Note 40 — CHAP. XV.

The actions here chiefly in view, are what a passion suggests in order to its gratification. Beside these, actions are occasionally exerted to give some vent to a passion, without proposing an ultimate gratification. Such occasional action is characteristical of the passion in a high degree; and for that reason, when happily invented, has a wonderful good effect in poetry:

[41] See chap. 2. part 7.

[42] See passions explained as agreeable or disagreeable, chap. 2. part 2.

[43] Locke.

[44] Rough and blunt manners, are allied to anger by an internal feeling, as well as by external expressions resembling in a faint degree those of anger. Therefore such manners are easily heightened into anger; and savages for that reason are prone to anger. Thus rough and blunt manners are unhappy in two respects. They are first readily converted into anger: and next, the change being imperceptible, because of the similitude of external signs, the person against whom the anger is directed is not put upon his guard. It is for these reasons a great object in society, to correct such manners, and to bring on a habit of sweetness and calmness. This temper has two opposite good effects. First it is not easily provoked to wrath. Next the interval being great betwixt it and real anger, a person of this temper who receives an affront, has many changes to go through before his anger be inflamed. These changes have each of them their external sign, and the offending party is put upon his guard, to retire, or to endeavour a reconciliation.

[45] See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 5.

[46] See chap. 2. part 7.

[47] See Appendix.

[48] In the Æneid, the hero is made to describe himself in the following words: Sum pius Æneas, fama super æthera notus. Virgil could never have been guilty of an impropriety so gross, had he assumed the personage of his hero, instead of uttering the sentiments of a spectator. Nor would Xenophon have made the following speech for Cyrus the younger, to his Grecian auxiliaries, whom he was leading against his brother Artaxerxes. “I have chosen you, O Greeks! my auxiliaries, not to enlarge my army, for I have Barbarians without number; but because you surpass all the Barbarians in valour and military discipline.” This sentiment is Xenophon’s; for surely Cyrus did not reckon his countrymen Barbarians.

[49] See chap. 2. part 1. sect 6.

[50] This criticism reaches the French dramatic writers in general, with very few exceptions. Their tragedies are mostly, if not totally, descriptive. Corneille led the way; and later writers following his track, have accustomed the French ear to a style, formal, pompous, declamatory, which suits not with any passion. Hence it becomes an easy task to burlesk a French tragedy: it is not more difficult than to burlesk a stiff solemn fop. The facility of the operation has in Paris introduced a singular amusement, which is, to burlesk the more successful tragedies in a sort of farce, called a parody. La Motte, who himself appears to have been sorely galled by some of these burlesk compositions, acknowledges, that no more is necessary to give them a run, than barely to vary the dramatis personæ, and in place of kings and heroes, queens and princesses, to substitute tinkers and tailors, milkmaids and seamstresses. The declamatory style, so different from the genuine expression of passion, passes in some measure unobserved, when great personages are the speakers. But in the mouths of the vulgar, the impropriety, with regard to the speaker as well as to the passion represented, is so remarkable as to become ridiculous. A tragedy, where every passion is made to speak in its natural tone, is not liable to be thus burlesked. The same passion is by all men expressed nearly in the same manner: and therefore the genuine expressions of passion cannot be ridiculous in the mouth of any man, provided only he be of such a character as to be susceptible of the passion.

It is a well-known fact, that to an English ear the French actors appear to pronounce with too great rapidity; a complaint much insisted on by Cibber in particular, who had frequently heard the famous Baron upon the French stage. This may in some measure be attributed to our want of facility in the French language; as foreigners generally imagine, that every language is pronounced too quick by natives. But that it is not the sole cause, will be probable from a fact directly opposite, that the French are not a little disgusted with the languidness, as they term it, of the English pronunciation. I conjecture this difference of taste may be derived from what is observed above. The pronunciation of the genuine language of passion is necessarily directed by the nature of the passion, and by the slowness or celerity of its progress. In particular, plaintive passions, which are the most frequent in tragedy, having a slow motion, dictate a slow pronunciation. In declamation again, which is not the genuine language of any passion, the speaker warms gradually; and as he warms, he naturally accelerates his pronunciation. But as the French have formed their tone of pronunciation upon Corneille’s declamatory tragedies, and the English upon the more natural language of Shakespear, it is not surprising that custom should produce such difference of taste in the two nations.

