Lear. Rumble thy bellyful, fpit fire, spout rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, ye elementa, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you children;
You owe me no fubfcription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I ftand, your brave;
A poor, infirm, weak, and defpis'd old man!
But yet I call you fervile minifters,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul!

Aa 3. fc. 2. King Richard, full of indignation againft his favourite horfe for carrying Bolingbroke, is led into the conviction of his being rational :

Groom. O, how it yearn'd my heart, when I beheld In London ftreets, that coronation-day, When Bolingbroke rode on Roan Barbary, That horse that thou fo often haft beftrid, That horfe that I fo carefully have dreffed.

K. Rich. Rode he on Barbary? tell me, gentle friend, How went he under him?

Groom. So proudly as he had difdain'd the ground. K. Rich. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back! That jade had eat bread from my royal hand. This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. Would he not ftumble? would he not fall down, (Since pride must have a fall), and break the neck Of that proud man that did ufurp his back?

Richard II. aa 5. fc. 11.. Hamlet, fwelled with indignation at his mother's fecond marriage, was ftrongly inclined to leffen the time: of her widowhood, the shortness of the time being a violent circumstance againft her; and he deludes himfelf by degrees into the opinion of an interval fhorter than the real one:

Hamlet.

-That it fhould come to this! But two months dead! nay, not fo much; not two— So excellent a king, that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother, That he permitted not the wind of heav'n Vifit her face too roughly. Heav'n and earth! Muft I remember-why, fhe would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: yet, within a monthLet me not think-Frailty, thy name is Woman! A little month or ere those shoes were old, With which fhe follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears why fhe, ev'n fhe(O heav'n! a beaft, that wants discourse of reason, Wou'd have mourn'd longer) married with mine uncle, My father's brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules. Within a month!Ere yet the falt of moft unrighteous tears Had left the flufhing in her galled eyes, She married-Oh, moft wicked speed! to poft With fuch dexterity to incestuous sheets! It is not, nor it cannot, come to good, But break my heart, for I muft hold my tongue. Aa 1. fc. 3. The power of paffion to falfify the computation of time is remarkable in this inftance; because time, which hath an accurate measure, is lefs obfequious to our de.

fires and wishes, than objects which have no precife Paffion, ftandard of lefs or more.

Good news are greedily fwallowed upon very flender evidence; our wishes magnify the probability of the event, as well as the veracity of the relater; and we believe as certain what at beft is doubtful:

Quel, che l' huom vede, amor li fa invisible
E l'invifibil fa veder amore.

Quelto creduto fu, che 'l mifer fuole
Dar facile credenza a' quel, che vuole.

Orland. Furiof. cant. 1. f. 56.

For the fame reafon, bad news gain alfo credit upon the flighteft evidence: fear, if once alarmed, has the fame effect with hope, to magnify every circumftance that tends to conviction. Shakespeare, who fhows more knowledge of human nature than any of our phi. lofophers, hath in his Cymbeline reprefented this bias of the mind; for he makes the perfon who alone was affected with the bad news, yield to evidence that did not convince any of his companions. And Othello is convinced of his wife's infidelity from circumftances too flight to move any perfon less interested.

If the news interell us in fo low a degree as to give place to reafon, the effect will not be altogether the fame: judging of the probability or improbability of the ftory, the mind fettles in a rational conviction cither that it is true or not. But even in that cafe, the mind is not allowed to reft in that degree of convic tion which is produced by rational evidence: if the news be in any degree favourable, our belief is raised by hope to an improper height; and if unfavourable, by fear.

This obfervation holds equally with refpect to fu ture events: if a future event be either much wished or dreaded, the mind never fails to augment the probability beyond truth..

