the fecret internal workings of any PASSION. What does he make known of thefe mysterious powers, but what he feels? And whence comes the impreffion, his description makes on others, but from its agreement to their feelings [i]? To inftance in the expreffion of grief on the murder of children, relations, friends, &c. a paffion, which poetry hath ever taken a fond pleasure to paint in all its diftreffes, and which our common nature obliges all readers to enter into with an exquifite fenfibility. What are the tender touches which most affect us on these occafions? Are they not fuch as thefe: complaints of untimely death: of unnatural cru

~

1

[i] So the great philofopher, yàp wefì ivías ouμβαίνει πάθαν ψυχὰς ἰσχυρῶς, τᾶτο ἐν πάσαις ὑπάρχει τῷ δὲ ἦτον διαφέρει, καὶ τῷ μᾶλλον. ΠΟΛΙΤ. Θ. Whence our Hobbes feems to have taken his aphorifm, which he makes the corner-ftone of his philofophy, "That "for the fimilitude of the thoughts and paffions of

one man to the thoughts and paffions of another, "whofoever looketh into himself, and confidereth what he doth, when he does think, opine, reafon,

hope, fear, &c. and upon what grounds; he fhall "thereby read and know, what are the thoughts "and paffions of all other men, upon the like occafions." LEVIATHAN, Introd. p. 2. fol. London. 1651.

elty

elty in the murderer: imprecations of vengeance: weariness and contempt of life: expoftulations with heaven: fond recollections of the virtues and good qualities of the deceafed; and of the different expectations, raised by them? These were the dictates of nature to the father of poets, when he had to draw the diftreffes of Priam's family, forrowing for the death of Hector. Yet nothing, it feems, but fervile imitation could fupply his fons, the Greek and Roman poets in after-times, with fuch pathetic lamenta tions. It may be fo. rifhed by his ftreams.

They were all nou

But what fhall we

fay of one, who affuredly never drank at his fountains?

-My heart will burst, and if I fpeakAnd I will fpeak, that fo my heart may burst. Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals, How fweet a plant have ye untimely cropt! You have no children; butchers, if you had, The thought of them would have flirr'd up remorse.

The reader, alfo, may confult that wonderful fcene, in which MACDUFF laments the murder of his wife and children. [MACBETH.]

2. It

2. It is not different with the MANNERS; I mean those sentiments, which mark and diftinguish characters. These result immediately from the fuggestions of nature; which is fo uniform in her workings, and offers herself so openly to common inspec tion, that nothing but a perverse and studied affectation can frequently hinder the exacteft fimilarity of representation in different writers. This is fo true, that, from knowing the general character, intended to be kept up, we can guess, beforehand, how a perfon will act, or what fentiments he will entertain, on any occafion. And the critic even ventures to prescribe, by the authority of rule, the particular properties and attributes, required to fuftain it. And no wonder. Every man, as he can make himself the subject of all paffions, fo he becomes, in a manner, the aggregate of all characters. Nature may have inclined him moft powerfully to one fet of manners; just as one paffion is, always, predominant in him. But he finds in himself the feeds of all others. This consciousness, as before, furnishes the characteristic fentiments, which conftitute the manners. And it were full as

5

ftrange

.

strange for two poets, who had taken in hand fuch a character as that of Achilles, to differ materially in their expreffion of it; as for two painters, drawing from the fame object, to avoid a ftriking conformity in the defign and attitude of their pictures.

Those who are fond of hunting after par allels, might, I doubt not, with great ease, confront almost every fentiment, which, in the Greek tragedians, is made expreffive of particular characters, with fimilar paffages in other poets; more especially (for I must often refer to his authority) in the various living pourtraitures of Shakespeare. Yet he who, after taking this learned pains, should chufe to urge fuch parallels, when found, for proofs of his imitation of the ancients, would only run the hazard of being reputed, by men of fenfe, as poor a critic of human nature, as of his author.

I fay this with confidence, because I say it on a great authority. "Tout eft dit," fays an exquifite writer on the fubject of man"et l'on vient trop tard depuis plus "de fept mille ans qu'il y a des hommes, et "qui penfent. Sur ce qui concerne les MOEURS, le plus beau et le meilleur eft

ners;

" enlevé ;

"enlevé; l'on ne fait que glaner après les "anciens, et les habiles d'entre les mo"dernes [k]."

Thus far, indeed, the cafe is almost too plain to be difputed. Strong affections, and conftitutional characters, will be allowed to act powerfully and steadily upon us. The violence and rapidity of their movements render all disguise impoffible. And we find ourselves determined, by a kind of neceffity, to think and speak, in given circumstances, after much the fame manner. But what fhall we fay of our cooler reafonings; the fentiments, which the mind, at pleasure, revolves, and applies, as it fees fit, to various, occafions? "Fancy and humour, it will be "thought, have fo great an influence in di"recting these operations of our mental fa"culties, as to make it altogether incre"dible, that any remarkable coincidence of "fentiment, in 'different perfons, should re"fult from them."

To think of reducing the thoughts of man, which are "more than the fands, and wider than the ocean," into claffes, were,

[k] M. DE LA BRUYERE, tom. i. p. 91. Amst. 1701.

perhaps,