The ear is an accurate judge of sounds and of their smallest differences; and that concord in sounds should be regulated by accurate measures, is perfectly well suited to this accuracy of perception. The eye is more uncertain about the size of a large object, than of one that is small; and in different situations the same object appears of different sizes. Delicacy of feeling therefore with respect to proportion in quantities, would be an useless quality. It is much better ordered, that there should be such a latitude with{333} respect to agreeable proportions, as to correspond to the uncertainty of the eye with respect to quantity.

But this scene is too interesting to be passed over in a cursory view: all its beauties are not yet display’d. I proceed to observe, that to make the eye as delicate with respect to proportion as the ear is with respect to concord, would not only be an useless quality, but be the source of continual pain and uneasiness. I need go no farther for a proof than the very room I possess at present: every step I take, varies to me, in appearance, the proportion of the length and breadth. At that rate, I should not be happy but in one precise spot, where the proportion appears agreeable. Let me further observe, that it would be singular indeed, to find in the nature of man, any two principles in perpetual opposition to each other. This would precisely be the case, if proportion were circumscribed like concord; for it would exclude all but one of those proportions that utility requires in different buildings, and in different parts of the same building.{334}

It is ludicrous to observe all writers acknowledging the necessity of accurate proportions, and yet differing widely about them. Laying aside reasoning and philosophy, one fact universally agreed on ought to have undeceived them, that the same proportions which please in a model are not agreeable in a large building. A room 48 feet in length and 24 in breadth and height, is well proportioned; but a room 12 feet wide and high and 24 long, looks like a gallery.

Perrault, in his comparison of the ancients and moderns[88], is the only author who runs to the opposite extreme; maintaining, that the different proportions assigned to each order of columns are arbitrary, and that the beauty of these proportions is entirely the effect of custom. This bewrays ignorance of human nature, which evidently delights in proportion, as well as in regularity, order, and propriety. But without any acquaintance with human nature, a single reflection might have convinced him{335} of his error; that if these proportions had not originally been agreeable, they could not have been established by custom. If a thing be universal, it must be natural.

To illustrate the present point, I shall add a few examples of the agreeableness of different proportions. In a sumptuous edifice, the capital rooms ought to be large, for otherwise they will not be proportioned to the size of the building. On the other hand, a very large room in a small house, is disproportioned. But in things thus related, the mind requires not a precise or single proportion, rejecting all others; on the contrary, many different proportions are made equally welcome. It is only when a proportion becomes loose and distant, that the agreeableness abates, and at last vanisheth. In all buildings accordingly, we find rooms of different proportions equally agreeable, even where the proportion is not influenced by utility. With respect to the height of a room, the proportion it ought to bear to the length and breadth, is extremely arbitrary; and it cannot be otherwise, considering the uncertainty of the eye as to the height of a{336} room, when it exceeds 17 or 18 feet. In columns again, even architects must confess, that the proportion of height and thickness varies betwixt 8 diameters and 10, and that every proportion betwixt these two extremes is agreeable. But this is not all. There must certainly be a further variation of proportion, depending on the size of the column. A row of columns 10 feet high, and a row twice that height, require different proportions. The intercolumniations must also differ in proportion according to the height of the row.

Proportion of parts is not only itself a beauty, but is inseparably connected with a beauty of the first magnitude. Parts that in conjunction appear proportional, never fail separately to produce similar emotions; which existing together, are extremely pleasant, as I have had occasion to show[89]. Thus a room of which the parts are all finely adjusted to each other, strikes us with the beauty of proportion. It produceth at the same time a pleasure far superior. The{337} length, the breadth, the height, the windows, raise each of them separately an emotion. These emotions are similar; and though faint when felt separately, they produce in conjunction the emotion of concord or harmony, which is extremely pleasant. On the other hand, where the length of a room far exceeds the breadth, the mind comparing together parts so intimately connected, immediately perceives a disagreement or disproportion which disgusts. But this is not all. Viewing them separately, different emotions are produced, that of grandeur from the great length, and that of meanness or littleness from the small breadth, which in union are disagreeable by their discordance. Hence it is, that a long gallery, however convenient for exercise, is not an agreeable figure of a room. We consider it, like a stable, as destined for use, and expect not that in any other respect it should be agreeable.

