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mufcular motion: not lefs intimately acquainted with emotions and characters ought a writer to be, in order to represent the various attitudes of the mind. A general notion of the paffions, in their groffer differences of strong and weak, elevated and humble, fevere and gay, is far from being fufficient pictures formed fo fuperficially have little refemblance, and no expreffion; and yet it will appear by and by, that in many inftances our reputed mafters are deficient even in this fuperficial knowledge.

In handling the prefent fubject, it would be endless to trace even the ordinary paffions through their nice and minute differences. Mine shall be an humbler task; which is, to felect from the beft writers inftances of faulty fentiments, after paving the way by fome general obfervations.

To talk in the language of mufic, each paffion hath a certain tone, to which every fentiment proceeding from it ought to be tuned with the greatest accuracy; which is no eafy work, efpe.. cially where fuch harmony ought to be fupported during the course of a long theatrical reprefentation. In order to reach fuch delicacy of execution, it is neceffary that a writer affume the precife character and paffion of the perfonage reprefented; which requires an uncommon genius. But it is the only difficulty; for the writer, who, annihilating himfelf, can thus become another perfon, need be in no pain about the fentiments that belong to the affumed character: thefe will

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flow without the leaft ftudy, or even preconception; and will frequently be as delightfully new to himself as afterward to his reader. But if a lively picture even of a fingle emotion, require an effort of genius; how much greater an effort must it require, to compofe a paffionate dialogue with as many different tones of paffion as there are speakers? With what ductility of feeling muft that writer be endued, who approaches perfection in fuch a work; when it is neceffary to affume different and even oppofite characters and paffions, in the quickest fucceffion? And yet this work, difficult as it is, yields to that of compofing a dialogue in genteel comedy, exhibiting characters without paffion. The reafon is, that the different tones of character are more delicate, and lefs in fight, than thofe of paffion: and, accordingly, many writers who have no genius for drawing characters, make a fhift to reprefent, tolerably well, an ordinary paffion in its fimple movements. But of all works of this kind, what is truly the most difficult, is a characteristical dialogue upon any philofophical fubject: to interweave characters with reafoning, by fuiting to the character of each fpeaker, a peculiarity not only of thought but of expreffion, requires the perfection of genius, taste, and judgment.

How hard dialogue-writing is, will be evident, even without reafoning, from the miserable compofitions of that kind found without number in

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all languages. The art of mimicking any fingularity in gefture or in voice, is a rare talent; though directed by fight and hearing, the acuteft and most lively of our external fenfes: how much more rare must the talent be, of imitating characters and internal emotions, tracing all their different tints, and reprefenting them in a lively manner by natural fentiments properly expreffed? The truth is, fuch execution is too delicate for an ordinary genius; and for that reason, the bulk of writers, instead of expreffing a paffion as one does who feels it, content themselves with defcribing it in the language of a fpectator. To awake paffion by an internal effort merely, without any external caufe, requires great fenfibility: and yet this operation is neceffary, not lefs to the writer than to the actor; because none but thofe who actually feel a paffion, can reprefent it to the life. The writer's part is the more complicated: he muft add compofition to paffion; and muft, in the quickest fucceffion, adopt every different character. But a very humble flight of imagination, may serve to convert a writer into a spectator; fo as to figure, in fome obfcure manner, an" action as paffing in his fight and hearing. In this figured fituation, being led naturally to write like a fpectator, he entertains his readers with his own reflections, with cool defcription, and florid declamation; inftead of making them eyewitneffes, as it were, to a real event, and to e

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very movement of genuine paffion *. bulk of our plays appear all to be caft in the fame mould; perfonages without character, the mere outlines of paflion, a tiresome monotony, and a pompous declamatory style †.

This defcriptive manner of reprefenting paffion, is a very cold entertainment: our fympathy is not raised by defcription; we must first be lulled into a dream of reality, and every thing must appear as paffing in our fight ‡. Unhappy is the player of genius who acts a capital part in what may be termed a defcriptive tragedy: after affuming the very paffion that is to be reprefented, how must he be cramped in action, when he must utter, not the fentiments of the paffion he feels, but a cold defcription in the language of a

*In the Eneid, the hero is made to defcribe himself in the following words: Sum pius Æneas, fama fuper æthera notus. Virgil could never have been guilty of an impropriety fo grofs, had he affumed the perfonage of his hero, inftead of uttering the fenti ments of a fpectator. Nor would Xenophon have made the following fpeech for Cyrus the younger, to his Grecian auxiliaries, whom he was leading against his brother Artaxerxes, "I have "chofen you, O Greeks! my auxiliaries, not to enlarge my army, for I have Barbarians without number; but because you "furpafs all the Barbarians in valour and military discipline.” This fentiment is Xenophon's; for furely Cyrus did not reckon his countrymen Barbarians.

+ Chez Racine tout eft fentiment; il a fu faire parler chacun pour foi, et c'est en cela qu'il eft vraiment unique parmi les auteurs dramatiques de fa nation.

See chap. 2. part 1. fect. 6.

Rouleau..

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by-ftander? It is this imperfection, I am perfuaded, in the bulk of our plays, that confines our stage almost entirely to Shakespear, notwithftanding his many irregularities. In our late English tragedies, we fometimes find fentiments tolerably well adapted to a plain paffion: but we must not, in any of them, expect a fentiment expreffive of character; and, upon that very account, our late performances of the dramatic kind, are for the most part intolerably infipid.

Looking back upon what is faid, I am in fome apprehenfion of not being perfectly understood; for it is not eafy to avoid obfcurity in handling a matter fo complicated: but I promise to set it in the cleareft light, by adding example to precept. The first examples fhall be of fentiments that appear the legitimate offspring of paffion; to which fhall be oppofed what are defcriptive only, and illegitimate: and in making this comparifon, I borrow my inftances from Shakespear and Corneille, who for genius in dramatic compofition ftand uppermoft in the rolls of fame.

Shakespear fhall furnish the first example, being of fentiments dictated by a violent and perturbed paffion:

Lear.

Filial ingratitude!

Is it not, as if this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to't? But I'll punish home;

No, I will weep no more.
To fhut me out!

In fuch a night,

Pour on, I will endure.

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