3. It should be considered, that ALL the uneasy Passions, in the very time that we are distressed by them, nay, though the occasions be instant and real, have a secret complacency mixed with them. It seems as if Providence, in compassion to human feeling, had, together with our sorrows, infused a kind of balm into the mind, to temper and qualify, as it were, these bitter ingredients. But,
4. Besides this general provision, the nature of the peculiar passions, excited by tragedy, is such as, in a more eminent degree, must produce pleasure. For what are these, but indignation at prosperous vice, or the commiseration of suffering virtue? And the agitation of these passions is even, in real life, accompanied with a certain delight, which was, no doubt, intended to quicken us in the exercise of those social offices. Still further.
5. To the pleasure directly springing from these passions we may add another which naturally, but imperceptibly almost steals in upon us from reflexion. We are conscious to our own humanity on these tender occasions. We understand and feel that it is right for us to be affected by the distresses of others. Our pain is softened by a secret exultation in the rectitude of these sympathies. ’Tis true, this reflex act of the mind is prevented, or suspended at least for a time, when the sufferings are real, and concern those for whom we are most interested. But the fictions of the stage do not press upon us so closely.
Putting all these things together, the conclusion is, That though the impressions of the theatre are, in their immediate effect, painful to us, yet they must, on the whole, afford an extreme pleasure, and that in proportion to the degree of the first painful impression. For not only our attention is rouzed, but our moral instincts are gratified; we reflect with joy that they are so, and we reflect too that the sorrows which call them forth and give this exercise to our humanity, are but fictitious. We are occupied, in a word, by a great event; we are melted into tears by a distressful one; the heart is relieved by this burst of sorrow; is cheared and animated by the finest moral feelings; exults in the consciousness of its own sensibility; and finds, in conclusion, that the whole is but an illusion.
The sum is, that we are not so properly delighted by the Passions, as through them. They give occasion to the most pleasing movements and gratulations. The art of the poet indeed consists in giving pain. But nature and reflexion fly to our relief; and though they do not convert our pain into joy (for that methinks would be little less than a new kind of Transubstantiation) they have an equivalent effect in producing an exquisite joy out of our preceding sorrows.
119. Aut famam sequere, &c.] The connexion lies thus: Language must agree with character; character with fame, or at least with itself.
123. Sit medea ferox invictaque.] Horace took this instance from Euripides, where the unconquered fierceness of this character is preserved in that due mediocrity, which nature and just writing demand. The poet, in giving her character, is content to say of her,
Βαρεῖα γὰρ φρὴν οὐδ’ ἀνέξεται κακῶς
Πάσχους’