To preserve this resemblance betwixt words and their meaning, the sentiments of active and hurrying passions ought to be dressed in words where syllables prevail that are pronounced short or fast; for these make an impression of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that rest upon their objects, are best expressed by words where syllables prevail that are pronounced long or slow. A person affected with melancholy has a languid and slow train of perceptions. The expression best suited to this state of mind, is where words not only of long but of many syllables abound in the composition. For that reason, nothing can be finer than the following passage:
In those deep solitudes, and awful cells,
Where heav’nly-pensive Contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing Melancholy reigns.
Pope, Eloisa to Abelard.
To preserve the same resemblance, another circumstance is requisite, that the language conformable to the emotion, be rough or smooth, broken or uniform. Calm and sweet emotions are best expressed by words that glide softly; surprise, fear, and other turbulent passions, require an expression both rough and broken.
It cannot have escaped any diligent inquirer into nature, that in the hurry of passion, one generally expresses that thing first which is most at heart. This is beautifully done in the following passage.
Me, me; adsum qui feci: in me convertite ferrum,
O Rutuli, mea fraus omnis.
Æneid ix. 427.
Passion has often the effect of redoubling words, the better to make them express the strong conception of the mind. This is finely represented in the following examples:
———— Thou sun, said I, fair light!
And thou enlighten’d earth, so fresh and gay!
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains!
And ye that live, and move, fair creatures! tell
Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here.—
Paradise Lost, b. viii. 273.
———— Both have sinn’d! but thou
Against God only; I, ’gainst God and thee:
And to the place of judgement will return.
There with my cries importune Heav’n; that all
The sentence, from thy head remov’d, may light
On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe;
Me! Me! only just object of his ire.
Paradise Lost, book x. 930.
Shakespear is superior to all other writers in delineating passion. It is difficult to say in what part he most excels, whether in moulding every passion to peculiarity of character, in discovering the sentiments that proceed from various tones of passion, or in expressing properly every different sentiment. He imposes not upon his reader, general declamation and the false coin of unmeaning words, which the bulk of writers deal in. His sentiments are adjusted, with the greatest propriety, to the peculiar character and circumstances of the speaker; and the propriety is not less perfect betwixt his sentiments and his diction. That this is no exaggeration, will be evident to every one of taste, upon comparing Shakespear with other writers, in similar passages. If upon any occasion he fall below himself, it is in those scenes where passion enters not. By endeavouring in this case to raise his dialogue above the style of ordinary conversation, he sometimes deviates into intricate thought and obscure expression[67]. Sometimes, to throw his language out of the familiar, he employs rhyme. But may it not in some measure excuse Shakespear, I shall not say his works, that he had no pattern, in his own or in any living language, of dialogue fitted for the theatre? At the same time, it ought not to escape observation, that the stream clears in its progress, and that in his later plays he has attained the purity and perfection of dialogue; an observation that, with greater certainty than tradition, will direct us to arrange his plays in the order of time. This ought to be considered by those who magnify every blemish that is discovered in the finest genius for the drama ever the world enjoy’d. They ought also for their own sake to consider, that it is easier to discover his blemishes, which lie generally at the surface, than his beauties, of which none can have a thorough relish but those who dive deep into human nature. One thing must be evident to the meanest capacity, that where-ever passion is to be display’d, Nature shows itself strong in him, and is conspicuous by the most delicate propriety of sentiment and expression[68].
I return to my subject from a digression I cannot repent of. That perfect harmony which ought to subsist among all the constituent parts of a dialogue, is a beauty, not less rare than conspicuous. As to expression in particular, were I to give instances, where, in one or other of the respects above mentioned, it corresponds not precisely to the characters, passions, and sentiments, I might from different authors collect volumes. Following therefore the method laid down in the chapter of sentiments, I shall confine my citations to the grosser errors, which every writer ought to avoid.