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scription at all the less upon this account. What is faid of Helen by Priam and the old men of his council, is generally thought to give us the highest poffible idea of that fatal beauty.

Ου νεμεσις Τρωας και ευκνημίδας Αχαιες,
Τοιηδ' αμφι γυναικι πολυν χρονον αλγεα πασχειν
Αινως δ' αθαναλησι θεης εις ωπα εοικεν.

They cry'd, no wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have fet the world in arms s
What winning graces! what majestick mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.

POPE.

Here is not one word faid of the particulars of her beauty; nothing which can in the least help us to any precife idea of her person; but yet we are much more touched by this manner of mentioning her than by those long and laboured descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition, or formed by fancy, which are to be met with in fome authors. I am fure it affects me much more than the minute description which Spenfer has given of Belphebe; though I own that there are, parts in that description, as there are in all the descriptions of that excellent writer, extremely fine and poetical. The terrible picture which Lucretius has drawn of religion, in order to display

the

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the magnanimity of his philosophical hero in oppofing her, is thought to be designed with great boldness and spirit :

Humana ante oculos fœdè cum vita jaceret,
In terris, oppreffa gravi fub religione,
Quæ caput e cæli regionibus oftendebat
Horribili fuper aspectu mortalibus inftans ;
Primus Graius homo mortales tollere contra
Eft oculos aufus.--

What idea do you derive from so excellent a pic. ture? none at all, most certainly; neither has the poet faid a fingle word which might in the leaft serve to mark a fingle limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to reprefent in all the horrours imagination can conceive. In reality poetry and rhetorick do not fucceed in exact description so well as painting does; their business is, to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present a clear idea of the things themselves. This is their most extensive province, and that in which they fucceed the best,

SECT.

SECT. VI.

POETRY NOT STRICTLY AN IMITATIVE ART.

HENCE we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general fenfe, cannot with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It is indeed an imitation so far as it describes the manners and paffions of men which their words can exprefs; where animi motus effert interprete lingua. There it is strictly imitation; and all merely dramatick poetry is of this fort. But defcriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution; by means of founds, which by custom have the effect of realities. Nothing is an imitation further than as it resembles fome other thing; and words undoubtedly have no fort of resemblance to the ideas for which they ftand.

SECT. VII.

HOW WORDS INFLUENCE THE PASSIONS.

NOW, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation, it might be fuppofed, that their influence over the paffions should be but light; yet it is quite otherwise; for we find by experience that eloquence and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of making deep and lively impressions than any other arts, arts, and even than nature itself in very many cafes. And this arises chiefly from these three causes. First, that we take an extraordinary part in the paffions of others, and that we are eafily affected and brought into fympathy by any tokens which are shewn of them; and there are no tokens which can express all the circumstances of most paffions fo fully as words; so that if a perfon fpeaks upon any fubject, he can not only convey the fubject to you, but likewife the manner in which he is himself affected by it. Certain it is, that the influence of most things on our paffions is not fo much from the things themselves, as from our opinions concerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only. Secondly, there are many things of a very affecting nature, which can feldom occur in the reality, but the words which represent them often do; and thus they have an opportunity of making a deep impression and taking root in the mind, whilst the idea of the reality was tranfient; and to fome perhaps never really occurred in any shape, to whom it is notwithstanding very affecting, as war, death, famine, &c. Besides many ideas have never been at all presented to the fenfes of any men but by words, as God, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over the passions. Thirdly, by words we

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have it in our power to make such combinations as we cannot poffibly do otherwise. By this power of combining we are able, by the addition of wellchosen circumstances, to give a new life and force to the simple object. In painting we may represent any fine figure we please; but we never can give it those enlivening touches which it may receive from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw a beautiful young man winged: but what painting can furnish any thing fo grand as the addition of one word, " the angel " of the Lord?" It is true, I have here no clear idea; but these words affect the mind more than the sensible image did; which is all I contend for. A picture of Priam dragged to the altar's foot, and there murdered, if it were well executed, would undoubtedly be very moving; but there are very aggravating circumstances, which it could never reprefent:

Sanguine fædantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes.

As a further instance, let us confider those lines of Milton, where he defcribes the travels of the fallen angels through their difmal habitation:

-O'er many a dark and dreary vale
They pass'd, and many a region dolorous;
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp;

Rocks,

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