So much in general upon the genuine sentiments of passion. I proceed now to particular observations. And, first, Passions are seldom uniform for any considerable time: they generally fluctuate, swelling and subsiding by turns, often in a quick succession[51]. This fluctuation, in the case of a real passion, will be expressed externally by proper sentiments; and ought to be imitated in writing and acting. Accordingly, a climax shows never better than in expressing a swelling passion. The following passages shall suffice for an illustration.
The following passage expresses finely the progress of conviction.
In the progress of thought, our resolutions become more vigorous as well as our passions.
And this leads to a second observation, That the different stages of a passion, and its different directions, from its birth to its extinction, ought to be carefully represented in the sentiments, which otherwise will often be misplaced. Resentment, for example, when provoked by an atrocious injury, discharges itself first upon the author. Sentiments therefore of revenge take place of all others, and must in some measure be exhausted before the person injured think of pitying himself, or of grieving for his present distress. In the Cid of Corneille, Don Diegue having been affronted in a cruel manner, expresses scarce any sentiment of revenge, but is totally occupied in contemplating the low situation to which he was reduced by the affront.
These sentiments are certainly not what occur to the mind in the first movements of the passion. In the same manner as in resentment, the first movements of grief are always directed upon its object. Yet with relation to the hidden and severe distemper that seized Alexander bathing in the river Cydnus, Quintus Curtius describes the first emotions of the army as directed upon themselves, lamenting that they were left without a leader far from home, and had scarce any hopes of returning in safety. Their King’s distress, which must naturally have been their first concern, occupies them but in the second place according to that author. In the Aminta of Tasso, Sylvia, upon a report of her lover’s death, which she believed certain, instead of bemoaning the loss of a beloved object, turns her thoughts upon herself, and wonders her heart does not break.
In the tragedy of Jane Shore, Alicia, in the full purpose of destroying her rival, has the following reflection:
These are the reflections of a cool spectator. A passion while it has the ascendant, and is freely indulged, suggests not to the man who feels it any sentiment to its own prejudice. Reflections like the foregoing, occur not to him readily till the passion have spent its vigor.
A person sometimes is agitated at once by different passions. The mind in this case vibrating like a pendulum, vents itself in sentiments which partake of the same vibration. This I give as a third observation:
Othello. Oh devil, devil! If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears, Each drop she falls, would prove a crocodile. Out of my sight.
Desdemona. I will not stay t’offend you. [going.
Lodovico. Truly, an obedient lady: I do beseech your Lordship, call her back.
Oth. Mistress——
Oth. What would you with her, Sir?
Lod. Who, I, my Lord?
Oth. Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn: Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on; And turn again. And she can weep, Sir, weep; And she’s obedient: as you say, obedient; Very obedient—proceed you in your tears—Concerning this, Sir,—oh well-painted passion!—I am commanded home—get you away, I’ll send for you anon—Sir, I obey the mandate, And will return to Venice.—— Hence, avaunt! [Exit Desdemona.
Othello, act 4. sc. 6.
Æmilia. Oh! my good Lord, I would speak a word with you.
Othello. Yes, ’tis Æmilia—by and by—she’s dead. ’Tis like, she comes to speak of Cassio’s death; The noise was high.—Ha, no more moving? Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were’t good? I think she stirs again—No—what’s the best? If she come in, she’ll, sure, speak to my wife; My wife! my wife! What wife? I have no wife. Oh insupportable! oh heavy hour!
A fourth observation is, that nature, which gave us passions, and made them extremely beneficial when moderate, intended undoubtedly that they should be subjected to the government of reason and conscience[52]. It is therefore against the order of nature, that passion in any case should take the lead in contradiction to reason and conscience. Such a state of mind is a sort of anarchy, which every one is ashamed of, and endeavours to hide or dissemble. Even love, however laudable, is attended with a conscious shame when it becomes immoderate: it is covered from the world, and disclosed only to the beloved object:
Hence a capital rule in the representation of strong passions, that their genuine sentiments 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. Guilt must not appear in its native colours, even in thought: the proposal must be made by hints, and by representing the action in some favourable light. Of the propriety of sentiment upon such an occasion, Shakespear, in the Tempest, has given us a beautiful example. The subject is a proposal made by the usurping Duke of Milan to Sebastian, to murder his brother the King of Naples.
There cannot be a finer picture of this sort, than that of King John soliciting Hubert to murder the young Prince Arthur.
As things are best illustrated by their contraries, I proceed to collect from classical authors, sentiments that appear faulty. The first class shall consist of sentiments that accord not with the passion; or, in other words, sentiments that the passion represented does not naturally suggest. In the second class, shall be ranged sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but unsuitable to it as tinctured by a singular character. Thoughts that properly are not sentiments, but rather descriptions, make a third. Sentiments that belong to the passion represented, but are faulty as being introduced too early or too late, make a fourth. Vicious sentiments exposed in their native dress, instead of being concealed or disguised, make a fifth. And in the last class, shall be collected sentiments suited to no character or passion, and therefore unnatural.
The first class contains faulty sentiments of various kinds, which I shall endeavour to distinguish from each other. And first sentiments that are faulty by being above the tone of the passion.
This sentiment is too strong to be suggested by so slight a joy as that of meeting after a storm at sea.
Secondly, 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 this agitating 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 no where but at her feet, and that one moment of absence was a thousand years. Antigone on her part acts the coquette, and 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 serious passion.
Again,
These thoughts are pretty; they suit Pope extremely, but not Eloisa.
Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus:
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 Piercy expiring:
Livy inserts the following passage in a plaintive oration of the Locrenses accusing Pleminius the Roman legate of oppression.
“In hoc legato vestro, nec hominis quicquam est, Patres Conscripti, præter figuram et speciem; neque Romani civis, præter habitum vestitumque, et sonum linguæ Latinæ. Pestis et bellua immanis, quales fretum, quondam, quo ab Sicilia dividimur, ad perniciem navigantium circumsedisse, fabulæ ferunt[53].”
Congreve shows a fine taste in the sentiments of the Mourning Bride. But in the following passage the picture is too artful to be suggested by severe grief:
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:
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 5.
Pope’s Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expresses delicately the most tender concern and sorrow for the deplorable fate of a person of worth. A poem of this kind, deeply serious and pathetic, rejects all fiction with disdain. We therefore can give no quarter to the following passage, which is eminently discordant with the subject. It is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease. It would be a still more severe censure, if it should be ascribed to imitation, copying indiscreetly what has been said by others.
Fifth. Fanciful or sinical sentiments, sentiments that degenerate into point or conceit, however they may amuse in an idle hour, can never be the offspring of any serious or important passion. In the Ierusalem of Tasso, Tancred, after a single combat, spent with fatigue and loss of blood, falls into a swoon. In this situation, understood to be dead, he is discovered by Erminia, who was in love with him to distraction. A more happy situation cannot be imagined, to raise grief in an instant to its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most abominably to antithesis and conceit, even of the lowest kind.
Armida’s lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo[54], is in the same vitious taste.
Jane Shore utters her last breath in a witty conceit.
Gilford to Lady Jane Gray, when both were condemned to die:
The concluding sentiment is altogether sinical, unsuitable to the importance of the occasion, and even to the dignity of the passion of love.
Corneille, in his Examen of the Cid[55], answering an objection, that his sentiments are sometimes too much refined for persons in deep distress, observes, that if poets did not indulge sentiments more ingenious or refined than are prompted by passion, their performances would often be low; and extreme grief would never suggest but exclamations merely. This is in plain language to assert, That forced thoughts are more relished than such as are natural, and therefore ought to be preferred.
The second class is of sentiments that may belong to an ordinary passion, but are not perfectly concordant with it, as tinctured by a singular character. In the last act of that excellent comedy, The Careless Husband, Lady Easy, upon Sir Charles’s reformation, is made to express more violent and turbulent sentiments of joy, than are consistent with the mildness of her character.
Lady Easy. O the soft treasure! O the dear reward of long-desiring love—— Thus! thus to have you mine, is something more than happiness, ’tis double life, and madness of abounding joy.
If the sentiments of a passion ought to be suited to a peculiar character, it is still more necessary that sentiments devoid of passion be suited to the character. In the 5th act of the Drummer, Addison makes his gardener act even below the character of an ignorant credulous rustic: he gives him the behaviour of a gaping idiot.
The following instances are descriptions rather than sentiments, which compose a third class.
Of this descriptive manner of painting the passions, there is in the Hippolytus of Euripides, act 5. an illustrious instance, viz. the speech of Theseus, upon hearing of his son’s dismal exit. In Racine’s tragedy of Esther, the Queen hearing of the decree issued against her people, instead of expressing sentiments suitable to the occasion, turns her attention upon herself, and describes with accuracy her own situation.
Again,
What other are the foregoing instances than describing the passion another feels?
An example is given above of remorse and despair expressed by genuine and natural sentiments. In the fourth book of Paradise Lost, Satan is made to express his remorse and despair in sentiments, which though beautiful, are not altogether natural. They are rather the sentiments of a spectator, than of a person who actually is tormented with these passions.
The fourth class is of sentiments introduced too early or too late.
Some examples mentioned above belong to this class. Add the following from Venice preserv’d, act 5. at the close of the scene betwixt Belvidera and her father Priuli. The account given by Belvidera of the danger she was in, and of her husband’s threatening to murder her, ought naturally to have alarmed her relenting father, and to have made him express the most perturbed sentiments. Instead of which he dissolves into tenderness and love for his daughter, as if he had already delivered her from danger, and as if there were a perfect tranquillity.
Immoral sentiments exposed in their native colours, instead of being concealed or disguised, compose the fifth class.
The Lady Macbeth projecting the death of the King, has the following soliloquy:
This speech is not natural. Murder under trust was never perpetrated even by the most hardened miscreant without compunction. And that the lady here must have been in horrible agitation appears, from her invoking the infernal spirits to fill her with cruelty, and to stop up all avenues to remorse. But in this state of mind, it is a never-failing device of self-deceit, to draw the thickest veil over the wicked action, and to extenuate it by all circumstances that imagination can suggest. And if the crime cannot bear disguise, the next attempt is, to thrust it out of mind altogether, and to rush on to action without thought. This last was the husband’s method.
The lady follows neither of these courses, but in a deliberate manner endeavours to fortify her heart in the commission of an execrable crime, without even attempting a disguise. This I think is not natural. I hope there is no such wretch to be found, as is here represented. In the Pompey of Corneille[56], Photine counsels a wicked action in the plainest terms without disguise.
In the tragedy of Esther[57], Haman acknowledges, without disguise, his cruelty, insolence, and pride. And there is another example of the same kind in the Agamemnon of Seneca[58]. In the tragedy of Athalie[59], Mathan, in cool blood, relates to his friend many black crimes he had been guilty of to satisfy his ambition.
In Congreve’s Double-dealer, Maskwell, instead of disguising or colouring his crimes, values himself upon them in a soliloquy: