CHAP. I. only excite odious and disgusting feelings; such as every person would be disposed to blime and shun, rather than to seek. Of the Su Pathetic. 22. In like manner, it is not with the agonies of a man writhing in the pangs of death, that we sympathize, on beholding the celebrated group of Laocoon and his sons; for such sympathies can only be painful and disgusting; but it is with the energy and fortitude of mind, which those agonies call into action and display for, though every feature and every muscle is convulsed, and every nerve contracted, yet the breast is expanded and the throat compressed to show that he suffers in silence. I therefore still maintain, in spite of the blind and indiscriminate admiration, which pedantry always shows for every thing, which bears the stamp of high authority, that Virgil has debased the character, and robbed it of all its sublimity and grandeur of expression, by making Laocoon roar like a bull*; and, I think, that I may safely affirm that, if any writer of tragedy were to make any one personage of his drama roar out in the same manner, on being mortally wounded, the whole audience would burst into laughter; how pathetic soever the incidents might be, that "Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit; accompanied it. Homer has been so sensible of this, that in the vast number and variety of deaths, which he has described, he has never made a single Greek cry out on receiving a mortal wound. Even in the female character, no such display of weakness would be endured on the stage; nor could all the gentle innocence and amiable simplicity of Desdemona, have preserved the interest of the last scene, if, instead of supplicating for mercy, with the collected calmness of a strong, as well as with the tranquil meekness of a delicate mind, she had screamed out Murder! or fallen into hysterics. 23. The means, however, which sculpture and painting have of expressing the energies and affections of the mind are so much more limited, than those of poetry, that their comparative influence upon the passions is very small; few persons looking for any thing more in a picture or a statue, than mere exactitude of imitation, or exertions of technical skill; and when more is attempted, its effect never approaches to that of poetry; the artist being not only confined to one point of time, but to the mere exterior expressions of feature and gesture; while the poet unlocks the mind, and pours into his verses all its inward sentiments, energies, and affections. CHAP. I. Of the Sublime and Pathetic. СНАР. 24. When the actor joins his talents to those of the poet, the powers of painting, sculpture, blime and and poetry are all united and improved; wherePathetic. fore a fine drama well acted may justly be con Of the Su sidered as one of the highest of all intellectual gratifications. It is asserted, indeed, by a great critic, that familiar comedy only is more powerful in the theatre than in the page; but that imperial tragedy is less so*; to which I can by no means agree; for though it be true, as this author observes, that no voice or gesture can add dignity or force to the soliloquy of Cato, they may add both to that of Lady Macbeth. The philosophical reflections of the stoic, being free from all passion, admit of no enthusiastic expression in the actor, and are therefore unfit for the stage: but the tumultuous effusions of aspiring hopes and atrocious desires, which agitate the bosom of a daring and ambitious princess, on her first conceiving designs of murder and usurpation, display the most interesting variety of energetic passions; and, consequently, admit of a higher degree of embellishment from good acting than can be employed in comedy of any kind. 25. As most of the crimes and enormities of mankind arise from the violence of the passions, moralists have endeavoured to win over pride Johnson's Preface to Shakspeare. to the side of virtue, by representing all passion as weakness; and considering the energy of reason as the only real energy of the human mind: but, nevertheless, the powers of mental feeling are as much powers of the mind, as those of thinking; and the different degrees of energy, in both, equally mark the different degrees of perfection, or imperfection, in different individuals. Those philosophers, who would exalt the one by suppressing the other, attempt to form a model of human perfection from a design of their own; which may, indeed, excite our admiration, as a consummate work of art; but will never awaken our sympathies, as a vigorous effusion of nature. The Cato of Addison is the image of a perfect man drawn after one of these artificial models; but the Achilles of Homer is the image of a perfect man, such as came from the hands of the Creator, with every faculty of mind and body formed upon the same scale; so that every act that he does, and every-sentence that he utters, is marked by the same bold and unrestrained energy of character. The one is like a yew in a garden, which has been pruned and shorn into a determinate and regular shape, that it may fit its place, and not overshadow or injure the more tender plants, that grow near it: but the other is like an oak in the forest, which spreads its branches widely and irregularly, in every direc CHAP. I. Of the Su blime and Pathetic. CHAP. I. Of the Sublime and tion, over the smaller trees that surround it; and while it protects some, blights others. 26. No character can be interesting or imPathetic. pressive in poetry, that acts strictly according to reason for reason excites no sympathies, nor awakens any affections; and its effect is always rather to chill than to inflame. It is possible for the motives of passion in poetical fiction to be too reasonable and too just; so as to give an appearance of sedate and considerate moral sentiment to that, which can only fulfil its purposes by appearing to be the spontaneous effusion of glowing and enthusiastic feeling. Had Agamemnon degraded Achilles from his rank, or expelled him from his dominions, instead of merely taking away his mistress, his anger would have been more just, but less interesting: as, in such a case, any man would have felt anger; which would consequently have appeared only a common passion, arising from no peculiar nicety of sensibility, dignity of pride, or exaltation of honour. The circumstances which excite the jealousy of Othello have been thought by some, for whose judgment I have the highest respect, to be too weak: but, nevertheless, had the poet made them much stronger, his infuriate jealousy would have become reasonable suspicion; and, consequently, have lost all its interest, and all its energy. It has often struck me that the |