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ses have been devised by the ingenious, in order to solve the difficulty. These I shall first briefly ex• amine, and then lay before the reader what appears to me to be the true solution. Of all that have entered into the subject, those who seem most to merit our regard, are two French critics, and one of our own country.

SECTION I.

The different solutions hitherto given by philoso phers, examined.

PART I.-The first hypothesis.

*

ABBE du Bos begins his excellent reflections on poetry and painting, with that very question which is the subject of this chapter, and in answer to it supports at some length a theory, the substance of which I shall endeavour to comprise in a few words. Few things, according to him, are more disagreeable to the mind, than that listlessness into which it falls, when it has nothing to occupy t, or to awake the passions. In order to get rid of this most painful situation, it seeks with avidity every amusement and pursuit; business, gaming, news, shows, public executions, romances; in short, what

* Reflexions critiques sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, Sect. i. ii. iii.

ever will rouse the passions, and take off the mind's attention from itself. It matters not what the emotion be, only the stronger it is, so much the better. And for this reason, those passions which, considered in themselves, are the most afflicting and disagreeable, are preferable to the pleasant, inasmuch as they most effectually relieve the soul from that oppressive languor which preys upon it in a state of inactivity. They afford it ample occupation, and by giving play to its latent movements and springs of action, convey a pleasure which more than counterbalances the pain.

I admit, with Mr Hume *, that there is some weight in these observations, which may sufficiently account for the pleasure taken in gaming, hunting, and several other diversions and sports. But they are not quite satisfactory, as they do not assign a sufficient reason why poets, painters, and orators, exercise themselves more in actuating the painful passions, than in exciting the pleasant. These, one would think, ought in every respect to have the advantage, because, at the same time that they preserve the mind from a state of inaction, they convey a feeling that is allowed to be agreeable. And though it were granted, that passions of the former kind are stronger than those of the latter (which doth not hold invariably, there being perhaps more

Essay on Tragedy.

examples of persons who have been killed with joy, than of those who have died of grief), strength alone will not account for the preference. It by no means holds here, that the stronger the emotion is, so much the fitter for this purpose. On the contrary, if you exceed but ever so little a certain measure, instead of that sympathetic delightful sorrow, which makes affliction itself wear a lovely aspect, and engages the mind to hug it, not only with tenderness, but with transport, you only excite horror and aversion. "It is certain," says the author last quoted, 'very justly", "that the same object of "distress which pleases in a tragedy, were it really "set before us, would give the most unfeigned uneasiness, though it be then the most effectual cure "of languor and indolence." And it is more than barely possible, even in the representations of the tragedian, or in the descriptions of the orator or the poet, to exceed that measure. I acknowledge, indeed, that this measure or degree is not the same to every temper. Some are much sooner shocked with mournful representations than others. Our mental, like our bodily appetites and capacities, are exceedingly various. It is, however, the business of both the speaker and the writer, to accommodate himself to what may be styled the common standard; for there is a common standard in what

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Essay on Tragedy.

regards the faculties of the mind, as well as in what concerns the powers of the body. Now if there be any quality in the afflictive passions, besides their strength, that renders them peculiarly adapted to rescue the mind from that torpid, but corrosive rest which is considered as the greatest of evils, that quality ought to have been pointed out for till then, the phenomenon under examination is not accounted for. The most that can be concluded from the Abbé's premises, is the utility of exciting passion of some kind or other, but nothing that can evince the superior. fitness of the distressful affec tions.

PART II.-The second hypothesis.

The next hypothesis is Fontenelle's *. Not having the original at hand at present, I shall give Mr Hume's translation of the passage, in his Essay on Tragedy above quoted.

"Pleasure

"and pain, which are two sentiments so differ. "ent in themselves, differ not so much in their cause. From the instance of tickling it ap

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pears, that the movement of pleasure pushed "a little too far, becomes pain; and that the movement of pain, a little moderated, becomes pleasure. Hence it proceeds, that there is

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* Reflexions sur la Poetique, Sect. xxxvi.

"such a thing as a sorrow, soft and agreeable. "It is a pain weakened and diminished. The "heart likes naturally to be moved and affected.

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Melancholy objects suit it, and even disastrous and sorrowful, provided they are softened by "some circumstance. It is certain that, on the theatre, the representation has almost the ef"fect of reality; but yet it has not altogether "that effect. However we may be hurried away by the spectacle, whatever dominion the "senses and imagination may usurp over the reason, there still lurks at the bottom, a cer"tain idea of falsehood in the whole of what we

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see. This idea, though weak and disguised, "suffices to diminish the pain which we suffer "from the misfortunes of those whom we love, "and to reduce that affliction to such a pitch "as converts it into a pleasure. We weep for "the misfortunes of a hero to whom we are at

tached. In the same instant we comfort ourselves by reflecting, that it is nothing but a "fiction and it is precisely that mixture of "sentiments, which composes an agreeable sor

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row, and tears, that delight us. But as that affliction which is caused by exterior and sen"sible objects, is stronger than the consolation which arises from an internal reflection, they "are the effects and symptoms of sorrow, which "ought to prevail in the composition."

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