Melancholy is a feeble and passive affection; it is attended by a total relaxation of the muscles, with a mute and tranquil resignation, unaccompanied by opposition either to the cause or the sensibility of the evil. The character, externally, is languor, without motion, the head hanging at the "side next the heart," the eyes turned upon its object, or, if that is absent, fixed upon the ground, the hands hanging down by their own weight, without effort, and joined loosely together. (Fig. 111.) 111 Anxiety is of a different character; it is restless and active, and manifest by the extension of the muscles; the eye is filled with fire, the breathing is quick, the motion is hurried, the head is thrown back, the whole body is 112 extended. The sufferer is like a sick man, who tosses incessantly, and finds himself uneasy in every situation. (Fig. 112.) One of the causes of M. Engel's gestures of analogy is, as he observes, the "disposition of the mind to refer, intellec tual ideas to external objects. When king Lear recollects the barbarous treatment of his daughters, who, in the midst of a stormy night, had exposed his hoary head to the inclemency of the weather; and when he immmediately exclaims O that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that, there is not, in reality, any external object from which this unhappy prince should avert his eyes with horror and yet he turns his head away to the side opposite that to which it was directed before, endeavouring, as it were, with his hand reversed, to banish that cruel and afflicting recollection." (Fig. 113.) 113 The significant gestures, however numerous and correct, which a great actor makes in the representation of an entire dramatic character, bear no proportion to the number of those gestures which do not belong to this class, and which are no less necessary, though they are not so splendid and imposing. The painter is struck by the boldest and finest of the significant gestures, which are called attitudes; and he records them: they are the proper objects of his art; they are striking, and less evanescent than the other gestures which pass unnoticed by him, although they make up by far the greater and more important part of the gestures requisite for illustrating the sentiments. These less prominent gestures give to the declamation its precision and force. A slight movement of the head, a look of the eye, a turn of the hand, a judicious pause, or interruption of gesture, or a change of position in the feet, often illuminates the meaning of a passage, and sends it, full of life and warmth, into the understanding. And the perfection of gesture, in a tragedian, will be found to consist more in the skilful management of the less showy action, than in the exhi bition of the finest attitudes. Attitudes are danger ous to hazard: the whole powers of the man must be wrought up to their highest energy, or they become forced and frigid. Excellent players have been seen. who have never ventured an attitude; but none, deserving the name of excellence, have ever appeared, whose declamation has been deficient in precision or propriety Where all the solid foundation of just and appropriate action has been laid, attitude, when regulated witn taste and discretion, may be added to ornament the superstructure; but, when it is introduced unseasonably, or is overcharged, it is an evidence of deficiency of understanding, as well as of depravity of taste. Fig. 188. Pity and forgiveness. RI Venice Preserved, Act 5, S. 1 |