The reader, also, may consult that wonderful scene, in which Macduff laments the murder of his wife and children. [Macbeth.]
2. It is not different with the MANNERS; I mean those sentiments, which mark and distinguish characters. These result immediately from the suggestions of nature; which is so uniform in her workings, and offers herself so openly to common inspection, that nothing but a perverse and studied affectation can frequently hinder the exactest similarity of representation in different writers. This is so true, that, from knowing the general character, intended to be kept up, we can guess, beforehand, how a person will act, or what sentiments he will entertain, on any occasion. And the critic even ventures to prescribe, by the authority of rule, the particular properties and attributes, required to sustain it. And no wonder. Every man, as he can make himself the subject of all passions, so he becomes, in a manner, the aggregate of all characters. Nature may have inclined him most powerfully to one set of manners; just as one passion is, always, predominant in him. But he finds in himself the seeds of all others. This consciousness, as before, furnishes the characteristic sentiments, which constitute the manners. And it were full as strange for two poets, who had taken in hand such a character, as that of Achilles, to differ materially in their expression of it; as for two painters, drawing from the same object, to avoid a striking conformity in the design and attitude of their pictures.
Those who are fond of hunting after parallels, might, I doubt not, with great ease, confront almost every sentiment, which, in the Greek tragedians, is made expressive of particular characters, with similar passages in other poets; more especially (for I must often refer to his authority) in the various living portraitures of Shakespear. Yet he, who after taking this learned pains, should chuse to urge such parallels, when found, for proofs of his imitation of the ancients, would only run the hazard of being reputed, by men of sense, as poor a critic of human nature, as of his author.
I say this with confidence, because I say it on a great authority. “Tout est dit (says an exquisite writer on the subject of manners) et l’on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu’il y a des hommes, et qui pensent. Sur ce qui concerne les MOEURS, le plus beau et le meilleur est enlevé; l’on ne fait que glaner après les anciens, & les habiles d’entre les modernes[25].”
Thus far indeed, the case is almost too plain to be disputed. Strong affections, and constitutional characters, will be allowed to act powerfully and steadily upon us. The violence and rapidity of their movements render all disguise impossible. And we find ourselves determined, by a kind of necessity, to think and speak, in given circumstances, after much the same manner. But what shall we say of our cooler reasonings; the sentiments, which the mind, at pleasure, revolves, and applies, as it sees fit, to various occasions? “Fancy and humour, it will be thought, have so great an influence in directing these operations of our mental faculties, as to make it altogether incredible, that any remarkable coincidence of sentiment, in different persons, should result from them.”
To think of reducing the thoughts of man, which are “more than the sands, and wider than the ocean,” into classes, were, perhaps, a wild attempt. Yet the most considerable of those, which enter into works of poetry (besides such as result from fixed characters or predominant passions) may be included in the division of 1. Religious, 2. Moral, and 3. Oeconomical sentiments; understanding by this last (for I know of no fitter term to express my meaning) all those reasonings, which take their rise from particular conjunctures of ordinary life, and are any way relative to our conduct in it.
1. The apprehension of some invisible power, as superintending the universe, tho’ not connate with the mind, yet, from the experience of all ages, is found inseparable from the first and rudest exertions of its powers. And the several reflexions, which religion derives from this idea, are altogether as necessary. It is easy to conceive, how unavoidably, almost, the mind awakened by certain conjunctures of distress, and working on the ground of this original impression, turns itself to awful views of deity, and seeks relief in those soothing contemplations of Providence, which we find so frequent in the epic and tragic poets. And whoever shall give himself the trouble of examining those noble hymns, which the lyric muse, in her gravest humours, chaunted to the popular gods of paganism, will hardly find a single trace of a devotional sentiment, which hath not been common, at all times, to all religionists. Their power, and sovereign disposal of all events; their care of the good, and aversion to the wicked; the blessings, they derive on their worshippers, and the terrors, they infix in the breasts of the profane; they are the usual topics of their meditations; the solemn sentiments, that consecrate these addresses to their local, gentilitial deities. In listening to these divine strains every one feels, from his own consciousness, how necessary such reflexions are to human nature; more particularly, when to the simple apprehension of deity, a warm fancy and strong affections join their combined powers, to push the mind forward into enthusiastic raptures. All the faculties of the soul being then upon the stretch, natural ability holds the place, and, in some sort, doth the office, of divine suggestion. And, bating the impure mixture of their fond and senseless traditions, one is not surprized to find a strong resemblance, oftentimes, in point of sentiment, betwixt these pagan odes, and the genuine inspirations of Heaven. Let not the reader be scandalized at this bold comparison. It affirms no more, than what the gravest authors have frequently shewn, a manifest analogy between the sacred and prophane poets; and which supposes only, that Heaven, when it infuses its own light into the breasts of men, doth not extinguish that which nature and reason had before kindled up in them. It follows, that either succeeding poets are not necessarily to be accused of stealing their religious sentiments from their elder brethren, or that Orpheus, Homer, and Callimachus may be as reasonably charged with plundering the sacred treasures of David, and the other Hebrew prophets.
