Castaneasque nuces me quas Amaryllis amabat.
—Eclogue, ii, v. 52..
And pluck the chestnuts from the neighboring grove,
Such as my Amaryllis used to love.
—DRYDEN.
belongs not to an heroic personage, because the allusion is not such as would be made by a hero.
These two instances are examples of the cases in which the mingling of styles may be defended. Tragedy may occasionally stoop; it even ought to do so. Simplicity, according to the precept of Horace, often relieves grandeur. Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri (Ars Poet., v. 95)—And oft the tragic language humbly flows (Francis).
These two verses in Titus, so natural and so tender:
Depuis cinq ans entiers chaque jour je la vois.
Et crois toujours la voir pour la première fois.
—BÉRÉNICE, acte ii, scene 1.
Each day, for five years, have I seen her face,
And each succeeding time appears the first.
would not be at all out of place in serious comedy; but the following verse of Antiochus: Dans l'orient desert quel devint mon ennui! (Id., acte i, scene 4)—The lonely east, how wearisome to me!—would not suit a lover in comedy; the figure of the "lonely east" is too elevated for the simplicity of the buskin. We have already remarked, that an author who writes on physics, in allusion to a writer on physics, called Hercules, adds that he is not able to resist a philosopher so powerful. Another who has written a small book, which he imagines to be physical and moral, against the utility of inoculation, says that if the smallpox be diffused artificially, death will be defrauded.
The above defect springs from a ridiculous affectation. There is another which is the result of negligence, which is that of mingling with the simple and noble style required by history, popular phrases and low expressions, which are inimical to good taste. We often read in Mézeray, and even in Daniel, who, having written so long after him, ought to be more correct, that "a general pursued at the heels of the enemy, followed his track, and utterly basted him"—à plate couture. We read nothing of this kind in Livy, Tacitus, Guicciardini, or Clarendon.
Let us observe, that an author accustomed to this kind of style can seldom change it with his subject. In his operas, La Fontaine composed in the style of his fables; and Benserade, in his translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," exhibited the same kind of pleasantry which rendered his madrigals successful. Perfection consists in knowing how to adapt our style to the various subjects of which we treat; but who is altogether the master of his habits, and able to direct his genius at pleasure?
VARIOUS STYLES DISTINGUISHED.
The Feeble.