Fly to the fenate, save the promis'd lives To preserve this resemblance betwixt words and their meaning, the sentiments of active and hurrying passions ought to be dressed in words where fyllables prevail that are pronounced short or fast; for these make an impreffion of hurry and precipitation. Emotions, on the other hand, that rest upon their objects, are best expressed by words where syllables prevail that are pronounced long or flow. A person affected with melancholy has a languid and flow train of perceptions. The expression best suited to this state of mind, is where words not only of long but of many fyllables abound in the compofition. For that reason, nothing can be finer than the following passage: In those deep folitudes, and awful cells, Pope, Eloisa to Abelard. To preserve the same resemblance, another circumstance is requifite, that the language conformable to the emotion, be rough or fmooth, broken or uniform. Calm and sweet emotions are best expressed by words that glide softly; surprise, fear, and other turbulent paffions, require an expreffion both rough and broken. circumftance It cannot have escaped any diligent inquirer into nature, that in the hurry of paffion, one generally expresses that thing first which is most at heart. This is beautifully done in the following passage. Me, me; adfum qui feci: in me convertite ferrum, O Rutuli, mea fraus omnis. Eneid ix. 427. Passion has often the effect of redoubling words, the better to make them express the strong conception of the mind. This is finely represented in the following examples: -Thou sun, said I, fair light! And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay! Dd2 Tell, Tell, if ye faw, how came I thus, how heres Paradise Lost, b. viii. 273. Both have finn'd! but thou Against God only; I, 'gainst God and thee : Paradise Lost, book x. 930. Shakespear is fuperior to all other writers in delineating paffion. It is difficult to say in what part he most excels, whether in moulding every paffion to peculiarity of character, in discovering the sentiments that proceed from various tones of paffion, or in expreffing properly every different sentiment. He imposes not upon his reader, general declamation and the false coin of unmeaning words, which the bulk of writers deal in. His fentiments are adjusted, with the greatest propriety, to the peculiar character and circumftances of the speaker; and the propriety is not less perfect betwixt his sentiments and his diction. That this is no exaggeration, | aggeration, will be evident to every one of tafte, upon comparing Shakespear with other writers, in similar passages. If upon any occafion he fall below himself, it is in those scenes where passion enters not. By endeavouring in this cafe to raise his dialogue above the style of ordinary conversation, he sometimes deviates into intricate thought and obfcure expression *. Sometimes, to A * Of this take the following specimen : They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrafe Shall in the general censure take corruption Hamlet, act 1. fc. 7. throw throw his language out of the familiar, he employs rhyme. But may it not in some measure excuse Shakespear, I shall not say his works, that he had no pattern, in his own or in any living language, of dialogue fitted for the theatre? At the same time, it ought not to escape observation, that the stream clears in its progress, and that in his later plays he has attained the purity and perfection of dialogue; an observation that, with greater certainty than tradition, will direct us to arrange his plays in the order of time. This ought to be confidered by those who magnify every blemish that is discovered in the finest genius for the drama ever the world enjoy'd. They ought also for their own fake to confider, that it is easier to discover his blemishes, which lie generally at the furface, than his beauties, of which none can have a thorough relish but those who dive deep into human nature. One thing must be evident to the meanest capacity, that where-ever paffion is to be difplay'd, Nature shows itself strong in him, |