ration dramatic, and have an air of truth, by making things appear as passing in our sight. But such repetitions are unpardonable in a didactic poem. In one of Hesiod's poems of that kind, a long passage occurs twice in the same chapter. A concise comprehensive style is a great ornament in narration; and superfluity of unnecessary words, no less than of circumstances, a great nuisance. A judicious selection of the striking circumstances, clothed in a nervous style, is delightful. In this style. Tacitus excels all writers ancient and modern. Instances are numberless take the following specimen : Crebra hinc prælia, et sæpius in modum latrochinii: per saltus, per paludes; ut cuique fors aut virtus: temere, proviso, ob iram, ob prædam, jussa, et aliquando ignaris ducibus.-Annal. lib. 12. § 39. After Tacitus, Ossian in that respect justly merits the place of distinction. One cannot go wrong for examples in any part of the book; and at the first opening the following instance meets the eye : Nathos clothed his limbs in shining steel. The stride of the chief is lovely: the joy of his eye terrible. The wind rustles in his hair. Darthula is silent at his side her look is fixed on the chief. Striving to hide the rising sigh, two tears swell in her eye. I add one other instance, which, beside the property under consideration, raises delicately our most tender sympathy. Son of Fingal! dost thou not behold the darkness of Crothar's hall of shells? My soul was not dark at the feast, when my people lived. I rejoiced in the pre sence of strangers, when my son shone in the hall. But Ossian, he is a beam that is departed, and left no streak of light behind. He is fallen, son of Fingal, in the battles of his father.Rothmar, the chief of grassy Tromlo, heard that my eyes had failed; he heard that my arms were fixed in the hall, and the pride of his soul arose, He came towards Croma: my people fell before him. I took my arms in the hall, but what could sightless Crothar do? My steps were unequal; my grief was great. I wished for the days that were past: days! wherein I fought, and won in the field of blood. My son returned from the chase; the fair. haired Fovar-gormo. He had not lifted his sword in battle, for his arm was young. But the soul of the youth was great; the fire of valour burnt in his eye. He saw the disordered steps of his father, and his sigh arose. King of Croma, he said, is it because thou hast no son? is it for the weakness of Fovar-gormo's arm that thy sighs arise? I begin, my father, to feel the strength of my arm; I have drawn the sword of my youth, and I have bent the bow. Let me meet this Rothmar, with the youths of Croma; let me meet him, O my father, for [ feel my burning soul. And thou shalt meet him, I said, son of the sightless Crothar! But let others advance before thee, that I may hear the tread of thy feet at thy return; for my eyes behold thee not, fair-haired Fovar-gormo!- -He went: he met the foe, he fell. The foe advances towards Croma. He who slew my son is near, with all his pointed spears. If a concise or nervous style be a beauty, tautology must be a blemish and yet writers, fettered by verse, are not sufficiently careful to avoid this slovenly practice; they may be pitied, but they cannot be justified. Take for a specimen the following instances, from the best poet, for versification at least, that England has to boast of. High on his helm celestial lightnings play, Th' unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies, In sable streams soft trickling waters shed.-Ibid. ix. 19. Fear on their cheek, and horror in their eye.-Ibid. xv. 4. Blaz'd with long rays, and gleam'd athwart the field.—Ibid. xix. 402. Or beat the pinions of the western gale, All were in vain,loid. xix. 460. The humid sweat from ev'ry pore descends.-Ibid. xxiii. 829. Redundant epithets, such as humid in the last citation, are by Quintilian disallowed to orators; but indulged to poets,* because his favourite poets, in a few instances, are reduced to such epithets for the sake of versification: for instance, Prata canis albicant pruinis of Horace, and liquidos fontes of Virgil. As an apology for such careless expressions, it may well suffice, that Pope, in submitting to be a translator, acts below his genius. In a translation, it is hard to require the same spirit of accuracy, that is cheerfully bestowed on an original work. And to support the reputation of that author, I shall give some instances from Virgil and Horace, more faulty by redundancy than any of those above mentioned: Sæpe etiam immensum cœlo venit agmen aquarum, Et pluvià ingenti sata laeta, boumque labores Postquam altum tenuere rates, nec jam amplius ullae Apparent terrae; cœlum undique et undique pontus: Tum mihi coeruleus supra caput astitit imber, Noctem hyememque ferens: et inhorruit unda tenebris.-neid, lib. iii. 192. -Hinc tibi copia Manabit ad plenum benigno Ruris honorum opulenta cornu.-Horat. Carm. lib. 1. ode 17. Collo trahentes languido.