Regularity and proportion are essential in buildings destined chiefly or solely to please the eye, because they are the means to produce intrinsic beauty. But a skilful artist{338} will not confine his view to regularity and proportion. He will also study propriety, which is perceived when the form and ornaments of a structure are suited to the purpose for which it is appointed. The sense of propriety dictates the following rule, That every building ought to have an expression corresponding to its destination. A palace ought to be sumptuous and grand; a private dwelling, neat and modest; a playhouse, gay and splendid; and a monument, gloomy and melancholy. A Heathen temple has a double destination: it is considered chiefly as a house dedicated to some divinity; and in that respect it ought to be grand, elevated, and magnificent: it is considered also as a place of worship; and in that respect it ought to be somewhat dark or gloomy; because dimness produces that tone of mind which is suited to humility and devotion. A Christian church is not considered as a house for the Deity, but merely a place of worship: it ought therefore to be decent and plain, without much ornament: a situation ought to be chosen, humble and retired; because the congregation, during{339} worship, ought to be humble and disengaged from the world. Columns, beside their chief destination of being supports, contribute to that peculiar expression which the destination of a building requires: columns of different proportions, serve to express loftiness, lightness, &c. as well as strength. Situation also may contribute to expression: conveniency regulates the situation of a private dwelling-house; but, as I have had occasion to observe[90], the situation of a palace ought to be lofty.

And this leads me to examine, whether the situation of a great house, where the artist is limited in his choice, ought in any measure to regulate its form. The connection betwixt a great house and the neighbouring grounds, though not extremely intimate, demands however some congruity. It would, for instance, displease us to find an elegant building thrown away upon a wild uncultivated country: congruity requires a polished field for such a building; and beside the pleasure of congruity, the spectator{340} is sensible of the pleasure of concordance from the similarity of the emotions produced by the two objects. The old Gothic form of building seems well suited to the rough uncultivated regions where it was invented. The only mistake was, the transferring this form to the fine plains of France and Italy, better fitted for buildings in the Grecian taste. But by refining upon the Gothic form, every thing in the power of invention has been done, to reconcile it to its new situation. The profuse variety of wild and grand objects about Inverary, demanded a house in the Gothic form; and every one must approve the taste of the proprietor, in adjusting so finely, as he has done, the appearance of his house to that of the country where it is placed.

The external structure of a great house, leads naturally to its internal structure. A large and spacious room, receives us commonly upon our entrance. This seems to me a bad contrivance in several respects. In the first place, when immediately from the open air we step into such a room, its size in appearance is diminished by contrast: it{341} looks little compared with the great canopy the sky. In the next place, when it recovers its grandeur, as it soon doth, it gives a diminutive appearance to the rest of the house: passing from it, every apartment looks little. This room therefore may be aptly compared to the swoln commencement of an epic poem.

In the third place, by its situation it serves only for a waiting-room, and a passage to the principal apartments. And yet undoubtedly, the room of the greatest size ought to be reserved for company. A great room, which enlarges the mind and gives a certain elevation to the spirits, is destined by nature for conversation. Rejecting therefore this form, I take a hint from the climax in writing for another form that appears more suitable. My plan is, first a handsome portico, proportioned to the size and fashion of the front: this portico leads into a waiting-room of a larger size; and this again to the great{342} room, all by a progression from small to great. If the house be very large, there may be space for the following suit of rooms; first, a portico; second, a passage within the house bounded by rows of columns on each side connected by arcades; third, an octagon room, or of any other figure, about the centre of the building; and, lastly, the great room.

Of all the emotions that can be raised by architecture, grandeur is that which has the greatest influence on the mind. It ought therefore to be the chief study of the artist, to raise this emotion in great buildings. But it seems unhappy for architecture, that it is necessarily governed by certain principles opposite to grandeur: the direct effect of regularity and proportion, is to make a building appear less than it is in reality. Any invention to reconcile these with grandeur, would be a capital improvement in architecture.

Next of ornaments, which contribute greatly to give buildings a peculiar expression. It has been a doubt with me, whether a building can regularly admit any or{343}nament but what is useful, or at least appears to be useful. But considering the double aim of architecture, a fine as well as an useful art, there is no good reason why ornaments may not be added to please the eye without any relation to use. This liberty is allowed in poetry, painting, and gardening, and why not in architecture considered as a fine art? A private dwelling-house, it is true, and other edifices where use is the chief aim, admit not regularly any ornament but what has the appearance, at least, of use: but temples, triumphal arches, and other buildings intended chiefly or solely for show, may be highly ornamented.

