The profperity of no empire, nor the grandeur of no king, can so agreeably affect in the reading, as the ruin of the state of Macedon, and the diftrefs of its unhappy prince. Such a catastrophe touches us in hiftory, as much as the deftruction of Troy does in fable. Our delight in cafes of this kind is very greatly heightened, if the fufferer be fome excellent perfon who finks under an unworthy fortune. Scipio and Cato are both virtuous characters; but we are more deeply affected by the violent death of the one, and the ruin of the great caufe he adhered to, than with the deferved triumphs and uninterrupted prosperity of the other; for terror is a paffion which always produces delight when it does not prefs too clofe, and pity is a paffion accompanied with pleasure, because it arifes from love and focial affection. Whenever we are formed by nature to any active purpofe, the paffion which animates us to it is attended with delight, or a pleasure of fome kind, let the fubject matter be what it will; and as our Creator has defigned we should be united together by fo ftrong a bond as that of fympathy, he has therefore twifted along with it a proportionable quantity of this ingredient; and always in the greatest proportion where our fympathy is moft wanted, in the diftreffes of others. If this paffion was fimply painful, we should fhun, with the greatest care, all perfons and places that could excite fuch a paffion; as fome, who are fo far gone in indolence as not to endure any ftrong impreffion, actually do. But the cafe is widely different with the greater part of mankind; there is no spectacle we fo eagerly purfue, as that of fome uncommon and grievous calamity; fo that whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned back to it in hiftory, it always touches with delight; but it is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no fmall uneafinefs. The delight we have in fuch things, hinders us from fhunning fcenes of mifery; and the pain we feel, prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who fuffer; and all this antecedent to any reafoning, by an inftinct that works us to its own purpofes, without our Burke on the Sublime.

concurrence.

§ 92. Tears not unworthy of an Hero. If tears are arguments of cowardice, what fhall I fay of Homer's hero? Shall Achilles pafs for timorous because he wept, and wept on lefs occafions than Eneas? Herein Virgil muft be granted to have excelled his master. For once both heroes

are defcribed lamenting their loft loves: Brifeis was taken away by force from the Grecian; Creufa was loft for ever to her hufband. But Achilles went roaring along the falt fea-fhore, and like a booby was complaining to his mother, when he should have revenged his injury by his arms. Eneas took a nobler courfe; for, having fecured his father and fon, he repeated all his former dangers to have found his wife, if he had been above ground.

And here your lordship may obferve the addrefs of Virgil; it was not for nothing that this paffage was related with all thefe tender circumftances. Eneas told it; Di. do heard it. That he had been fo affectionate a husband, was no ill argument to the coming dowager, that he might prove as kind to her. Virgil has a thousand secret beauties, though I have not leisure to remark them.

Segrais, on the fubject of a hero fhedding tears, obferves, that hiftorians commend Alexander for weeping, when he read the mighty actions of Achilles; and Julius Cæfar is likewise praised, when, out of the fame noble envy, he wept at the victories of Alexander. But if we observe more clofely, we shall find that the tears of Eneas were always on a laudable occafion. Thus he weeps out of compaffion and tenderness of nature, when in the temple of Carthage he beholds the picture of his friends, who facrificed their lives in defence of their country. He deplores the lamentable end of his pilot Palinurus; the untimely death of young Pallas his confederate; and the reft, which I omit. Yet even for these tears, his wretched critics dare condemn him. They make Eneas little better than a kind of St. Swithin's hero, always raining. One of thefe cenfors is bold enough. to arraign him of cowardice, when, in the beginning of the first book, he not only weeps but trembles at an approaching ftorm:

Extemplo Eneæ folvuntur frigore membra: Ingemit, et duplices tendens ad fidera primas, &c.

But to this I have anfwered formerly, that his fear was not for himself, but his people. And what can give a fovereign a bettes commendation, or recommend a hero more to the affection of the reader? They were threatened with a tempeft, and he wept; he was promifed Italy, and therefore he prayed for the accomplishment of that promife. All this in the beginning of a ftorm; therefore he fhewed the more early piety, and the quicker fenfe of com

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paffion.

$93. Terror a Source of the Sublime. No paffion fo effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reafoning as fear; for fear being an apprehenfion of pain of death, it operates in a manner that refembles actual pain. Whatever therefore is terrible with regard to fight, is fublime too, whether this caufe of terror be endued with greatness of dimenfions or not; for it is impoffible to look on any thing as trifling or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the fublime, because they are confidered as objects of terror; as ferpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds. Even to things of great dimenfions, if we annex any adventitious idea of terror, they become without comparifon greater. An even plain of a vaft extent on land, is certainly no mean idea; the prospect of fuch a plain may be as extenfive as a profpect of the ocean; but can it ever fill the mind with any thing fo great as the ocean itfelf? This is owing to feveral caufes, but it is owing to none more than to this, that the ocean is an object of no fmall terror.

Burke on the Sublime.

$94. Tragedy compared with Epic Poetry.