That eafinefs of belief, with refpect to wonders and prodigies, even the most abfurd and ridiculous, is a ftrange phenomenon; because nothing can be more evident than the following propofition, That the more fingular any event is, the more evidence is required to produce belief: a familiar event daily occurring, being in itself extremely probable, finds ready credit, and therefore is vouched by the flighteft evidence; but to overcome the improbability of a strange and rare event, contrary to the course of nature, the very ftrongest evidence is required. It is certain, however, that won ders and prodigies are fwallowed by the vulgar, upon evidence that would not be fufficient to ascertain the moft familiar occurrence. It has been reckoned diffi, cult to explain that irregular bias of mind; but we are now made acquainted with the influence of paffion upon opinion and belief; a ftory of ghofts or fairies, told with an air of gravity and truth, raifeth an emotion of wonder, and perhaps of dread; and thefe emotions im pofing on a weak mind, imprefs upon it a thorough conviction contrary to reafon.

Opinion and belief are influenced by propenfity as well as by paffion. An innate propenfity is all we have to convince us that the operations of nature are uniform: infiuenced by that propenfity, we often rafhly think, that good or bad weather will never have an end; and in natural philofophy, writers, influenced by the fame propenâity, fretch commonly their analogical

reason

when fuccefsful, is full of joy expreffed by words and Passion. geftures.

Paffion reafonings beyond juft bounds. See METAPHYSICS, n°133, 134. Opinion and belief are influenced by affection as well as by propenfity. The noted ftory of a fine lady - and a curate viewing the moon through a telescope is a pleasant illuftration: "I perceive (fays the lady) two fhadows inclining to each other; they are certain ly two happy lovers:" "Not at all (replies the curate), they are two fteeples of a cathedrat."

Language of PASSION. Among the particulars that compofe the focial part of our nature, a propensity to communicate our opinions, our emotions, and every thing that affects us, is remarkable. Bad fortune and injuftice affect us greatly; and of these we are fo prone to complain, that if we have no friend nor acquaintance to take part in our fufferings, we fometimes utter our complaints aloud, even where there are none to li

ften.

But this propenfity operates not in every ftate of mind. A man immoderately grieved, feeks to afflict himself, rejecting all confolation: immoderate grief accordingly is mute; complaining is ftruggling for confolation.

It is the wretch's comfort ftill to have
Some small referve of near and inward wo,
Some unfufpected hoard of inward grief,
Which they unfeen may wail, and weep, and mourn,
And glutton-like alone devour.

Mourning Bride, a& 1. fc. 1.

When grief fubfides, it then, and no fooner, finds a tongue: we complain, because complaining is an effort to difburden the mind of its diftrefs. This obfer. vation is finely illuftrated by a ftory which Herodotus records, b. 3. Cambyfes, when he conquered Egypt, made Pfammeticus the king prifoner; and for trying his conftancy, ordered his daughter to be dreffed in the habit of a flave, and to be employed in bringing water from the river; his fon alfo was led to execution with a halter about his neck. The Egyptians vented their forrow in tears and lamentations: Pfammeticus only, with a downcaft eye, remained filent. Afterward meeting one of his companions, a man advanced in years, who, being plundered of all, was begging alms, he wept bitterly, calling him by his name. Cambyfes, ftruck with wonder, demanded an answer to the following queftion: "Pfammeticus, thy mafter Cambyfes is defirous to know, why, after thou hadft seen thy daughter fo ignominiously treated, and thy fon led to execution, without exclaiming or weeping, thou fhouldft be fo highly concerned for a poor man, noway related to thee?" Pfammeticus returned the following answer: "Son of Cyrus, the calamities of my family are too great to leave me the power of weeping; but the mif. fortunes of a companion, reduced in his old age to want of bread, is a fit fubject for lamentation." Surprise and terror are filent paffions, for a different reafon: they agitate the mind fo violently, as for a time to fufpend the exercife of its faculties, and among others the faculty of speech.

Love and revenge, when immoderate, are not more loquacious than immoderate grief. But when these paffions become moderate, they fet the tongue free, and, like moderate grief, become loquacious. Moderate love, when unfuccefsful, is vented in complaints;

As no paffion hath any long uninterrupted exiftence, nor beats always with an equal pulfe, the language fuggefted by paffion is not only unequal but frequently interrupted: and even during an uninterrupted fit of paffion, we only exprefs in words the more capital fentiments. In familiar conversation, one who vents every fingle thought, is juftly branded with the character of loquacity; becaufe fenfible people exprefs no thoughts but what make fome figure in the fame manner, we are only difpofed to express the ftrongest impulfes of paffion, especially when it returns with impetuofity after interruption.

It is elsewhere obferved that the fentiments ought * See the to be tuned to the paffion, and the language to both, article Sen Elevated fentiments require elevated language: tender timents. fentiments ought to be clothed in words that are foft and flowing: when the mind is depreffed with any paffion, the fentiments must be expreffed in words that are humble, not low. Words being intimately connected with the ideas they reprefent, the greatest harmony is required between them: to exprefs, for example, an humble fentiment in high-founding words, is difagreeable by a difcordant mixture of feelings; and the difcord is not lefs when elevated fentiments are dreffed in low words:

Verfibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult.
Indignatur tem privatis ac prope focco
Dignis carminibus narrari cœna Thyeftæ.
Horat. Ars poet. 1. 89.

This, however, excludes not figurative expreffion, which,
within moderate bounds, communicates to the fentiment
an agreeable elevation. We are fenfible of an effect dis
rectly oppofite, where figurative expreffion is indulged
beyond a juft measure: the oppofition between the ex-
preffion and the fentiment makes the difcord
greater than it is in reality.

appear

At the fame time, figures are not equally the language of every paffion: pleasant emotions, which elevate or fwell the mind, vent themselves in ftrong epithets and figurative expreffion; but humbling and difpiriting paffions affect to speak plain :

Et tragicus plerumque dolet fermone pedeftri.
Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et fefquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor fpe&tantis tetigiffe querela.

Horat. Ars poet. 95.

Figurative expreffion, being the work of an enlivened imagination, cannot be the language of anguish or diftrefs. Otway, fenfible of this, has painted a scene of diftrefs in colours finely adapted to the fubject: there is fcarce a figure in it, except a fhort and natural fimile with which the fpeech is introduced. Belvidera, talking to her father of her husband: Think you faw what paft at our laft parting; Think you beheld him like a raging lion, Pacing the earth, and tearing up his fteps, Fate in his eyes, and roaring with the pain Of burning fury; think you faw his one hand Fix'd on my throat, while the extended other Grafp'd a keen threat'ning dagger: oh, 'twas thus We laft embrac'd, when, trembling with revenge,

B 2

He

Paffion. He dragg'd me to the ground, and at my bofom
Prefented horrid death; cry'd out, My friends!
Where are my friends? fwore, wept, rag'd, threaten'd,
For he yet lov'd, and that dear love preferv'd me [lov'd;
To this last trial of a father's pity.

I fear not death, but cannot bear a thought
That that dear hand should do th' unfriendly office.
If I was ever then your care, now hear me ;
Fly to the fenate, fave the promis'd lives
Of his dear friends, ere mine be made the facrifice.
Venice Preferv'd, að 5.

fo in a peculiar manner: language is intended by na- Paffion, ture for fociety; and a man when alone, though he always clothes his thoughts in words, feldom gives his words utterance, unless when prompted by fome ftrong emotion; and even then by starts and intervals only. Shakespeare's foliloquies may be justly established as a model; for it is not easy to conceive any model more perfect. Of his many incomparable foliloquies, the two following only fhall be quoted, being different in their manner.

To preferve the forefaid refemblance between words and their meaning, the fentiments of active and hurrying paflions ought to be dressed in words where fylJables prevail that are pronounced fhort or faft; for thefe make an imprefiion of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that reft upon their objects, are beft expreffed by words where fyllables prevail that are pronounced long or flow. A perfon affected with melancholy, has a languid and flow train of perceptions. The expreffion beft fuited to that state of mind, is where words, not only of long, but of many fyllables, abound in the compofition; and for that reafon, nothing can be finer than the following paffage:

In thofe deep folitudes, and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-penfive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-muling Melancholy reigns.