-Horat. epod. ii. 63. Here I can luckily apply Horace's rule against himself: Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures.-Satir. lib. 1. sat. x. 9. I close this chapter with a curious inquiry. An object, however ugly to the sight, is far from being so when represented by colours or by words. What is the cause of this difference? With respect to painting, the cause is obvious: a good picture, whatever the subject be, is agreeable by the pleasure we take in imitation; and *L. 7. chap. 6. sect. 27 this pleasure, overbalancing the disagreeableness of the subject makes the picture upon the whole agreeable. With respect to the description of an ugly object, the cause follows. To connect individuals in the social state, no particular contributes more than language, by the power it possesses of an expeditious communication of thought, and a lively representation of transactions. But nature hath not been satisfied to recommend language by its utility merely; independent of utility, it is made susceptible of many beauties, which are directly felt, without any intervening reflection.* And this unfolds the mystery; for the pleasure of language is so great, as in a lively description to overbalance the disagreeablenessof the image raised by it. This, however, is no encouragement to choose a disagreeable subject; for the pleasure is incomparably greater where the subject and the description are both of them agreeable. The following description is upon the whole agreeable, though the subject described is in itself dismal : Nine times the space that measures day and night Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulf, Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes At once as far as angels ken he views The dismal situation waste and wild: A dungeon horrible, on all sides round As one great furnace flam'd; yet from those flames Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed With ever-burning sulphur unconsum'd! Such place eternal Justice hath prepar'd For those rebellious.-Paradise Lost, book 1. l. 50. An unmanly depression of spirits in time of danger is not a agreeable sight; and yet a fine description or representation of it will be relished: K. Richard. What must the King do now ? must he submit? *See chap. 18. + See chap. 2. part 4: May hourly trample on their sovereign's head; For on my heart they tread now, whilst I live; And, buried once, why not upon my head ?-Richard II. act 3. sc. 6. Objects that strike terror in a spectator have in poetry and painting a fine effect. The picture, by raising a slight emotion of terror, agitates the mind; and in that condition every beauty makes a deep impression. May not contrast heighten the pleasure, by opposing our present security to the danger of encountering the object represented? -The other shape, If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, And shook a dreadful dart.-Paradise Lost, book 2. l, 666. -Now storming fury rose, And clamour such as heard in heaven till now And inextinguishable rage: all heaven Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth Had to her centre shook.-Paridise Lost, book 6. l. 207. To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotty and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine: But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood.-Hamlet, act 1. sc. 8. Gratiano. Poor Desdemona! I'm glad thy father's dead: Thy match was mortal to him; and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain. Did he live now, This sight would make him do a desperate turn : Objects of horror must be excepted from the foregoing theory; for no description, however lively, is sufficient to overbalance the disgust raised even by the idea of such objects. Every thing hor rible ought therefore to be avoided in a description. Nor is this a severe law the poet will avoid such scenes for his own sake, as well as for that of his reader; and to vary his descriptions, nature affords plenty of objects that disgust us in some degree without raising horror. I am obliged, therefore, to condemn the picture of Sin in the second book of Paradise Lost, though a masterly per 388 NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION. formance: the original would be a horrid spectacle: and the horre is not much softened in the copy: -Pensive here I sat Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb, Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on. Iago's character in the tragedy of Othello is insufferably monstrous and Satanical: not even Shakspeare's masterly hand can make the picture agreeable. Though the objects introduced in the following scenes are not altogether so horrible as Sin is in Milton's description; yet with every person of delicacy, disgust will be the prevailing emotion: -Strophades Graïo stant nomine dictae Insulae Ionio in magno: quas dira Celaeno, Huc ubi delati portus intravimus: ecce Laeta boum passim campis armenta videmus, |