[51] See chap. 2. part 3.

[52] See chap. 2. part 7.

[53] Titus Livius, l. 29. §17.

[54] Canto 20. stan. 124. 125. & 126.

[55] Page 316.

[56] Act 1. sc. 1.

[57] Act 2. sc. 1.

[58] Beginning of act 2.

[59] Act 3. sc. 3. at the close.

[60] A certain author says humourously, “Les mots mêmes d’amour et d’amant sont bannis de l’intime société des deux sexes, et relegués avec ceux de chaine et de flame dans les Romans qu’on ne lit plus.” And where nature is once banished, a fair field is open to every fantastic imitation, even the most extravagant.

[61] Act 4. sc. 5.

[62] Act 4. sc. 7.

[63] This observation is finely illustrated by a story which Herodotus records, book 3. Cambyses when he conquered Egypt, took Psammenitus the King prisoner: and to try his constancy, ordered his daughter to be dressed in the habit of a slave, and to be employ’d in bringing water from the river. His son also was led to execution with a halter about his neck. The Egyptians vented their sorrow in tears and lamentations. Psammenitus only, with a down-cast eye, remained silent. Afterward meeting one of his companions, a man advanced in years, who being plundered of all, was begging alms, he wept bitterly, calling him by his name. Cambyses was struck with wonder, and sent a messenger with the following question, “Psammenitus, thy master Cambyses is desirous to know, why, after thou hadst seen thy daughter so ignominiously treated, and thy son led to execution, without exclamation or weeping, thou shouldst be so highly concerned for a poor man no way related to thee?” Psammenitus returned the following answer: “Son of Cyrus, the calamities of my family are too great to leave me the power of weeping: but the misfortunes of a companion, reduced in his old age to want of bread, is a fit subject for lamentation.”

[64] See chap. 2. part 3.

[65] Chap. 16.

[66] See this explained more particularly in chap. 8.

[67] Of this take the following specimen:

[68] The critics seem not perfectly to comprehend the genius of Shakespear. His plays are defective in the mechanical part, which is less the work of genius than of experience; and is not otherwise brought to perfection than by diligently observing the errors of former compositions. Shakespear excels all the ancients and moderns, in knowledge of human nature, and in unfolding even the most obscure and refined emotions. This is a rare faculty, and of the greatest importance in a dramatic author; and it is this faculty which makes him surpass all other writers in the comic as well as tragic vein.

[69] Soliloquies accounted for chap. 15.

[70] Act 2. sc. 2.

[71] Act 1. sc. 1.

[72] Act 1. sc. 2.

[73] Act 1. sc. 2.

[74] See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 4.

[75] Here the German a is understood.

[76] That the Italian tongue is rather too smooth, seems to appear from considering, that in versification vowels are frequently suppressed in order to produce a rougher and bolder tone.

[77] See Swift’s proposal for correcting the English tongue, in a letter to the Earl of Oxford.

[78] See the reason, chap. 8.

[79] De structura perfectæ orationis, l. 2.

[80] Scot’s Christian life.

[81] Elements of criticism, vol. 1. p. 43.

[82] Chap. 2. part 4.

[83] Ibid.

[84] See Gerard’s French grammar, discourse 12.

[85] An argument against abolishing Christianity, Swift.

[86] Letter concerning enthusiasm. Shaftesbury.

[87] See chap. 8.

[88] Treatise of the sublime, cap. 16.

[89] Taking advantage of a declension to separate an adjective from its substantive, as is commonly practised in Latin, though it detract not from perspicuity, is certainly less neat than the English method of juxtaposition. Contiguity is more expressive of an intimate relation, than resemblance merely of the final syllables. Latin indeed has evidently the advantage when the adjective and substantive happen to be connected by contiguity as well as by the resemblance of the final syllables.