POPE, Eloifa to Abelard.

To preferve the fame refemblance, another circumftance is requifite, that the language, like the emotion, be rough or fmooth, broken or uniform. Calm and fweet emotions are beft expreffed by words that glide foftly: furprife, fear, and other turbulent paffions, require an expreffion both rough and broken.

It cannot have escaped any diligent inquirer into nature, that, in the hurry of paffion, one generally expreffes that thing firft which is moft at heart; which is beautifully done in the following paffage :

Me, me; adfum qui feci: in me convertite ferrum, O Rutuli, mea fraus omnis. Eneid. ix. 427. Paffion has often the effect of redoubling words, the better to make them exprefs the ftrong conception of the mind. This is finely imitated in the following examples.

-Thou fun, faid I, fair light!
And thou enlighten'd earth, fo fresh and gay!
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains!
And ye that live, and move, fair creatures! tell,
Tell, if ye faw, how came I thus, how here.-
Paradife Loft, b. viii. 273.

Both have finn'd! but thou
Against God only; I, 'gainft God and thee:
And to the place of judgment will return;
There with my cries importune Heav'n, that all
The fentence, from thy head remov'd, may light
On me, foke caufe to thee of all this wo;
Me! me! caly juft object of his ire.

Paradife Loft, b. x. 930.

In general, the language of violent paffion ought to be broken and interrupted. Soliloquies ought to be

Hamlet. Oh, that this too, too folid flesh, would
Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew!
[melt,
Or that the Everlafting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the ufes of this world!
Fie'on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to feed: things rank and grofs in nature
Poffefs it merely.That it fhould come to this!
But two months dead! nay, not fo much; not two-
So excellent a king, that was, to this,
Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother,
That he permitted not the winds of heav'n
Vifit her face too roughly. Heav'n and earth!
Muft I remember-why, the would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: yet, within a month-
Let me not think - Frailty, thy name is Woman!
A little month! or ere thofe fhoes were old,
With which the follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears

why the, ev'n fhe

(O heav'n! a beaft, that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer-) married with mine uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month!
Ere yet the falt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married-Oh, moft wicked fpeed, to poft
With fuch dexterity to inceftuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I muft hold my tongue.
Hamlet, a 1. fc. 3.

"Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vifion? is this a dream? "do I fleep? Mr Ford, awake; awake, Mr Ford; "there's a hole made in your beft coat, Mr Ford! "this 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and "buck baskets? Well, I will proclaim my felf what "I am; I will now take the leacher; he is at my "houfe; he cannot 'fcape me; 'tis impoffible he "fhould; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box. But left the devil that guides him fhould aid him, I will fearch impoffible places; tho' what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be "what I would not, fhall not make me tame."

Paffion. pleasure. The first scene of Iphigenia in Tauris difcovers that princefs, in a foliloquy, gravely reporting to herself her own history. There is the fame impropriety in the first scene of Alceftes, and in the other introductions of Euripides, almoft without exception. Nothing can be more ridiculous; it puts one in mind of a molt curious device in Gothic paintings, that of making every figure explain itself by a written label iffuing from its mouth. The defeription which a parafite, in the Eunuch of Terence (act 2. fc. 2.) gives of himself, makes a fprightly foliloquy: but it is not confiftent with the rules of propriety; for no man, in his ordinary state of mind and upon a familiar fubject, ever thinks of talking aloud to himfelf. The fame objection lies againft a foliloquy in the Adelphi of the fame author (at 1. fc. 1.) The foliloquy which makes the third fcene act third of his Heicyra, is infufferable; for there Pamphilus, foberly and circumftantially, relates to himself an adventure which had happened to him a moment before.