This suggests a division of ornaments into three kinds, viz. ornaments that are beautiful without relation to use, such as statues in niches, vases, basso or alto relievo: next, things in themselves not beautiful, but possessing the beauty of utility by imposing on the spectator, and appearing to be of use, blind windows for example: the third kind is, where the thing is in itself beautiful, and also takes on the appearance{344} of use; the case of a pilaster. With respect to the second, it is an egregious blunder, to contrive the ornament so as to make it appear useless. If a blind window therefore be necessary for regularity, it ought to be so disguised, as not to be distinguished from the real windows. If it appear to be a blind window, it is disgustful, as a vain attempt to supply the want of invention. It shows the irregularity in a stronger light; by signifying that a window ought to be there in point of regularity, but that the architect had not skill sufficient to connect external regularity with internal convenience.

From ornaments in general, we descend to a pillar, the chief ornament in great buildings. The destination of a pillar is to support, really or in appearance, another part termed the architrave. With respect to the form of this ornament, I observe, that a circle is a more agreeable figure than a square, a globe than a cube, and a cylinder than a parallelopipedon. This last, in the language of architecture, is saying, that a column is a more agreeable figure than a{345} pilaster. For that reason, it ought to be preferred, all other circumstances being equal. Another reason concurs, that a column annexed to a wall, which is a plain surface, makes a greater variety than a pilaster. There is an additional reason for rejecting pilasters in the external front of a building, arising from a principle unfolded above[91], viz. a remarkable tendency in the mind of man, to advance every thing to its perfection as well as to its final issue. If I see a thing obscurely in a dim light, and by disjointed parts, my curiosity is roused, and prompts me, out of the disjointed parts to compose an entire whole. I suppose it to be, for example, a horse. My eye-sight being obedient to this conjecture, I immediately perceive a horse, almost as distinctly as in day-light. This principle is applicable to the case in hand. The most superb front, at a great distance, appears a plain surface: approaching gradually, we begin to perceive inequalities: these inequalities, advancing a few steps more, take{346} on the appearance of pillars; but whether round or square, we are uncertain: our curiosity anticipating our progress, cannot rest in suspense: we naturally suppose the most complete pillar, or that which is the most agreeable to the eye; and we immediately perceive, or seem to perceive, a number of columns: if upon a near approach we find pilasters only, the disappointment makes these pilasters appear disagreeable; when abstracted from that circumstance, they would only have appeared somewhat less agreeable. But as this deception cannot happen in the inner front inclosing a court, I see no reason for excluding pilasters there, when there is any reason for preferring them before columns.

With respect now to the parts of a column, a bare uniform cylinder without base or capital, appears naked and scarce agreeable: it ought therefore to have some finishing at the top and at the bottom. Hence the three chief parts of a column, the shaft, the base, and the capital. Nature undoubtedly requires a certain proportion among these parts, but not limited within{347} precise bounds. I suspect that the proportions in use have been influenced in some degree by the human figure; the capital being conceived as the head, the base as the feet. With respect to the base indeed, the principle of utility interposes to vary it from the human figure: the base must be so proportioned to the whole, as to give the column the appearance of stability.

In architecture as well as in gardening, contradictory expressions ought to be avoided. Firmness and solidity are the proper expressions of a pedestal: carved work, on the contrary, ought to be light and delicate. A pedestal therefore, whether of a column or of a statue, ought to be sparingly ornamented: the ancients never ventured any bolder ornament than the basso-relievo.

To succeed in allegorical or emblematic ornaments, is no slight effort of genius; for it is extremely difficult to dispose them so in a building as to produce any good effect. The mixing them with realities, makes a miserable jumble of truth and fiction[92]. In a{348} basso-relievo on Antonin’s pillar, rain obtained by the prayers of a Christian legion, is expressed by joining to the group of soldiers a rainy Jupiter, with water in abundance running from his head and beard. De Piles, fond of the conceit, carefully informs his reader, that he must not take this for a real Jupiter, but for a symbol which among the Pagans signified rain: an emblem ought not to make a part of the group representing real objects or real events, but be detached from it, so as even at first view to appear an emblem. But this is not all, nor the chief point. Every emblem ought to be rejected that is not clearly expressive of its meaning: if it be in any degree obscure, it never can be relished. The temples of Ancient and Modern Virtue in the gardens of Stow, appear not at first view emblematical; and when we are informed that they are so, it is not easy to gather their meaning. The spectator sees one temple in full repair, another in ruins: but without an explanatory inscription, he may guess, but cannot be certain, that the former being dedicated to Ancient{349} Virtue, the latter to Modern Virtue, are intended a satire upon the present times. On the other hand, a trite emblem, like a trite simile, is disgustful[93]. Nor ought an emblem more than a simile to be founded on low or familiar objects; for if the objects be not agreeable, as well as their meaning, the emblem upon the whole will not be relished. A room in a dwelling-house containing a monument to a deceased friend, is dedicated to Melancholy. Its furniture is a clock that strikes every minute to signify how swiftly time passes: upon the monument, weeping figures and other hackney’d ornaments commonly found upon tomb-stones, with a stuff’d raven in a corner: verses on death, and other serious subjects, inscribed all around. The objects are too familiar, and the artifice too apparent, to produce the intended effect.

The statue of Moses striking a rock from which water actually issues, is also in a false taste; for it is mixing reality with representation: Moses himself may bring{350} water out of the rock, but this miracle is too much for his statue. The same objection lies against a cascade where we see the statue of a water-god pouring out of his urn real water.

It is observed above of gardening, that it contributes to rectitude of manners, by inspiring gaiety and benevolence. I add another observation, That both gardening and architecture contribute to the same end, by inspiring neatness and elegance. It is observed in Scotland, that even a turnpike-road has some influence of this kind upon the low people in the neighbourhood. They acquire a taste for regularity and neatness; which is display’d first upon their yards and little inclosures, and next within doors. A taste for regularity and neatness thus gathering strength, comes insensibly to be extended to dress, and even to behaviour and manners.{351}

CHAP. XXV.

Standard of Taste.

“THat there is no disputing about taste”, meaning taste in its most extensive sense, is a saying so generally received as to have become a proverb. One thing indeed is evident, that if the proverb hold true with respect to any one external sense, it must hold true with respect to all. If the pleasures of the palate disdain a comparative trial and reject all criticism, the pleasures of touch, of smell, of sound, and even of sight, must be equally privileged. At this rate, a man is not within the reach of censure, even where, insensible to beauty, grandeur, or elegance, he prefers the Saracen’s head upon a sign-post before the best tablature of Raphael, or a rude Gothic tower before the finest Grecian building: nor where he prefers the smell of a{352} rotten carcass before that of the most odoriferous flower: nor jarring discords before the most exquisite harmony.

But we must not stop here. If the pleasures of external sense be exempted from criticism, why not every one of our pleasures, from whatever source derived? If taste in the proper sense of the word cannot be disputed, there is as little room for disputing it in its figurative sense. The proverb accordingly comprehends both; and in that large sense may be resolved into the following general proposition, That with respect to the sensitive part of our nature, by which some objects are agreeable, some disagreeable, there is not such a thing as good or bad, a right or wrong; that every man’s taste is to himself an ultimate standard without appeal; and consequently that there is no ground of censure against any one, if such a one there be, who prefers Blackmore before Homer, selfishness before benevolence, or cowardice before magnanimity.

The proverb in the foregoing instances, is indeed carried very far. It seems difficult,{353} however, to sap its foundation, or with success to attack it from any quarter. For in comparing the various tastes of individuals, it is not obvious what standard must be appealed to. Is not every man equally a judge of what is agreeable or disagreeable to himself? Doth it not seem odd, and perhaps absurd, that a man ought not to be pleased when he is, or that he ought to be pleased when he is not?

This reasoning may perplex, but, in contradiction to sense and feeling, will never afford conviction. A man of taste must necessarily feel the reasoning to be false, however unqualified to detect the fallacy. At the same time, though no man of taste will subscribe to the proverb as holding true in every case, no man will venture to affirm that it holds true in no case. Subjects there are undoubtedly, that we may like or dislike indifferently, without any imputation upon our taste. Were a philosopher to make a scale for human pleasures with many divisions, in order that the value of each pleasure may be denoted by the place it occupies, he would not think of making di{354}visions without end, but would rank together many pleasures arising perhaps from different objects, either as being equally valuable, or differing so imperceptibly as to make a separation unnecessary. Nature hath taken this course, so far as appears to the generality of mankind. There may be subdivisions without end; but we are only sensible of the grosser divisions, comprehending each of them many pleasures of various kinds. To these the proverb is applicable in the strictest sense; for with respect to pleasures of the same rank, what ground can there be for preferring one before another? If a preference in fact be given by any individual, it cannot be taste, but custom, imitation, or some peculiarity of mind.

Nature in her scale of pleasures, has been sparing of divisions: she hath wisely and benevolently filled every division with many pleasures; in order that individuals may be contented with their own lot, without envying the happiness of others: many hands must be employ’d to procure us the conveniencies of life; and it is necessary that the{355} different branches of business, whether more or less agreeable, be filled with hands. A taste too nice and delicate, would obstruct this plan; for it would crowd some employments, leaving others, not less useful, totally neglected. In our present condition, happy it is, that the plurality are not delicate in their choice. They fall in readily with the occupations, pleasures, food, and company, that fortune throws in their way; and if at first there be any displeasing circumstance, custom soon makes it easy.

The proverb will be admitted so far as it regards the particulars now explained. But when apply’d in general to every subject of taste, the difficulties to be encountered are insuperable. What shall we say, in particular, as to the difficulty that arises from human nature itself? Do we not talk of a good and a bad taste? of a right and a wrong taste? and upon that supposition, do we not, with great confidence, censure writers, painters, architects, and every one who deals in the fine arts? Are such criticisms absurd and void of foundation? Have the foregoing expressions, familiar in all lan{356}guages and among all people, no sort of meaning? This can hardly be: what is universal must have a foundation in nature. If we can reach this foundation, the standard of taste will no longer be a secret.

All living creatures are by nature distributed into classes; the individuals of each, however diversified by slighter differences, having a wonderful uniformity in their capital parts internal and external. Each class is distinguishable from others by an external form; and not less distinguishable by an internal constitution, manifested by certain powers, feelings, desires, and actions, peculiar to the individuals of each class. Thus each class may be conceived to have a common nature, which, in framing the individuals belonging to the class, is taken for a model or standard.

Independent altogether of experience, men have a sense or conviction of a common nature or standard, not only in their own species, but in every species of animals. And hence it is a matter of wonder, to find any individual deviating from the common nature of the species, whether in its inter{357}nal or external construction: a child born with an aversion to its mother’s milk, is a matter of wonder, not less than if born without a mouth, or with more than one[94].

With respect to this common nature or standard, we are so constituted as to conceive it to be perfect or right; and consequently that individuals ought to be made conformable to it. Every remarkable deviation accordingly from the standard, makes an impression upon us of imperfection, irregularity, or disorder: it is disagreeable and raises in us a painful emotion: monstrous births, exciting the curiosity of a philosopher, fail not at the same time to excite aversion in a high degree.

Lastly, we have a conviction, that the common nature of man is invariable not less than universal: we conceive that it hath no relation to time nor to place; but that it will be the same hereafter as at present, and as it was in time past; the same among all nations and in all corners of the{358} earth. Nor are we deceived: giving allowance for the difference of culture and gradual refinement of manners, the fact corresponds to our conviction.

This conviction of a common nature or standard, and of its perfection, is the foundation of morality; and accounts clearly for that remarkable conception we have, of a right and a wrong taste in morals. It accounts not less clearly for the conception we have of a right and a wrong taste in the fine arts. A person who rejects objects generally agreeable, and delights in objects generally disagreeable, is condemned as a monster: we disapprove his taste as bad or wrong; and we have a clear conception that he deviates from the common standard. If man were so framed as not to have any notion of a common standard, the proverb mentioned in the beginning would hold universally, not only in the fine arts but in morals: upon that supposition, the taste of every man, with respect to both, would to himself be an ultimate standard. But the conviction of a common standard being made a part of our nature, we intuitively conceive a taste to be right or good if con{359}formable to the common standard, and wrong or bad if disconformable.

No particular concerning human nature is more universal, than the uneasiness a man feels when in matters of importance his opinions are rejected by others. Why should difference in opinion create uneasiness, more than difference in stature, in countenance, or in dress? The sense of a common standard is the only principle that can explain this mystery. Every man, generally speaking, taking it for granted that his opinions agree with the common sense of mankind, is therefore disgusted with those of a contrary opinion, not as differing from him, but as differing from the common standard. Hence in all disputes, we find the parties, each of them equally, appealing constantly to the common sense of mankind as the ultimate rule or standard. Were it not for this standard, of which the conviction is universal, I cannot discover the slightest foundation for rancor or animosity when persons differ in essential points more than in points purely indifferent. With respect to the latter, which are not supposed to be regulated{360} by any standard, individuals are permitted to think for themselves with impunity. The same liberty is not indulged with respect to the former: for what reason, other than that the standard by which these are regulated, ought, as we judge, to produce an uniformity of opinion in all men? In a word, to this sense of a common standard must be wholly attributed the pleasure we take in those who espouse the same principles and opinions with ourselves, as well as the aversion we have at those who differ from us. In matters left indifferent by the standard, we find nothing of the same pleasure or pain. A bookish man, unless sway’d by convenience, relisheth not the contemplative more than the active part of mankind: his friends and companions are chosen indifferently out of either class. A painter consorts with a poet or musician, as readily as with those of his own art; and one is not the more agreeable to me for loving beef, as I do, nor the less agreeable for preferring mutton.

I have said, that my disgust is raised, not by differing from me, but by differing{361} from what I judge to be the common standard. This point, being of importance, ought to be firmly established. Men, it is true, are prone to flatter themselves, by taking it for granted, that their opinions and their taste are in all respects agreeable to the common standard. But there may be exceptions, and experience shows there are some. There are instances without number, of persons who cling to the grosser amusements of gaming, eating, drinking, without having any relish for more elegant pleasures, such, for example, as are afforded by the fine arts. Yet these very persons, talking the same language with the rest of mankind, pronounce in favour of the more elegant pleasures: they invariably approve those who have a more refined taste, and are ashamed of their own as low and sensual. It is in vain to think of giving a reason for this singular impartiality against self, other than the authority of the common standard. Every individual of the human species, the most groveling not excepted, hath a natural sense of the dignity of human nature[95].{362} Hence every man is esteemed and respected in proportion to the dignity of his character, sentiments, and actions. And from the instances now given we discover, that the sense of the dignity of human nature is so vigorous, as even to prevail over self-partiality, and to make us despise our own taste compared with the more elevated taste of others.

In our sense of a common standard and in the pleasure individuals give us by their conformity to it, a curious final cause is discovered. An uniformity of taste and sentiment in matters of importance, forms an intimate connection among individuals, and is a great blessing in the social state. With respect to morals in particular, unhappy it would be for mankind did not this uniformity prevail: it is necessary that the actions of all men be uniform with respect to right and wrong; and in order to uniformity of action, it is necessary that all men think the same way in these particulars: if they differ through any irregular bias, the common sense of mankind is appealed to as the rule; and it is the province of judges,{363} in matters especially of equity, to apply that rule. The same uniformity, it is yielded, is not so strictly necessary in other matters of taste: men, though connected in general as members of the same state, are, by birth, office, or occupation, separated and distinguished into different classes; and are thereby qualified for different amusements: variety of taste, so far, is no obstruction to the general connection. But with respect to the more capital pleasures, such as are best enjoy’d in common, uniformity of taste is necessary for two great ends, first to connect individuals the more intimately in the social life, and next to advance these pleasures to their highest perfection. With respect to the first, if instead of a common taste, every man had a taste peculiar to himself, leading him to place his happiness upon things indifferent or perhaps disagreeable to others, these capital pleasures could not be enjoy’d in common: every man would pursue his own happiness by flying from others; and instead of a natural tendency to union, remarkable in the human species, union would be our{364} aversion: man would not be a consistent being: his interest would lead him to society, and his taste would draw him from it. The other end will be best explained by entering upon particulars. Uniformity of taste gives opportunity for sumptuous and elegant buildings, for fine gardens, and extensive embellishments, which please universally. Works of this nature could never have reached any degree of perfection, had every man a taste peculiar to himself: there could not be any suitable reward, either of profit or honour, to encourage men of genius to labour in such works. The same uniformity of taste is equally necessary to perfect the arts of music, sculpture, and painting; and to support the expence they require after they are brought to perfection. Nature is in every particular consistent with herself. We are formed by nature to have a high relish for the fine arts, which are a great source of happiness, and extremely friendly to virtue. We are, at the same time, formed with an uniformity of taste, to furnish proper objects for this high relish: if uniformity of taste did not prevail, the{365} fine arts could never have made any figure.

