scious shame when it becomes immoderate; it is covered from the world, and disclosed only to the beloved object: 0, they love least that let men know their love.

Two GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.-Act I. Sc. 2. Hence a capital rule in the representation of immoderate passions, that they ought to be hid or dissembled as much as possible. And this holds in an especial manner with respect to criminal passions: one never counsels the commission of a crime in plain terms; the proposal must be made by hints, and by representing the action in some favorable light. Of the propriety of sentiment upon such an occasion, Shakspeare, in the Tempest, has given us a beautiful example, in a speech by the usurping Duke of Milan, advising Sebastian to murder his brother the King of Naples : Antonio.

What might,
Worthy Sebastian-0, what might—no more.
And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face,
What thou shouldst be: th' occasion speaks thee, and
My strong imagination sees a crown
Dropping upon thy head.

Act II. Sc. 1. There never was drawn a more complete picture of this kind, than that of King John soliciting Hubert to murder the young Prince Arthur:

K. John. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert.
We owe thee inuch: within this wall of fesh
There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love.
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-
But I will fit it with some better time.
By Heaven, Hubert, I'm almost asham'd
To

say what good respect I have of thee.
Hubert. I am much bounden to your Majesty.

K. John. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet-
But thou shalt have—and creep time ne'er so slow,
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
I had a thing to say-

--but let it go;
The sun is in the heaven; and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds,

To give me audience. If the midnight bell
Did with bis iron tongue and brazen

mouth
Sound one unto the drowsy race of night;
If this same were a church-yard where we stand,
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
Or if that surly spirit Melancholy
Had bak'd thy blood, and made it heavy thick,
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
Making that idiot Laughter keep men's eyes,
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
(A passion hateful to my purposes ;)
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply
Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words ;
Then, in despite of broad-eyed watchful day,
I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.
But ah, I will not-Yet I love thee well;
And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.

Hubert. So well, that what you bid me undertake,
Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
By Heaven I'd do't.

K. John. Do not I know thou wouldst?
Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend ;
He is a very serpent in my way;
And, wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
Thou art his keeper. King John.-Act III. Sc. 3.
As things are best illustrated by their contraries, I
proceed to faulty sentiments.

The first class contains faulty sentiments of various kinds; I begin with sentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the passion : Othello.

O my soul's joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakep'd death!
And let the laboring bark climb bills of seas
Olympus high, and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven.

OTHELLO.-Act II. Sc. 1. This sentiment may be suggested by violent and inflamed passion, but is not suited to the calm satisfaction that one feels upon escaping danger.

Philaster. Place me, some god, upon a pyramid
Higher than hills of earth, and lend a voice
Loud as your thunder to me, that from thence
I may discourse to all the under world
The worth that dwells in him.
PHILASTER OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

--ACT IV.

а

Second. Sentiments below the tone of the passion. Ptolemy, by putting Pompey to death, having incurred the displeasure of Cæsar, was in the utmost dread of being dethroned: in that agitated situation, Corneille makes him utter a speech full of cool reflection, that is in no degree expressive of the passion.

In Les Freres Ennemies of Racine, the second act is opened with a love-scene: Hemon talks to his mistress of the torments of absence, of the lustre of her eyes, that he ought to die nowhere but at her feet, and that one moment of absence is a thousand years. Antigone, on her part, acts the coquette; pretends she must be gone to wait on her mother and brother, and cannot stay to listen to his courtship. This is odious French gallantry, below the dignity of the passion of love: it would scarce be excusable in painting modern French manners; and is insufferable where the ancients are brought upon the stage. The manners painted in the Alexandre of the same author are not more just: French gallantry prevails there throughout.

Third. Sentiments that agree not with the tone of the passion; as where a pleasant sentiment is grafted upon a painful passion, or the contrary. In the following instances, the sentiments are too gay for a se rious passion :

No happier task these faded eyes pursue ;
To read and weep is all they now can do.

ELOISA TO ABELARD, I. 47.
Again :
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid;
They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires,
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires;
The virgin's wish without her fears impart,
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the beart;
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.

ELOISA TO ABELARD, 1. 51. Tlacou thoughts are pretty: they suit Pope, but now Eloisa.

Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus :

Then when I am thy captive talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub: but ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm, though Heaven's King
Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
Us’d to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of heaven star-pav'd.

PARADISE Lost.--Book IV. The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage.

Fourth. Sentiments too artificial for a serious passion. I give for the first example a speech of Percy expiring :

O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my growth:
I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my flesh.
But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool ;
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.

FIRST PART HENRY IV.-Act V. Sc. 4. The sentiments of the Mourning Bride are, for the most part, no less delicate than just copies of nature: in the following exception the picture is beautiful, but too artful to be suggested by severe grief.

Almeria. O no! Time gives increase to my afflictions.
The circling hours, that gather all the woes
Which are diffus'd through the revolving, year,
Come heavy laden with th' oppressive weight
To me; with me, successively they leave
The sighs, the tears, the groans, the restless cares,
And all the damps of grief, that did retard their flight.
They shake their downy wings, and scatter all
The dire collected dews on my poor head;
They fly with joy and swiftness from me.

Act I. Sc. 1. In the same play, Almeria, seeing a dead body, which she took to be Alphonso's, expresses sentiments strained and artificial, which nature suggests not to any person upon such an occasion:

Had they, or hearts, or eyes, that did this deed ?
Could eyes endure to guide such cruel hands?

Are not my eyes guilty alike with theirs,
That thus can gaze, and yet not turn to stone?
-I do not weep! The springs of tears are dried,
And of a sudden I am calm,

as if
All things were well; and yet my husband's murdered.
Yes, yes, I know to mourn: I'll sluice this heart,
The source of woe, and let the torrent loose.

Act V. Sc. 11.

Lady Trueman. How could you be so cruel to defer giving me that joy which you knew I must receive from your presence? You have robb'd my life of some hours of happiness that ought to have been in it.

DRUMMER.--Act V. Pope's Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expresses delicately the most tender concern and sorrow that one can feel for the deplorable fate of a person of worth. Such a poem, deeply serious and pathetic, rejects with disdain all fiction. Upon that account, the following passage deserves no quarter; for it is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease; and thence eminently discordant with the subject. It would be a still more severe censure, if it should be ascribed to imitation, copying indiscreetly what has been said by others:

What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace, Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face? What though no sacred earth allow thee room, Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb? Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, There the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels with their silver wings o'ershade The ground, now sacred by thy relics made. Fifth. Fanciful or finical sentiments-sentiments that degenerate into point or conceit, may amuse in an idle hour, but can never be the offspring of any serious or important passion.

Armida's lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo, is of this vicious taste:

Queen. Give me no help in lamentation,
I am not barren to bring forth complaints :
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern’d by the wat'ry moon,