Corneille is unhappy in his foliloquies: Take for a fpecimen the firft fcene of Cinna.

Racine is extremely faulty in the fame refpect. His foliloquies are regular harangues, a chain completed in every link, without interruption or interval: that of Antiochus in Berenice (uct 1. f. 2.) refembles a regular pleading, where the parties pro and con difplay their arguments at full length. The following foliloquies are equally faulty: Bajazet, all 3. fc. 7.; Mithridate, ad 3. f. 4.; and at 4. Sc. 5.; Iphigenia, aa 4. fc. 8.

Soliloquies upon lively or interefting subjects, but without any turbulence of paffion, may be carried on in a continued chain of thought. If, for example, the nature and fprightlinefs of the fubje&t prompt a man to fpeak his thoughts in the form of a dialogue, the expreffion must be carried on without break or interrup tion, as in a dialogue between two perfons; which juftifies Falstaff's foliloquy upon honour:

"What need I be fo forward with Death, that "calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, Honour pricks "me on. But how if Honour prick me off, when I "come on? how then? Can honcur fet a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? "No. Honour hath no fill in furgery then? No. "What is Honour? A word.-What is that word ho"nour? Air; a trim reckoning.-Who hath it? He "that dy'd a Wednesday. Both he feel it? No. "Doth he hear it? No. Is it infenfible then? Yea, "to the dead. But will it not live with the living? "No. Why? Detraction will not fuffer it. There"fore I'll none of it; honour is a mere fcutcheon: "and fo ends my catechifin."

Firft Part, IIenry IV. að. 5. fc. 2. And even without dialogue a continued difcourfe may be justified, where a man reafons in a foliloquy upon an important fubject; for if in fuch a cafe it be at all excutable to think alcud, it is neceffary that the reafoning be carried on in a chain; which juftifies that admirable foliloquy in Hamlet upon life and immortality, being a ferene meditation upon the moft interefting of all fubjects. And the fame confideration will juftify the foliloquy that introduces the 5th at of Addifon's Cato.

Language ought not to be elevated above the tone Pafion. of the fentiment.

Zara. Swift as occafion, I

Myfelf will fly; and earlier than the morn
Wake thee to freedom. Now 'tis late; and yet
Some news few minutes past arriv'd, which feem'd
To fhake the temper of the king-Who knows
What racking cares difcafe a monarch's bed?
Or love, that late at night ftill lights his lamp,
And frikes his rays through dufk, and folded lids,
Forbidding reft, may ftretch his eyes awake,
And force their balls abroad at this dead hour.
I'll try.
Mourning Bride, act 3. fc. 4.

The language here is undoubtedly too pompous and
laboured for defcribing fo fimple a circuittance as ab
fence of fleep. In the following paffage, the tone of
the language, warm and plaintive, is well fuited to the
paffion, which is recent grief: but every one will be
fenfible, that in the last couplet fave one the tone is
changed, and the mind fuddenly elevated to be let
as fuddenly in the last couplet:

Il détefte à jamais fa coupable victoire,
Et fe fuiant lui-même, au milieu des deferts,
Il renonce à la cour, aux humains, à la gloire;
Là, foit que le foleil rendit le jour au monde,
Il va cacher fa peine au bout de l'univers;
Soit qu'il finit fa courfe au vafie feine de l'onde,
Sa voix faifoit redire aux echos attendris,
Le nom, le tritte nom, de fon malheureux fils.

Henriade, chant. viii. 229.

Light and airy language is unfuitable to a fevere paffion.

Imagery and figurative expreflion are difcordant, ia the highest degree, with the agony of a mother, who is deprived of two hopeful fons by a brutal murder. Therefore the following paffage is undoubtedly in a bad takte:

Queen. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender babes! My unblown flowers, new appearing fweets! If yet your gentle fouls fly in the air, And be not fixt in doom perpetual, Hover about me with your airy wings, And hear your mother's lamentation.

Again:

Richard III. at 4. fc. 4.