Ah miser, Quantâ laboras in Charybdi! Digne puer meliore flamma. Pegasus expediet Chimera. Horat. Carm. lib. i. ode 27. Eighthly, If crowding figures be bad, it is still worse to graft one figure upon another: For instance, While his keen falchion drinks the warriors' lives. A falchion drinking the warriors' blood is a figure built upon resemblance, which is passable. But then in the expression, lives is again put for blood; and by thus grafting one figure upon another, the expression is rendered obscure and unpleasant. Ninthly, Intricate and involved figures that can scarce be analysed, or reduced to plain language, are least of all tolerable: Votis incendimus aras. -Onerantque canistris Dona laboratæ Cereris. Vulcan to the Cyclopes: Eneid, iii. 279. Eneid, viii. 190. Arma acri facienda viro: nunc viribus usus, -Huic gladio, perque ærea suta Eneid, viii. 441. Per tunicam squalentem auro, latus haurit apertum. Eneid, x. 313. Semotique puris tarda necessitas Lethi, corripuit gradum. Horat. Carm. lib. i. ode 3. Scribêris Vario fortis, et hostium Horat. Carm. lib. i. ode 6. Else shall our fates be number'd with the dead. Iliad, v. 294. Commutual death the fate of war confounds. Speaking of Proteus, Iliad, viii. 85. and xi. 117. Instant he wears, elusive of the rape, Rolling convulsive on the floor, is seen The mingling tempest waves its gloom. Odyssey, iv. 563. A various sweetness swells the gentle race. A sober calm fleeces unbounded ether. The distant waterfall swells in the breeze. Ibid. iv. 952, Autumn, 337. Ibid, 640. Ibid. 967. Winter, 738. In the tenth place, When a subject is introduced by its proper name, it is absurd to attribute to it the properties of a different subject to which the word is sometimes applied in a figurative sense: Hear me, oh Neptune! thou whose arms are hurl'd Neptune is here introduced personally, and not figuratively for the ocean: the description therefore, which is only applicable to the latter, is altogether improper. It is not sufficient, that a figure of speech be regularly constructed, and be free from blemish: it requires taste to discern when it is proper, when improper; and taste, 1 suspect, is our only guide. One however may gather from reflection and experience, that ornaments and graces suit not any of the dispiriting passions, nor are proper for expressing any thing grave and important. In familiar conversation, they are in some measure ridiculous: Prospero, in the Tempest, speaking to his daughter Miranda, says, The fringed curtains of thine eyes advance, No exception can be taken to the justness of the figure; and circumstances may be imagined to make it proper; but it is certainly not proper in familiar conversation. In the last place, Though figures of speech have a charming effect when accurately constructed and properly introduced, they ought however to be scattered with a sparing hand; nothing is more luscious, and nothing consequently more satiating, than redundant ornaments of any kind. CHAPTER XXI. Narration and Description. HORACE, and many critics after him, exhort writers to choose a subject adapted to their genius. Such observations would multiply rules of criticism without end; and at any rate belong not to the present work, the object of which is human nature in general, and what is common to the species. But though the choice of a subject comes not under such a plan, the manner of execution comes under it; because the manner of execution is subjected to general rules, derived from principles common to the species. These rules, as they concern the things expressed as well as the language or expression, require a division of this chapter into two parts; first of thoughts, and next of words. I pretend not to justify this division as entirely accurate for in discoursing of thoughts, it is difficult to abstract altogether from the words; and still more difficult, in discoursing of words, to abstract altogether from the thought. The first rule is, That in history, the reflections ought to be chaste and solid; for while the mind is intent upon truth, it is little disposed to the operations of the imagination. Strada's Belgic history is full of poetical images, which discording with the subject, are unpleasant; and they have a still worse effect, by giving an air of fiction to a genuine history. Such flowers ought to be scattered with a sparing hand, even in epic poetry; and at no rate are they proper, till the reader be warmed, and by an enlivened imagination be prepared to relish them in that state of mind they are agreeable; but while we are sedate and attentive to an historical chain of facts, we reject with disdain, every fiction. This Belgic history is indeed wofully vicious both in matter and in form it is stuffed with frigid and unmeaning reflections; and its poetical flashes, even laying aside their improprie ty, are mere tinsel. Second, Vida,* following Horace, recommends a modest commencement of an epic poem; giving for a reason, That the writer ought to husband his fire. This reason has weight; but what is said above suggests a reason still more weighty: bold thoughts and figures are never relished till the mind be heated and thoroughly engaged, which is not the reader's case at the commencement. Homer introduces not a single simile in the first book of the Iliad, nor in the first book of the Odyssey. On the other hand, Shakspeare begins one of his plays with a sentiment too bold for the most heated imagination : Bedford. Hung be the heav'ns with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky, First Part, Henry VI. The passage with which Strada begins his history, is too poetical for a subject of that kind; and at any rate too high for the beginning of a grave per Poet. lib. ii. 1. 30. |