Imagens das páginas
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Again:

Hic viridem Æneas frondenti ex illice metam
Constituit, signum nautis.

Horace, addressing to Fortune:

Te pauper ambit sollicita prece

Ruris colonus: te dominam æquoris,
Quicumque Bythinâ lacessit

Carpathium pelagus carinâ.

Illum ex mœnibus hosticis
Metrona bellantis tyranni
Prospiciens, et adulta virgo,
Suspiret Eheu, ne rudis agminum
Sponsus lacessat regius asperum
Tactu leonem, quem cruenta
Per medias rapit ira cædes.

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Eneid, v. 129.

Carm. lib. i. ode 35.

Carm. lib. iii, ode 2.

Shakspeare says, "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 that fanciful operation, without conceiving a particular feather; and one is at a loss when this is neglected in the description. 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."+

Old Lady. You would not be à queen?

Anne. No, not for all the riches under heav'n.

Old Lady. 'Tis strange: a threepence bow'd would hire me, old as I am, to queen it.

Henry VIII. Act II. Sc. 5.

In the following passage, the action, with all its material circumstances, is represented so much to

* Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 4.

+ Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. Sc. 15.

the life, that would searce appear more distinct to a real spectator; and it is the manner of description that contributes greatly to the sublimity of the passage.

He spake; and to confirm his words, out flew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumin'd hell: highly they rag'd
Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of heav'n.

Milton, b. i.

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

O you hard hearts! you cruel men of Rome!
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you clim'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms; and there have sat
The live-long day with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tyber trembled underneath his banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in his concave shores?

Julius Cesar, Act I, Sc. H

The following passage is scarce inferior to either of those mentioned:

Far before the rest the son of Ossian comes; bright in the smiles of youth, fair as the first beams of the sun. His long hair waves on his back: his dark brow is half beneath his helmet. The sword hangs loose on the hero's side; and his spear glitters as he moves. I fled from his terrible eye, King of high Temora. Fingal.

The Henriade of Voltaire errs greatly against the foregoing rule: every incident is touched in a sumVOL. II. 31a

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ugh in's sleep, and one cry'd Murder!
other; and I stood and heard them ;
heir prayers, and address them

re two lodg'd together.

ary'd, God bless us! and Amen the other;
ne with these hangman's hands.

I could not say Amen,

God bless us.

it not so deeply.

berefore could not I pronounce Amen?
blessing, and Amen

Act II. Sc. S.

n the Mourning Bride, shut up in on where his father had been con

[Reading,

chains, imprisonment and want; on, visit not him for me.'

his was his pray'r-Yet more:
which sorrow by the roots
hoary and devoted head,

thy mercies to my son;

but him, hear me, all-gracious'

at should follow

[Reading.

-Heav n should follow,

Why should that word alone

s petition? "Twas to Heav'n,

As deaf, Heav'n heard him not; but thus,

me of Heav'n from this is torn,

the ears of mercy from

otting the gates of prayer against him.

mary way, without ever descending to circumstances. This manner is good in a general history, the purpose of which is to record important transactions: but in a fable 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. The crowding such circumstances, is, on the one hand, no less to be avoided, than the conciseness for which Voltaire is blamed, on the other. In the Eneid,* Barce, the nurse of Sichæus, whom we never hear of before nor 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 circumstance, 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, without detaining his readers by describing the manner of her death, hastens to the lamentation of her attendants:

Dixerat; atque illam media inter talia ferro
Collapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore
Spumantem, sparsasque manus. It clamor ad alta

Atria, concussam bacchatur fama per urbem ;
Lamentis gemituque et fœmineo ululatu

Tecta fremunt, resonat magnis plangoribus æther.

Lib. iv. 1. 663.

As an appendix to the foregoing rule, I add the following observation, That to make 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,

Lib. iv 1. 632.

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