Thus, upon a sense common to the species, is erected a standard of taste, which without hesitation is apply’d to the taste of every individual. This standard, ascertaining what actions are right what wrong, what proper what improper, hath enabled moralists to establish rules for our conduct from which no person is allowed to swerve. We have the same standard for ascertaining in all the fine arts, what is beautiful or ugly, high or low, proper or improper, proportioned or disproportioned. And here, as in morals, we justly condemn every taste that swerves from what is thus ascertained by the common standard.

The discovery of a rule or standard for trying the taste of individuals in the fine arts as well as in morals, is a considerable advance, but completes not our journey. We have a great way yet to travel. It is made out that there is a standard: but it is not made out, by what means we shall prevent mistaking a false standard for that of nature. If from opinion and practice we endeavour to ascertain the standard of nature,{366} we are betray’d into endless perplexities. Viewing this matter historically, nothing appears more various and more wavering than taste in the fine arts. If we judge by numbers, the Gothic taste of architecture will be preferred before that of Greece; and the Chinese taste probably before both. It would be endless, to recount the various tastes of gardening that have prevailed in different ages, and still prevail in different countries. Despising the modest colouring of nature, women of fashion in France daub their cheeks with a red powder. Nay, the unnatural swelling in the neck, a disease peculiar to the inhabitants of the Alps, is relished by that people. But we ought not to be discouraged by such untoward instances. For do we not find the like contradictions with respect to morals? was it not once held lawful, for a man to expose his infant children, and, when grown up, to sell them for slaves? was it not held equally lawful, to punish children for the crime of their parents? was not the murder of an enemy in cold blood an universal practice? what stronger instance can be gi{367}ven, than the abominable practice of human sacrifices, not less impious than immoral? Such aberrations from the rules of morality, prove only, that men, originally savage and brutish, acquire not rationality or any delicacy of taste, till they be long disciplined in society. To ascertain the rules of morality, we appeal not to the common sense of savages, but of men in their more perfect state: and we make the same appeal, in forming the rules that ought to govern the fine arts. In neither can we safely rely on a local or transitory taste; but on what is the most universal and the most lasting among polite nations.

In this very manner, a standard for morals has been established with a good deal of accuracy; and so well fitted for practice, that in the hand of able judges it is daily apply’d with general satisfaction. The standard of taste in the fine arts, is not yet brought to such perfection. And there is an obvious reason for its slower progress. The sense of a right and a wrong in action, is conspicuous in the breast of every individual, almost without exception. The sense of a{368} right and a wrong in the fine arts, is more faint and wavering: it is by nature a tender plant, requiring much culture to bring it to maturity: in a barren soil it cannot live; and in any soil, without cultivation, it is weak and sickly. I talk chiefly with relation to its more refined objects: for some objects make such lively impressions of beauty, grandeur, and proportion, as without exception to command the general taste. There appears to me great contrivance, in distinguishing thus the moral sense from a taste in the fine arts. The former, as a rule of conduct and as a law we ought to obey, must be clear and authoritative. The latter is not intitled to the same authority, since it contributes to our pleasure and amusement only. Were it more strong and lively, it would usurp upon our duty, and call off the attention from matters of greater moment. Were it more clear and authoritative, it would banish all difference of taste: a refined taste would not form a character, nor be intitled to esteem. This would put an end to rivalship, and consequently to all improvement.{369}

But to return to our subject. However languid and cloudy the common sense of mankind may be with respect to the fine arts, it is yet the only standard in these as well as in morals. And when the matter is attentively considered, this standard will be found less imperfect than it appears to be at first sight. In gathering the common sense of mankind upon morals, we may safely consult every individual. But with respect to the fine arts, our method must be different: a wary choice is necessary; for to collect votes indifferently, will certainly mislead us: those who depend for food on bodily labour, are totally void of taste; of such a taste at least as can be of use in the fine arts. This consideration bars the greater part of mankind; and of the remaining part, many have their taste corrupted to such a degree as to unqualify them altogether for voting. The common sense of mankind must then be confined to the few that fall not under these exceptions. But as such selection seems to throw matters again into uncertainty, we must be more explicit upon this branch of our subject.{370}