To raife, and afterwards to calm the paffions; to purge the foul from pride, by the examples of human miferies which befal the greatest; in few words, to expel arrogance and introduce compaffion, are the greateft effects of tragedy. Great, I must confefs, if they were altogether as lafting as they are pompous. But are habits to be introduced at three hours warning are radical difeafes fo fuddenly removed? A mountebank may promife fuch a cure, but a filful phyfician will not undertake it. An epic poem is not fo much in hafte; it works leifurely; the changes which it makes are flow; but the cure is likely to be more perfect. The effects of tragedy, as I faid, we too violent to be

lafting. If it be answered, that for this reafon tragedies are often to be feen, and the dofe to be repeated; this is tacitly to confefs, that there is more virtue in one heroic poem, than in many trage dies. A man is humbled one day, and his pride returns the next. Chemical medicines are obferved to relieve oftener than to cure; for it is the nature of fpirits to make fwift impreffions, but not deep. Galenical decoctions, to which I may properly compare an epic poem, have more of body in them; they work by their fubitance and their weight. It is one reafon of Ariftotle's to prove that tragedy is the more noble, because it turns in a fhorter compafs; the whole action being circumfcribed within the space of four-and-twenty hours. He might prove as well that a mushroom is to be preferred before a peach, because it shoots up in the compafs of a night. A chariot may be driven round the pillar in lefs fpace than a large machine, because the bulk is not fo great. Is the moon a more noble planet than Saturn, because the makes her revolution in lefs than thirty days; and he in little lefs than thirty years? Both their orbs are in proportion to their feveral magnitudes; and, confequently, the quicknefs or flowness of their motion, and the time of their circumvolutions, is no argument of the greater or lefs perfection. And befides, what virtue is there in a tragedy, which is not contained in an epic poem? where pride is humbled, virtue rewarded, and vice punished; and thofe more amply treated than the narrowness of the drama can admit the fhining quality of an epic hero, his magnanimity, his conftancy, his patience, his piety, or whatever characteriftical virtue his poet gives him, raises first our admiration we are naturally prone to imitate what we admire; and frequent acts produce a habit. If the hero's chief quality be vicious, as, for example, the choler and obftinate defire of vengeance in Achil les, yet the moral is instructive: and befides, we are informed in the very propofition of the Iliad, that this anger was pernicious: that it brought a thoufand ills on the Grecian camp. The courage of Achil les is propofed to imitation, not his pride and difobedience to his general, nor his brutal cruelty to his dead enemy, nor the felling his body to his father: we abhor thofe actions while we read them, and what we abhor we never imitate: the poet only fhews them, like rocks or quickfands, to be hunned.

By

By this example the critics have concluded, that it is not neceflary the manners of the hero fhould be virtuous. They are poetically good, if they are of a-piece. Though where a character of perfect virtue is fet before us, 'tis more lovely; for there the whole hero is to be imitated. This is the Eneas of Virgil: this is that idea of perfection in an epic poem, which painters and ftatuaries have only in their minds, and which no hands are able to exprefs. These are the beauties of a God in a human body. When the picture of Achilles is drawn in tragedy, he is taken with thofe warts and moles, and hard features, by those who represent him on the stage, or he is no more Achilles; for his creator Homer has so described him. Yet even thus he appears a perfect hero, though an imperfect character of virtue. Horace paints him after Homer, and delivers him to be copied on the stage with all thofe imperfections; therefore they are either not faults in an heroic poem, or faults common to the drama. After all, on the whole merits of the cafe, it must be acknowledged, that the epic poem is more for the manners, and tragedy for the paffions. The paflions, as I have laid, are violent; and acute diftempers require medicines of a ftrong and fpeedy operation. Ill habits of the mind and chronical difeafes are to be corrected by degrees, and cured by alteratives; wherein though purges are fometimes neceffary, yet diet, good air, and moderate exercife, have the greatest part. The matter being thus ftated, it will appear that both forts of poetry are of ufe for their proper ends. The itage is active, the epic poem works at greater leifure, yet is active too, when need requires; for dialogue imitated by the drama, from the more active parts of it. One puts off a fit like the quinquina, and relieves us only for a time; the other roots out the diftemper, and gives a healthful habit. The fun enlightens and chears us, difpels fog, and warins the ground with his daily beams; but the corn is fowed, increases, is ripened, and reaped for ufe, in procefs of time, and its proper feafon. I proceed from the greatnels of the action to the dignity of the actors; I mean, to the perfons employed in both poems. There likewife tragedy will be feen to borrow from the epopee; and that which borrows is always of lefs dignity, becanfe it has not of its own. A fubject, 'tis true, may lend to his fovereign; but the act of borrowing makes the king infe

is

rior, because he wants, and the subject fupplies. And fuppofe the perfons of the drama wholly fabulous, or of the poet's invention, yet heroic poetry gave him the examples of that invention; because it was firft, and Homer the common father of the ftage. I know not of any one advantage which tragedy can boaft above heroic poetry, but that it is reprefented to the view, as well as read; and inftructs in the closet, as well as on the theatre. This is an uncontefted excellence, and a chief branch of its prerogative; yet I may be allowed to fay without partiality, that herein the actors fhare the poet's praife. Your lordship knows fome modern tragedies which are beautiful on the ftage, and yet I am confident you would not read them. Tryphon, the ftationer, complains they are feldom asked for in his fhop. The poet who flourished in the fcene, is damned in the ruelle; nay more, is not efteemed a good poet, by those who see and hear his extravagances with delight. They are a fort of stately fuftian and lofty childishness. Nothing but nature can give a fincere pleasure: where that is not imitated, 'tis grotefque painting; the fine woman ends in a fish's tail. Dryden.

$95. Hiftory of Tranflations. Among the ftudies which have exercised the ingenious and the learned for more than three centuries, none has been more diligently or more fuccessfully cultivated than the art of tranflation; by which the impediments which bar the way to fcience are, in fome measure, removed, and the multiplicity of languages becomes lefs incommodious.

Of every other kind of writing, the ancients have left us models which all fucceeding ages have laboured to imitate; but tranflation may justly be claimed by the moderns as their own. In the firit ages of the world inftruction was commonly oral, and learning traditional, and what was not written could not be tranflated. When alphabetical writing made the conveyance of opinions and the tranfmiffion of events more eafy and certain, literature did not flourish in more than one country at once; for diftant nations had little commerce with each other, and those few whom curiofity fent abroad in queft of improvement, delivered their acquifitions in their own manner, defirous perhaps to be confidered as the inventors of that which they had learned from others.

The