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duce particular instances; for he never va ries from this tone. I shall however take two passages at a venture, in order to be

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the more successful tragedies in a fort of farce, called rody. La Motte, who himself appears to have been forely galled by fome of these burlesk compositions, acknowledges, that no

no more is necessary to give them a run, than barely to vary the dramatis perfone, and in place of kings and heroes, queens and princesses, to substitute tinkers and tailors, milk| maids and feamstresses. The declamatory style, so different from the genuine expreffion of paffion, passes in some meafure unobserved, when great personages are the speakers. But in the mouths of the vulgar, the impropriety, with regard to the speaker as well as to the paffion represented, is so remarkable as to become ridiculous. A tragedy, where every paffion is made to speak in it's natural tone, is not liable to be thus burlesked. The same passion is by all men expressed nearly in the fame manner: and therefore the genuine expressions of paffion cannot be ridiculous in the mouth of any man, provided only he be of fuch a character as to be fufceptible of the paffion.

1

It is a well-known fact, that to an English ear the French actors appear to pronounce with too great rapidity; a complaint much infifted on by Cibber in particular, who had frequently heard the famous Baron upon the French stage. This may in fome measure be attributed to our want of facility in the French language; as foreigners generally imagine, that every language is pronounced too quick by natives. But that it is not the fole caufe, will be probable from a fact directly oppofite, that the French are not a little disgusted with the lanquidness, as they term it, of the English pronunciation. I X 11. conjecture

confronted with those transeribed above. In the tragedy of Cinna, Emilia, after the conspiracy was discovered, having nothing in view but racks and death to herself and her lover, receives a pardon from Augustus, attended with the brightest circumstances of magnanimity and tenderness. This is a happy situation for repre• senting the passions of surprise and gratitude in their different stages. These passions, raised at once to the utmost pitch, are at first too big for utterance; and Æmilia's feelings must, for fome moments, have been expressed by violent gestures only. So foon as there is a vent for words, the

conjecture this difference of tafte may be derived from what is observed above. The pronunciation of the genuine language of paflion is necessarily directed by the nature of the passion, and by the flowness or celerity of its progress. In par ticular, plaintive paffions, which are the most frequent in tragedy, having a flow motion, dictate a flow pronunciation. In declamation again, which is not the genuine language of any paffion, the speaker warms gradually, and as he warms, he naturally accelerates his pronunciation. But as the French have formed their tone of pronunciation upon Corneille's declamatory tragedies, and the English upon the more natural language of Shakespear, it it is not surprising that custom should produce fuch difference of taste in the two nations.

VOL. II.

X

firt

first expressions are naturally broken and interrupted. At last we ought to expect a tide of intermingled sentiments, occafioned by the fluctuation of the mind betwixt the two paffions. Æmilia is made to behave in a very different manner. With extreme coolness she describes her own situation, as if the were merely a spectator; or rather the poet takes the task off her hands.

Et je me rens, Seigneur, à ces hautes bontés,

Je recouvre la vûe auprés de leurs clartés,
Je connois mon forfait qui me sembloit justice,
Et ce que n'avoit pû la terreur du fupplice,
Je sens naitre en mon ame un repentir puissant;

:

Et mon cœur en secret me dit, qu'il y confent.

Le ciel a résolu votre grandeur fuprême,

Et pour preuve, Seigneur, je n'en veux que moiIn the tragedy of Sertorius, the Queen, surprised with the news that her lover was afsfassinated, instead of venting any paffion, degenerates into a cool spectator, even fo much as to instruct the by-standers how a queen ought to behave on such an occafion.

même ;

J'ose avec vanité me donner cet éclat,
Puisqu'il change mon cœur, qu'il veut changer
l' état.

Ma haine va mourir que j'ai crue immortelle,
Elle est morte, et ce cœur devient sujet fidéle,
Et prenant désormais cette haine en horreur,
L'ardeur de vous fervir fuccede à sa fureur.

Act 5. Sc. 3.

Viriate. Il m'en fait voir ensemble, et l'auteur, et la cause.

Par cet assassinat c'est de moi qu'on dispose,
C'est mon trône, c'st moi qu'on pretend conquerir,
Et c'est mon juste choix qui seul l'a fait perir.
Madame, aprés sa perte, et parmi ces alarmes,
N'attendez point de moi de foupirs, ni de larmes;
Ce font amusemens que dédaigne aisement
Le prompt et noble orgueil d'un vif ressentiment.
Qui pleure, l'affoiblit, qui soupire, l'exhale,
Il faut plus de fierté dans une ame royale;

Et ma douleur foumise aux foins de le venger, &.

١٠٠

Alt 5. Jc. 3.

So much in general upon the genuine sentiments of passion. I proceed now to particular observations. And, first, Paffions are seldom uniform for any confiderable time: they generally fluctuate, swelling and subsiding by turns, often in a quick fucceffion.

X 2

fucceffion *. This fluctuation, in the cafe of a real paffion, will be expreffed externally by proper sentiments; and ought to be imitated in writing and acting. Accordingly, a climax shows never better than in expressing a swelling paffion. The fol lowing passages shall fuffice for an illustra

tion.

F

Oroonoko.

Can you raife the dead?

Purfue and overtake the wings of time?

And bring about again, the hours, the days,

The years, that made me happy?

Oroonoko, act 2. fc. 2.

Almeria.

&

How haft thou charm'd

The wildness of the waves and rocks to this?
That thus relenting they have giv'n thee back
To earth, to light and life, to love and me ?

Mourning Bride, alt 1. Sc. 7.

A

I would not be the villain that thou think'st For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grafp, And the rich earth to boot.

medio durava etuon on.

Macbeth, alt 4.

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