In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid:
And ere thou bid goodnight, to quiet their grief,
Tell them the lamentable fall of me,
And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why! the senseless brands will sympathise
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And in compassion weep the fire out.
Richard II. act 5. sc. 1.
One must read this passage very seriously to avoid laughing. The following passage is quite extravagant: the different parts of the human body are too intimately connected with self, to be personified by the power of any passion; and after converting such a part into a sensible being, it is still worse to make it be conceived as rising in rebellion against self.
Cleopatra. Haste, bare my arm, and rouze the serpent’s fury.
Coward flesh————
Would’st thou conspire with Cæsar, to betray me,
As thou wert none of mine? I’ll force thee to’t.
Dryden, All for Love, act 5.
Next comes descriptive personification; upon which I must observe in general, that it ought to be cautiously used. A personage in a tragedy, agitated by a strong passion, deals in strong sentiments; and the reader, catching fire by sympathy, relishes the boldest personifications. But a writer, even in the most lively description, ought to take a lower flight, and content himself with such easy personifications as agree with the tone of mind inspired by the description. In plain narrative, again, the mind, serious and sedate, rejects personification altogether. Strada, in his history of the Belgic wars, has the following passage, which, by a strained elevation above the tone of the subject, deviates into burlesk. “Vix descenderat a prætoria navi Cæsar; cum fœda illico exorta in portu tempestas, classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit: quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem, Cæsarisque fortunam[21].” Neither do I approve, in Shakespear, the speech of King John, gravely exhorting the citizens of Angiers to a surrender; though a tragic writer has much greater latitude than a historian. Take the following specimen of this speech.
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath;
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron-indignation ’gainst your walls.
Act 2. sc. 3.
Secondly, If extraordinary marks of respect put upon a person of the lowest rank be ridiculous, not less so is the personification of a mean object. This rule chiefly regards descriptive personification: for an object can hardly be mean that is the cause of a violent passion; in that circumstance, at least, it must be an object of importance. With respect to this point, it would be in vain to set limits to personification: taste is the only rule. A poet of superior genius hath more than others the command of this figure; because he hath more than others the power of inflaming the mind. Homer appears not extravagant in animating his darts and arrows: nor Thomson in animating the seasons, the winds, the rains, the dews. He even ventures to animate the diamond, and doth it with propriety.
—— That polish’d bright
And all its native lustre let abroad,
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one’s breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
But there are things familiar and base, to which personification cannot descend. In a composed state of mind, to animate a lump of matter even in the most rapid flight of fancy, degenerates into burlesk.
How now? What noise? that spirit’s possess’d with haste,
That wounds th’ unresisting postern with these strokes.
Shakespear, Measure for Measure, act 4. sc. 6.
The following little better: