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requires taste to discern when it is proper, when improper; and taste, I 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,
And say what thou seest yond.

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.

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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 dificult, 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 impropriety, 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 Illiad, 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,

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars,
That have consented unto Henry's death!
Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!
England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.

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.

formance. A third reason ought to have no less influence than either of the former, That a man, who, upon his first appearance, strains to make a figure, is too ostentatious to be relished. Hence the first sentences of a work ought to be short, natural and simple. Cicero, in his oration pro Archia poeta, errs against this rule: his reader is out of breath at the very first period: which seems never to end. Burnet begins the history of his Own Times with a period long and intricate.

A third rule or observation is, That where the subject is intended for entertainment solely, not for instruction, a thing ought to be described as it appears, not as it is in reality. In running, for example, the impulse upon the ground is proportioned in some degree to the celerity of motion: though in appearance it is otherwise; for a person in swift motion seems to skim the ground, and scarcely to touch it. Virgil, with great taste, describes quick running according to appearance; and raises an image far more lively than by adhering scrupulously to truth:

Hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla,
Agmen agens equitum et florentes ære catervas,
Bellatrix non illa colo calathisve Minervæ
Fœmineas assueta manus; sed prælia virgo
Dura pati, cursuque pedum prævertere ventos.
Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret
Gramina nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas ;
Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti,
Ferret iter; seleres nec tingeret æquore plantas,
Eneid, vii. 803.

This example is copied by the author of Telemachus:

Les Brutiens sont legeres à la course comme les cerfs, et comme les daims. On croiroit que l'herbe même la plus tendre n'est point foulée sous leurs pieds; à peine laissentils dans le sable quelques traces de leurs pas,

Liv. X

Again:

Déjà il avoit abattu Eusilas si léger à la course, qu'à peine il imprimoit la trace de ses pas dans le sable, et qui devancoit dans son paysles plus rapides flots de 1 Eurotas et de l'Alphée.

Liv. XX.

Fourth, In narration as well as in description, objects ought to be painted so accurately as to form. in the mind of the reader distinct and lively images. Every useless circumstance ought indeed to be suppressed, because every such circumstance loads the narration; but if a circumstance be necessary, however slight, it cannot be described too minutely. The force of language consists in raising complete images; which have the effect to transport the reader as by magic into the very place of the important action, and to convert him as it were into a spectator, beholding every thing that passes.The narrative in an epic poem ought to rival a picture in the liveliness and accuracy of its representations: no circumstance must be omitted that tends to make a complete image; because an imperfect image, as well as any other imperfect conception, is cold and uninteresting. I shall illustrate this rule by several examples, giving the first place to a beautiful passage from Virgil:

Qualis populea marens Philomela sub umbrâ
Amissos queritur fœtus, quos durus arator
Observans nido implumes detraxit.

Georg. lib. iv. 1. 511.

The poplar, ploughman, and unfledged young, though not essential in the description, tend to make a complete image, and upon that account are an embellishment.

Chapter II. Part i. Sect. 7.

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