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CHAP.

I.

Of the Su

Pathetic.

4. This is unquestionably true: but is not the triumph as much of curiosity, as of symblime and pathy; and would not the sudden appearance of any very renowned foreign chief or potentate, in the adjoining square, equally empty the benches of the theatre? I apprehend that it would; and cannot but suspect that even a bottle conjuror, a flying witch, or any other miraculous phænomenon of the kind, being announced with sufficient confidence to obtain belief, would have the same effect: wherefore, to make the comparison between the exhibitions on the scaffold, and those on the stage, fairly, we must suppose them both to be equally frequent and common; in which case, I cannot but hope, for the honour of human nature, that scenes of mimic distress would be more attractive, than those of real suffering. Happily, in this country, the execution of a state criminal of high rank, or indeed of any rank, has of late years been a rare event; and one, which very few persons now living have ever witnessed. At the time too, when the above statement was made, such a spectacle would have been almost equally novel in any part of Europe but we have since had abundant and lamentable proof, in a neighbouring country, of how much its interest declines with its becoming common: for during the latter days of the tyranny of Robespierre, the executions of

1

pretended state criminals of every rank, age,
sex, and condition were scarcely noticed, or
attended by any but a hired rabble; and that
atrocious and despicable monster is said to have
procured the condemnation and execution of the
nine young
and beautiful girls, who presented
a chaplet to the Prussian commander at Verdun,
merely to rouse the wearied attention of the
populace by a more affecting exhibition*.

5. Let us suppose that, during this period of juridical slaughter and methodical murder, all the theatres of Paris had been shut; and all dramatic exhibitions suppressed for an indefinite time; and that, at the latter end of it, when men had supped full with horrors, and grown familiar with scenes of real distress, such a theatrical spectacle, as that above described, had been announced for one night only then, I think that even the scaffold of Citizen Egalité himself would have been forsaken for the mimic sufferings of Andromaque or Zayre.

6. Much must, however, in all cases, depend upon the different degrees of sensibility of different individuals. The feelings of some men are so tremblingly alive, that almost every degree of mimic distress interests them; and those of others so immoveably torpid, that scarcely any real sufferings, but their own, can

* Memoires d'un detenu.

CHAP.

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Of the Sublime and Pathetic.

CHAP.

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affect them. Large masses of people taken Of the Su- collectively are, indeed, naturally composed of blime and nearly the same materials: but, nevertheless, Pathetic. their natural feelings are greatly altered by

education, government, and habit of life. The Romans, a nation of soldiers, hardened by the trade of war, delighted in seeing trained slaves. contend for their lives with each other, and with wild beasts but when the Asiatic monarch, who, by living among them, had acquired their taste, treated his subjects with such a spectacle, they, at first, turned away from it with expressions of horror and affright; but, nevertheless, soon became reconciled to such diversions; as we also should, if they were once introduced amongst us: for the passions, as well as the senses, easily become vitiated; and acquire a relish for higher stimulants.

Cock

fighting is only a humbler species of the same diversion, as hunting is only a humbler species of war; and a taste for the one would soon rise into a taste for the other.

7. Not that I mean to infer that men ever feel delight in seeing pain and agony, either suffered or inflicted: for, in these cases, it is not with the sufferings, but with the exertions of the combatants, that they sympathize:with the exhibitions of courage, dexterity, vi

*Liv. Hist. lib. xli. c. 20.

CHAP.

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blime and Pathetic.

gour, and address, which shone forth, in these combats of life and death, more conspicuously of the Suand energetically than they would have done, had the object of contention been less important. As far as the sufferings of the wounded and dying combatants were felt by the spectators, their feelings were painful; and, in the enervated minds of the Asiatics, these painful sympathies overpowered the others; while, in the obdurate breasts of the Romans, they scarcely made any impression at all. They only heard with indignation and contempt the shrieks of agony or groans of anguish; but exulted in every triumph of skilful valour, and glowed with every display of unshaken fortitude. The one sympathized only with the weaknesses,' and the other only with the energies of human nature displayed in these dreadful trials; and consequently the sympathies of the one produced only humiliation and disgust; and those of the others only exultation and delight.

8. The Romans had a mime or dramatic dance, composed by Nævius, in which the principal character, named Laureolus, after displaying his courage and address in various enormities, was crucified upon the stage; and, as this horrible catastrophé afforded the actor opportunities of displaying great professional skill in exhibiting the pangs and agonies of so cruel a death, supported by the desperate

CHAP.

Of the Su

firmness of an obdurate criminal, it seems to

I. have been a favourite entertainment among blime and that ferocious and sanguinary people *. One Pathetic. of their tyrants, however, probably Domitian,

conceiving, like the elegant author above cited, that what was so interesting and impressive in the imitation, must be so much more so in the reality, exhibited a real criminal actually nailed to a cross, in the last act; and, to show that there was no trick or counterfeit in it, had him, in that state, torn to pieces by wild beasts †. What was the effect of this high seasoned specimen of the Sublime and Pathetic, we are not informed; but we may reasonably infer that it was not such as the grand ballet-master expected; or we should have heard of its being repeated; since many of his successors had a similar taste, and were equally free from all compunctious visitings of nature, that might obstruct the gratification of it. The populace, however, though they had no dislike to see inen worried and torn to pieces by wild beasts, preferred seeing it in equal combat, where the man and the beast were fairly opposed to each other; and created an interest, not-only by their dangers and sufferings, but by the feats of strength, courage, and dexterity, which they displayed in avoiding or inflicting them. The

Sueton. in Calig. c. lvii.-Juvenal. Sat, viii. y. 187. † Martial, Epigr. lib. i. epigr. vii.

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