It is much the same with the illusions of corrupt religion. The fauns and nymphs of the ancients, holding their residence in shadowy groves or caverns, and the frightful spectres of their Larvae: to which we may oppose the modern visions of fairies; and of ghosts, gliding through church-yards, and haunting sepulchres; together with the vast train of gloomy reflexions, which so naturally wait upon them, are, as well as the juster notions of divinity, the genuine offspring of the same common apprehensions. Reason, when misled by superstition, takes a certain route, and keeps as steadily in it, as when conducted by a sound and sober piety. There needs only a previous conception of unseen intelligence for the ground-work; and the timidity of human nature, amidst the nameless terrors, which are everywhere presenting themselves to the suspicious eye of ignorance, easily builds upon it the entire fabrick of superstitious thinking. With the poets all this goes under the common name of RELIGION. For they are concerned only to represent the opinions and conclusions, to which the idea of divinity leads. And these, we now see, they derive from their own experience, or the received theology of the times, of which they write. Religious sentiments being, then, universally, either the obvious deductions of human reason, in the easiest exercise of its powers, or the plain matter of simple observation, regarding what passes before us in real life, how can they but be the same in different writers, though perfectly original, and holding no correspondence with each other?
2. And the same is true of our moral, as religious sentiments. Whole volumes, indeed, have been written to shew, that all our commonest notices of right and wrong have been traduced from ancient tradition, founded on express supernatural communication. With writers of this turn the gnomae of paganism, even the slightest moral sentiments of the most original ancients, spring from this source. If any exception were allowed, one should suppose it would be in favour of the father of poetry, whose writings all have agreed to set up as the very prodigy of human invention. And yet a very learned Professor[26] (to pass over many slighter Essays) hath compiled a large work of Homer’s moral parallelisms; that is, ethic sentences, confronted with similar ones out of sacred writ. The correspondency, it seems, appeared so striking to this learned person, that he was in doubt, if this great original thinker had not drawn from the fountains of Siloam, instead of Castalis. Whereas the whole, which these studied collections prove to plain sense, perverted by no bias of false zeal or religious prepossession, is, that reason, or provident nature, has inscribed the same legible characters of moral truth on all minds; and that the beauties of the moral, as natural world lie open to the view of all observers. This, if it were not too plain to need insisting upon, might be further shewn from the similarity, which hath constantly been observed in the law and moral of all states and countries; as well the uninformed, and far distant regions of barbarism, as those happier climates, on which, from the neighbourhood of their situation, and the curiosity of inquiry, some beams of this celestial light may be thought to have glanced.
3. For what concerns the class of oeconomical sentiments; or such prudential conclusions, as offer themselves on certain conjunctures of ordinary life, these, it is plain, depending very much on the free exercise of our reasoning powers, will be more variable and uncertain, than any other. When the mind is at leisure to cast about and amuse itself with reflexions, which no characteristic quality dictates, or affection extorts, and which spring from no preconceived system of moral or religious opinions, a greater latitude of thinking is allowed; and consequently any remarkable correspondency of sentiment affords more room for suspicion of imitation. Yet, in any supposed combination of circumstances, one train of thought is, generally, most obvious, and occurs soonest to the understanding; and, it being the office of poetry to present the most natural appearances, one cannot be much surprized to find a frequent coincidence of reflexion even here. The first page one opens in any writer will furnish examples. The duke in Measure for Measure, upon hearing some petty slanders thrown out against himself, falls into this trite reflexion: