Congreve shows a fine taste in the sentiments of the Mourning Bride. But in the following passage the picture is too artful to be suggested by severe grief:
Almeria. O no! Time gives increase to my afflictions.
The circling hours, that gather all the woes
Which are diffus’d through the revolving year,
Come heavy-laden with th’ oppressing weight
To me; with me, successively, they leave
The sighs, the tears, the groans, the restless cares,
And all the damps of grief, that did retard their flight,
They shake their downy wings, and scatter all
The dire collected dews on my poor head;
Then fly with joy and swiftness from me.
Act 1. sc. 1.
In the same play, Almeria seeing a dead body, which she took to be Alphonso’s, expresses sentiments strained and artificial, which nature suggests not to any person upon such an occasion:
Had they, or hearts, or eyes, that did this deed?
Could eyes endure to guide such cruel hands?
Are not my eyes guilty alike with theirs,
That thus can gaze, and yet not turn to stone?
—I do not weep! The springs of tears are dry’d,
And of a sudden I am calm, as if
All things were well; and yet my husband’s murder’d!
Yes, yes, I know to mourn! I’ll sluice this heart,
The source of wo, and let the torrent loose.
Act 5. sc. 11.
Lady Trueman. How could you be so cruel to defer giving me that joy which you knew I must receive from your presence? You have robb’d my life of some hours of happiness that ought to have been in it.
Drummer, act 5.
Pope’s Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expresses delicately the most tender concern and sorrow for the deplorable fate of a person of worth. A poem of this kind, deeply serious and pathetic, rejects all fiction with disdain. We therefore can give no quarter to the following passage, which is eminently discordant with the subject. It is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease. It would be a still more severe censure, if it should be ascribed to imitation, copying indiscreetly what has been said by others.
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow’d dirge be muttered o’er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.
Fifth. Fanciful or sinical sentiments, sentiments that degenerate into point or conceit, however they may amuse in an idle hour, can never be the offspring of any serious or important passion. In the Ierusalem of Tasso, Tancred, after a single combat, spent with fatigue and loss of blood, falls into a swoon. In this situation, understood to be dead, he is discovered by Erminia, who was in love with him to distraction. A more happy situation cannot be imagined, to raise grief in an instant to its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most abominably to antithesis and conceit, even of the lowest kind.
E in lui versò d’inessicabil vena
Lacrime, e voce di sospiri mista.
In che misero punto hor qui me mena
Fortuna? a che veduta amara e trista?
Dopo gran tempo i’ ti ritrovo à pena
Tancredi, e ti riveggio, e non son vista,
Vista non son da te, benche presente
E trovando ti perdo eternamente.
Cant. 19. st. 105.