Nonnunquam conlacrumabat: placuit tum id mihi.
Sic cogitabam: hic parvae consuetudinis
Causâ hujus mortem tam fert familiariter:
Quid si ipse amâsset? Quid mihi hic faciet patri?
It were easy to multiply examples, but I spare the reader. Though nothing may seem, at first sight, more inconstant, variable, and capricious, than the thought of man, yet he will easily collect, that character, passion, system, or circumstance can, each in its turn, by a secret yet sure influence, bind its extravagant starts and sallies; and effect, at length, as necessary a conformity in the representation of these internal movements, as of the visible phaenomena of the natural world. A poor impoverished spirit, who has no sources of invention in himself, may be tempted to relieve his wants at the expence of his wealthier neighbour. But the suspicion, of real ability, is childish. Common sense directs us, for the most part, to regard resemblances in great writers, not as the pilferings, or frugal acquisitions of needy art, but as the honest fruits of genius, the free and liberal bounties of unenvying nature.
III. Having learned, from our own conscious reflexion, the secret operations of reason, character, and passion, it now remains to contemplate their effects in visible appearances. For nature is not more regular and consistent with herself in touching the fine and hidden springs of humanity, than in ordering the outward and grosser movements. The thoughts and affections of men paint themselves on the countenance; stand forth in airs and attitudes; and declare themselves in all the diversities of human action. This is a new field for mimic genius to range in; a great and glorious one, and which affords the noblest and most interesting objects of imitation. For the external forms themselves are grateful to the fancy, and, as being expressive of design, warm and agitate the heart with passion. Hence it is, that narrative poetry, which draws mankind under every apparent consequence and effect of passion, inchants the mind. And even the dramatic, we know, is cool and lifeless, and loses half its efficacy, without action. This, too, is the province of picture, statuary, and all arts, which inform by mute signs. Nay, the mute arts may be styled, almost without a figure, in this class of imitation, the most eloquent. For what words can express airs and attitudes, like the pencil? Or, when the genius of the artists is equal, who can doubt of giving the preference to that representation, which, striking on the sight, grows almost into reality, and is hardly considered by the inraptured thought, as fiction? When passion is to be made known by outward act, Homer himself yields the palm to Raphael.
But our business is with the poets. And, in reviewing this their largest and most favoured stock of materials, can we do better than contemplate them in the very order, in which we before disposed the workings of the mind itself, the causes of these appearances?
1. To begin with the affections. They have their rise, as was observed, from the very constitution of human nature, when placed in given circumstances, and acted upon by certain occurrences. The perceptions of these inward commotions are uniformly the same, in all; and draw along with them the same, or similar sentiments and reflexions. Hence the appeal is made to every one’s own consciousness, which declares the truth or falshood of the imitation. When these commotions are produced and made objective to sense by visible signs, is observation a more fallible guide, than consciousness? Or, doth experience attest these signs to be less similar and uniform, than their occasions? By no means. Take a man under the impression of joy, fear, grief, or any other of the stronger affections; and see, if a peculiar conformation of feature, some certain stretch of muscle, or contortion of limb, will not necessarily follow, as the clear and undoubted index of his condition. Our natural curiosity is ever awake and attentive to these changes. And poetry sets herself at work, with eagerness, to catch and transcribe their various appearances. No correspondency of representation, then, needs surprize us; nor any the exactest resemblance be thought strange, where the object is equally present to all persons. For it must be remarked of the visible effects of MIND, as, before, of the phaenomena of the material world, that they are, simply, the objects of observation. So that what was concluded of these, will hold also of the others; with this difference, that the effects of internal movements do not present themselves so constantly to the eye, nor with that uniformity of appearance, as permanent, external existencies. We cannot survey them at pleasure, but as occasion offers: and we, further, find them diversified by the character, or disguised, in some degree, by the artifice, of the persons, in whom we observe them. But all the consequence is, that, to succeed in this work of painting the signatures of internal affection, requires a larger experience, or quicker penetration, than copying after still life. Where the proper qualifications are possessed, and especially in describing the marks of vigorous affections, different writers cannot be supposed to vary more considerably, in this province of imitation, than in the other. Our trouble therefore, on this head, may seem to be at an end. Yet it will be expected, that so general a conclusion be inforced by some illustrations.
The passion of LOVE is one of those affections, which bear great sway in the human nature. Its workings are violent. And its effects on the person, possessed by it, and in the train of events, to which it gives occasion, conspicuous to all observers. The power of this commanding affection hath triumphed at all times. It hath given birth to some of the greatest and most signal transactions in history; and hath furnished the most inchanting scenes of fiction. Poetry hath ever lived by it. The modern muse hath hardly any existence without it. Let us ask, then, of this tyrant passion, whether its operations are not too familiar to sense, its effects too visible to the eye, to make it necessary for the poet to go beyond himself, and the sphere of his own observation, for the original of his descriptions of it.
To prevent all cavil, let it be allowed, that the signs of this passion, I mean, the visible effects in which it shews itself, are various and almost infinite. It is reproached, above all others, with the names of capricious, fantastic, and unreasonable. No wonder then, if it assume an endless variety of forms, and seem impatient, as it were, of any certain shape or posture. Yet this Proteus of a passion may be fixed by the magic hand of the poet. Though it can occasionally take all, yet it delights to be seen in some shapes, more than others. Some of its effects are known and obvious, and are perpetually recurring to observation. And these are ever fittest to the ends of poetry; every man pronouncing of such representations from his proper experience, that they are from nature. Nay its very irregularities may be reduced to rule. There is not, in antiquity, a truer picture of this fond and froward passion, than is given us in the person of Terence’s Phaedria from Menander. Horace and Persius, when they set themselves, on purpose, to expose and exaggerate its follies, could imagine nothing beyond it. Yet we have much the same inconsistent character in Julia in The two Gentlemen of Verona.
Shall it be now said, that Shakespear copied from Terence, as Terence from Menander? Or is it not as plain to common sense, that the English poet is original, as that the Latin poet was an imitator?
Shakespear, on another occasion, describes the various, external symptoms of this extravagant affection. Amongst others, he insists, there is no surer sign of being in love, “than when every thing about you demonstrates a careless desolation.” [As you like it. A. iii. Sc. 8.] Suppose now the poet to have taken in hand the story of a neglected, abandoned lover; for instance of Ariadne; a story, which ancient poetry took a pleasure to relate, and which hath been touched with infinite grace by the tender, passionate muse of Catullus and Ovid. Suppose him to give a portrait of her passion in that distressful moment when, “from the naked beach, she views the parting sail of Theseus.” This was a time for all the signs of desolation to shew themselves. And could we doubt of his describing those very signs, which nature’s self dictated, long ago, to Catullus?
Non flavo retinens subtilem vertice mitram,
Non contexta levi velatum pectus amictu,
Non tereti strophio luctantes vincta papillas;
Omnia quae toto delapsa è corpore passim
Ipsius ante pedes fluctus salis alludebant.