[90] See chap. 1.

[91] Reflections sur la poesie Françoise.

[92] See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 4.

[93] Poet. L. 3. l. 365.-454.

[94] See chap. 2. part 4.

[95] De oratore, l. 3. cap. 58.

[96] De structura orationis, sect. 2.

[97] From this passage, however, we discover the etymology of the Latin term for musical expression. Every one being sensible that there is no music in a continued sound; the first inquiries were probably carried no farther, than that to produce a musical expression, a number of sounds is necessary; and musical expression obtained the name of numerus, before it was clearly ascertained, that variety is necessary as well as number.

[98] Music, properly so called, is analysed into melody and harmony. A succession of sounds so as to be agreeable to the ear, constitutes melody. Harmony is the pleasure that arises from co-existing sounds. Verse therefore can only reach melody, and not harmony.

[99] After some attention given to this subject, and weighing deliberately every circumstance, I have been forc’d to rest upon the foregoing conclusion, That the Dactyle and Spondee are no other than artificial measures invented for trying the accuracy of composition. Repeated experiments convince me, that though the sense should be altogether neglected, an Hexameter line read by Dactyles and Spondees, will not be melodious. And the composition of an Hexameter line demonstrates this to be true, without necessity of an experiment. It will appear afterward, that in an Hexameter line, there must always be a capital pause at the end of the fifth long syllable, reckoning, as above, two short for one long. And when we measure this line by Dactyles and Spondees, the pause now mentioned divides always a Dactyle or a Spondee: it never falls in at the end of either of these feet. Hence it is evident, that if a line be pronounced, as it is scanned, by Dactyles and Spondees, the pause must be utterly neglected; which consequently must destroy the melody, because a pause is essential to the melody of an Hexameter verse. If, on the other hand, the melody be preserved by making this pause, the pronouncing by Dactyles and Spondees must be abandoned.

What has led grammarians into the use of Dactyles and Spondees, seems not beyond the reach of conjecture. To produce melody, the latter part of a Hexameter line consisting of a Dactyle and a Spondee, must be read according to these feet: in this part of the line, the Dactyle and Spondee are distinctly expressed in the pronunciation. This discovery, joined with another, that the foregoing part of the verse could be measured by the same feet, has led grammarians to adopt these artificial measures, and perhaps rashly to conclude, that the pronunciation is directed by these feet as well as the composition. The Dactyle and Spondee at the close, serve indeed the double purpose of regulating the pronunciation as well as the composition: but in the foregoing part of the line, they regulate the composition only, not the pronunciation.

If we must have feet in verse to regulate the pronunciation, and consequently the melody, these feet must be determined by the pauses. The whole syllables interjected betwixt two pauses ought to be deemed one musical foot; because, to preserve the melody, they must all be pronounced together, without any stop. And therefore, whatever number there are of pauses in a Hexameter line, the parts into which it is divided by these pauses, make just so many musical feet.

Connection obliges me here to anticipate, by observing, that the same doctrine is applicable to English heroic verse. Considering its composition merely, it is of two kinds. One is composed of five Iambi; and one of a Trochæus followed by four Iambi. But these feet afford no rule for pronouncing. The musical feet are obviously those parts of the line that are interjected betwixt two pauses. To bring out the melody, these feet must be expressed in the pronunciation; or, which comes to the same, the pronunciation must be directed by the pauses, without regard to the Iambus or Trochæus.

[100] See chap. 2. part 1. sect. 4.

[101] Poet. cap. 25.

[102] See chap. 9.

[103] Vossius, de poematum cantu, p. 26. says, “Nihil æque gravitati orationis officit, quam in sono ludere syllabarum.”

[104] Spectator, Nº 285.

[105] Preface to his Œdipus, and in his discourse upon tragedy, prefixed to the tragedy of Brutus.