Master has laid down; yet, without confining my self wholly to his Thoughts or Words: and to adapt this Essay the more to the Purpose for which I intend it, instead of the Examples he has inserted in his Discourse, out of the ancient Tragedies, I shall make use of parallel Passages out of the most celebrated of our own.
The Design of Art is to assist Action as much as possible in the Representation of Nature; for the Appearance of Reality is that which moves us in all Representations, and these have always the greater Force, the nearer they approach to Nature, and the less they shew of Imitation.
Nature herself has assigned to every Emotion of the Soul, its peculiar Cast of the Countenance, Tone of Voice, and Manner of Gesture; and the whole Person, all the Features of the Face and Tones of the Voice, answer, like Strings upon musical Instruments, to the Impressions made on them by the Mind. Thus the Sounds of the Voice, according to the various Touches which raise them, form themselves into an Acute or Grave, Quick or Slow, Loud or Soft Tone. These too may be subdivided into various kinds of Tones, as the gentle, the rough, the contracted, the diffuse, the continued, the intermitted, the broken, abrupt, winding, softned, or elevated. Every one of these may be employed with Art and Judgment; and all supply the Actor, as Colours do the Painter, with an expressive Variety.
Anger exerts its peculiar Voice in an acute, raised, and hurrying sound. The passionate Character of
King Lear
, as it is admirably drawn by
Shakespear
, abounds with the strongest Instances of this kind.
—Death! Confusion!
Fiery!—what Quality?—why Gloster! Gloster!
I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his Wife.
Are they informed of this? My Breath and Blood!
Fiery? the fiery Duke?—&c.
Sorrow and Complaint demand a Voice quite different, flexible, slow, interrupted, and modulated in a mournful Tone; as in that pathetical Soliloquy of Cardinal