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My bleeding bosom sickens at the sound.-Odyssey, i. 439.

Ah miser,

Quantâ laboras in Charybdi !

Digne puer meliore flamma.

Que saga, quis te solvere Thessalis
Magus venenis, quis poterit deus?
Vix illigatum te triformi

Pegassus expediet Chimera.-Horat. Carm. lib. 1. ode 27.

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

While his keen falchion drinks the warriors' lives.-Iliad, xi. 211.

A falchion drinking a warrior's 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 analyzed, or reduced to plain language, are least of all tolerable:

Votis incendimus aras.-Eneid, iii. 279.

-Onerantque canistris

Dona laboratae Cereris.-Eneid, viii. 180.

Vulcan to the Cyclopes:

Arma acri facienda viro: nunc viribus usus,
Nunc manibus rapides, omni nunc arte magistra

-Eneid, viii. 441.

Precipitate moras.

-Huic gladio, perque aerea suta

Per tunicam squalentem auro, latus haurit apertum.-Eneid, x. 313.

Semotique prius, tarda necessitas

Lethi, corripuit gradum.-Horat. Carm. lib. 1. ode 3.

Scribêris Vario fortis, et Hostium

Victor, Maeonii carminis alite.-Horat. Carm, lib. 1. ode 6.

Else shall our fates be number'd with the dead.-Iliad, v. 294.

Commutual death the fate of war confounds.-Iliad, viii. 85. and xi. 117.

Speaking of Proteus:

Instant he wears, elusive of the rape,

The mimic force of every savage shape.-Odyssey, iv. 563.

Rolling convulsive on the floor, is seen

The piteous object of a prostrate Queen.-Ibid. iv. 952.
The mingling tempest waves its gloom.-Autumn, 337.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race.-Ibid. 640.

A sober calm fleeces unbounded ether.-Ibid. 738.

The distant water-fall swells in the breeze.- Winter, 738.

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 applied in a figurative sense:

Hear me, O Neptune! thou whose arms are hurl'd

From shore to shore, and gird the solid world.-Odyssey, ix. 617.

Neptune is here introduced personally, and not figuratively for the

ocean the description, therefore, which is only applicable to the latter, 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 our only guide. 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,

The fringed curtains of thine eyes advance,

And say what thou seest yond.

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.

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 ornaments of any kind.

CHAP. XXI.

NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION.

HORACE, and many critics after him, exhort writers to choose a subject adapted to their genius. Such observations would multiply rules of criticism without end; and at any rate belong not to the present work, the object of which is human nature in general, and what is common to the species. But though the choice of a subject comes not under such a plan, the manner of execution comes under it; because the manner of execution is subjected to general rules, derived from principles common to the species. These rules, as they concern the things expressed as well as the language or expression, require a division of this chapter into two parts; first of thoughts, and next of words. I pretend not to justify this division as entirely accurate for, in discoursing of thoughts, it is difficult to abstract altoge ther from the words; and still more difficult, in discoursing of words, to abstract altogether from the thought.

The first rule is, That in history the reflections ought to be chaste and solid; for while the mind is intent upon truth, it is little disposed to the operations of the imagination. Strada's Belgic History is full of poetical images, which, discording with the subject, are unpleasant; 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 agree

able 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 in form: it is stuffed with frigid and unmeaning reflections; and its poetical flashes, even laying aside their impropriety, are mere tinsel.

Second, Vida,* 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. Homer introduces not a single simile in the first book of the Iliad, nor in the first book of the Odyssey. On the other hand, Shakspeare begins one of his plays with a sentiment too bold for the most heated imagination:

Bedford. Hung be the heav'ns with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have consented unto Henry's death!

Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!

England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.-First Part, Henry VI.

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 person ought to have no less influence than either of the former, That a man, who, upon his first appearance, strains to make a figure, is too ostentatious to be relished. Hence the first sentences of a work ought 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 proportioned in some degree to the celerity of motion: though in appearance 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 appearance; and raises an image far more lively than by adhering scrupulously to truth:

Hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla,
Agmen agens equitum et florentes aere catervas,
Bellatrix: non illa colo calathisve Minervae
Fœmineas assueta manus; sed praelia virgo
Dura pati, cursuque pedum praevertere ventos.
Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret
Gramina; nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas:

Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti,

Ferret iter; celeres nec tingeret aequore plantas.-Eneid, vli. 803.

Poet. lib. 2. 1. 30.

NARRATION AND

This example is copied by the author of Telemachus:

Les Brutiens sont legeres à la course comme les cerfs, et comme les daims. On croiroit que l'herbe même la plus tendre n'est point foulée sous leurs pieds; à peine laissent-ils dans le sable quelques traces de leurs pas.-Liv. 10.

Again:

Déjà il avoit abattu Eusilas si léger à la course, qu'à peine il imprimoit la trace de ses pas dans le sable, et qui devançoit dans son pays les plus rapides flots de l'Eurotas et de l'Alphée.—Liv. 20.

Fourth, In narration as well as in description, 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 ;* which have the effect to transport the reader as by magic into the very place of the important action, and to convert him as it were into a spectator, beholding every thing that passes. The narrative in an epic poem ought to rival a picture 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:

Qualis populea mærens Philomela sub umbrâ

Amissos queritur fœtus, quos durus arator

Observans nido implumes detraxit.-Georg. lib. 4. l. 511.

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

Again:

Hic viridem Æneas frondenti ex illice metam
Constituit, signum nautis.-Æneid, v. 129.

Horace, addressing Fortune :

Te pauper ambit sollicita prece

Ruris colonus: te dominam aequoris,

Quicumque Bithynâ lacessit

Carpathium pelagus carinâ.-Carm. lib. 1. ode 35.

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 caedes.-Carm. lib. 3. 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 Henry V. act 4. sc. 4.

Chap. ii. part 1. sect. 7.

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 a 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 2. sc. 5. bribe

In the following passage, the action, with all its material circumstances, is represented so much to the life, that it would scarce 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. 1.

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 climb'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 Cæsar, act 1. sc. 1.

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

Far before the rest, the son of fair as the first beams of the sun. brow is half beneath his helmet. and his spear glitters as he moves. Temora. Fingal.

Ossian comes; bright in the smiles of youth,
His long hair waves on his back: his dark
The sword hangs loose on the hero's side:
I fled from his terrible eye, King of high

The Henriade of Voltaire errs greatly against the foregoing rule: every incident is touched in a summary 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 circum

* Merry Wives of Windsor, act 3. sc. 5.

Lib. 4. 1, 632.

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