Poetry
, and still produces, among the most ignorant and barbarous, a thousand imaginary Distresses and Poetical Complaints. It makes a Footman talk like
Oroondates
, and converts a brutal Rustick into a gentle Swain. The most ordinary Plebeian or Mechanick in Love, bleeds and pines away with a certain Elegance and Tenderness of Sentiments which this Passion naturally inspires.
These inward Languishings of a Mind infected with this Softness, have given birth to a Phrase which is made use of by all the melting Tribe, from the highest to the lowest, I mean that of
dying for Love
.
Romances, which owe their very Being to this Passion, are full of these metaphorical Deaths. Heroes and Heroines, Knights, Squires, and Damsels, are all of them in a dying Condition. There is the same kind of Mortality in our Modern Tragedies, where every one gasps, faints, bleeds and dies. Many of the Poets, to describe the Execution which is done by this Passion, represent the Fair Sex as Basilisks that destroy with their Eyes;
I think Mr.