CHAP. I. of the Su blime and Pathetic. 21. Not only love, however, but its opposite, PART III. hatred or malignity may be sublime in poetry; as that of Shylock, in some scenes of Shakspeare, unquestionably is: not that malignity is a sublime passion; but that, in strong and powerful minds, such as that of Shylock is feigned to be, it is an energetic one; and, consequently, well adapted to excite sentiments and expressions of great and enthusiastic force and vigour; with which we sympathize, and not with the passion itself, which could only excite odious and disgusting feelings; such as every person would be disposed to shun, rather than to seek. 22. In like manner, it is not with the agonies of a man writhing in the pangs of death, that we sympathize, on beholding the celebrated group of Laocoon and his sons; for such sympathies can only be painful and disgusting; but it is with the energy and fortitude of mind, which those agonies call into action and display: for, though every feature and every muscle is convulsed, and every nerve contracted, yet the breast is expanded and authority; (Blair, Lect. iv.) and attributed to a confusion of ideas: but it appears to me that all the confusion is in the critic himself; who, in this, as in many other instances, has confounded the effect of poetical description, or expression of a passion, with the effect of the passion itself; from which, it is widely different; as this author acknowledges in another part of his work. CHAP. I. Pathetic. PART III. the throat compressed to show that he suffers in silence. I therefore still maintain, in spite of the Of the Su- blind and indiscriminate admiration, which peblime and dantry always shows for every thing, which bears the stamp of high authority, that Virgil has debased the character, and robbed it of all its sublimity and grandeur of expression, by making Laocoon roar like a bull*; and, I think, that I may safely affirm that, if any writer of tragedy were to make any one personage of his drama roar out in the same manner, on being mortally wounded, the whole audience would burst into laughter; how pathetic soever the incidents might be, that accompanied it. Homer has been so sensible of this, that in the vast number and variety of deaths, which he has described, he has never made a single Greek cry out on receiving a mortal wound. 23. The means, however, which sculpture and painting have of expressing the energies and affections of the mind are so much more limited, than those of poetry, that their comparative influence upon the passions is very small; per small; few sons looking for any thing more in a picture or a "Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit; statue, than mere exactitude of imitation, or PART III. exertions of technical skill; and when more is CHAP. 1. blime and Pathetic. attempted, its effect never approaches to that of Of the Supoetry; the artist being not only confined to one point of time, but to the mere exterior expressions of feature and gesture; while the poet unlocks the mind, and pours into his verses all its inward sentiments, energies, and affections. 24. When the actor joins his talents to those of the poet, the powers of painting, sculpture, and poetry are all united and improved; wherefore a fine drama well acted may justly be con. sidered as one of the highest of all intellectual gratifications. It is asserted, indeed, by a great critic that familiar comedy only is more powerful in the theatre than in the page; but that imperial tra- < gedy is less so*; to which I can by no means agree; for though it be true, as this author observes, that no voice or gesture can add dignity or force to the soliloquy of Cato, they may add both to that of Lady Macbeth. The philosophical reflections of the stoic, being free from all passion, admit of no enthusiastic expression in the actor, and are therefore unfit for the stage: but the tumultuous effusions of aspiring hopes and atrocious desires, which agitate the bosom of a daring Johnson's Preface to Shakspeare. CHAP. I. Of the Su PART III. and ambitious princess, on her first conceiving designs of murder and usurpation, display the most interesting variety of energetic passions; and, consequently, admit of a higher degree of embellishment from good acting than can be employed in comedy of any kind. blime and Pathetic. 25. As most of the crimes and enormities of mankind arise from the violence of the passions, moralists have endeavoured to win over pride to the side of virtue, by representing all passion as weakness; and considering the energy of reason as the only real energy of the human mind: but, nevertheless, the powers of mental feeling are as much powers of the mind, as those of thinking; and the different degrees of energy, in both, equally mark the different degrees of perfection, or imperfection, in different individuals. Those philosophers, who would exalt the one by sup pressing the other, attempt to form a model of human perfection from a design of their own; which may, indeed, excite our admiration, as a consummate work of art; but will never awaken our sympathies, as a vigorous effusion of nature. The Cato of Addison is the image of a perfect man drawn after one of these artificial models; but the Achilles of Homer is the image of a perfect man, such as came from the hands of the Creator, with every faculty of mind and body formed upon the same scale; so that every act PART III. that he does, and every sentence that he utters, CHAP. I. blime and Pathetic. is marked by the same bold and unrestrained of the Su energy of character: the one is like a yew in a garden, which has been pruned and shorn into a determinate and regular shape, that it may fit its place, and not overshadow or injure the more tender plants, that grow near it: but the other is like an oak in the forest, which spreads its branches widely and irregularly, in every direction, over the smaller trees that surround it; and while it protects some, blights others. 26. No character can be interesting or impressive in poetry, that acts strictly according to reason: for reason excites no sympathies, nor awakens any affections; and its effect is always rather to chill than to infiame. It is possible for the motives of passion in poetical fiction to be too reasonable and too just; so as to give an appearance, of sedate and considerate moral sentiment to that, which can only fulfil its purposes by appearing to be the spontaneous effusion of glowing and enthusiastic feeling. Had Agamemnon degraded Achilles from his rank, or expelled him from his dominions, instead of merely taking away his mistress, his anger would have been more just, but less interesting: as, in such |