Part 4

Ch’i’ t’ami piu de la mia vita, Se tu nol fai, crudele, Chiedilo a queste selve, Che te’l diranno, et te’l diran con esso Le fere loro e i duri sterpi, e i sassi Di questi alpestri monti, Ch’i’ ho si spesse volte Inteneriti al suon de’ miei lamenti. _Pastor fido, act 3. sc. 3._

No lover who is not crazed will utter such a sentiment: it is plainly the operation of the writer, indulging his imagination without regard to nature. The same observation is applicable to the following passage.

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woful ages, long ago betid: And ere thou bid goodnight, to quiet their grief, Tell them the lamentable fall of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. For why! the senseless brands will sympathise The heavy accent of thy moving tongue, And in compassion weep the fire out. _Richard II. act 5. sc. 1._

One must read this passage very seriously to avoid laughing. The following passage is quite extravagant: the different parts of the human body are too intimately connected with self, to be personified by the power of any passion; and after converting such a part into a sensible being, it is still worse to make it be conceived as rising in rebellion against self.

_Cleopatra_. Haste, bare my arm, and rouze the serpent’s fury. Coward flesh-------- Would’st thou conspire with Cæsar, to betray me, As thou wert none of mine? I’ll force thee to’t. _Dryden, All for Love, act 5._

Next comes descriptive personification; upon which I must observe in general, that it ought to be cautiously used. A personage in a tragedy, agitated by a strong passion, deals in strong sentiments; and the reader, catching fire by sympathy, relishes the boldest personifications. But a writer, even in the most lively description, ought to take a lower flight, and content himself with such easy personifications as agree with the tone of mind inspired by the description. In plain narrative, again, the mind, serious and sedate, rejects personification altogether. Strada, in his history of the Belgic wars, has the following passage, which, by a strained elevation above the tone of the subject, deviates into burlesk. “Vix descenderat a prætoria navi Cæsar; cum fœda illico exorta in portu tempestas, classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit: quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem, Cæsarisque fortunam[21].” Neither do I approve, in Shakespear, the speech of King John, gravely exhorting the citizens of Angiers to a surrender; though a tragic writer has much greater latitude than a historian. Take the following specimen of this speech.

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath; And ready mounted are they to spit forth Their iron-indignation ’gainst your walls. _Act 2. sc. 3._

Secondly, If extraordinary marks of respect put upon a person of the lowest rank be ridiculous, not less so is the personification of a mean object. This rule chiefly regards descriptive personification: for an object can hardly be mean that is the cause of a violent passion; in that circumstance, at least, it must be an object of importance. With respect to this point, it would be in vain to set limits to personification: taste is the only rule. A poet of superior genius hath more than others the command of this figure; because he hath more than others the power of inflaming the mind. Homer appears not extravagant in animating his darts and arrows: nor Thomson in animating the seasons, the winds, the rains, the dews. He even ventures to animate the diamond, and doth it with propriety.

---- That polish’d bright And all its native lustre let abroad, Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one’s breast, With vain ambition emulate her eyes.

But there are things familiar and base, to which personification cannot descend. In a composed state of mind, to animate a lump of matter even in the most rapid flight of fancy, degenerates into burlesk.

How now? What noise? that spirit’s possess’d with haste, That wounds th’ unresisting postern with these strokes. _Shakespear, Measure for Measure, act 4. sc. 6._

The following little better:

---- Or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o’er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the list’ning waste. _Thomson, Spring, l. 23._

Speaking of a man’s hand cut off in battle:

Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit: Semianimesque micant digiti; ferrumque retractant. _Æneid. x. 395._

The personification here of a hand is insufferable, especially in a plain narration; not to mention that such a trivial incident is too minutely described.

The same observation is applicable to abstract terms, which ought not to be animated unless they have some natural dignity. Thomson, in this article, is quite licentious. Witness the following instances out of many.

O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills! On which _the power of cultivation_ lies, And joys to see the wonders of his toil. _Summer, l. 1423_.

Then sated _Hunger_ bids his brother _Thirst_ Produce the mighty bowl: Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn Mature and perfect, from _his_ dark retreat Of thirty years; and now _his honest front_ Flames in the light refulgent. _Autumn, l. 516._

Thirdly, it is not sufficient to avoid improper subjects. Some preparation is necessary, in order to rouze the mind. The imagination refuses its aid, till it be warmed at least, if not inflamed. Yet Thomson, without the least ceremony or preparation, introduceth each season as a sensible being:

From brightening fields of æther fair disclos’d, Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes, In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth. He comes attended by the sultry hours, And ever-fanning breezes, on his way, While from his ardent look, the turning Spring Averts her blushful face, and earth and skies All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves. _Summer, l. 1._

See _Winter_ comes, to rule the vary’d year, Sullen and sad with all his rising train, _Vapours_, and _clouds_, and _storms_. _Winter, l. 1._

This has violently the air of writing mechanically without taste. It is not natural, that the imagination of a writer should be so much heated at the very commencement; and, at any rate, he cannot expect such ductility in his readers: but if this practice can be justified by authority, Thomson has one of no mean note: Vida begins his first eclogue in the following words.

Dicite, vos Musæ, et juvenum memorate querelas; Dicite; nam motas ipsas ad carmina cautes Et requiesse suos perhibent vaga flumina cursus.

Even Shakespear is not always careful to prepare the mind for this bold figure. Take the following instance:

Upon these taxations, The clothiers all, not able to maintain The many to them ’longing, have put off The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers; who, Unfit for other life, compell’d by hunger And lack of other means, in desp’rate manner Daring th’ event to th’ teeth, are all in uproar, And _Danger_ serves among them. _Henry VIII. act 1. sc. 4._

Fourthly, Descriptive personification ought never to be carried farther than barely to animate the subject: and yet poets are not easily restrained from making this phantom of their own creating behave and act in every respect as if it were really a sensible being. By such licence we lose sight of the subject; and the description is rendered obscure or unintelligible, instead of being more lively and striking. In this view, the following passage, describing Cleopatra on shipboard, appears to me exceptionable.

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were love sick with ’em. _Antony and Cleopatra, act 2. sc. 3._

Let the winds be personified; I make no objection. But to make them love-sick, is too far stretched; having no resemblance to any natural action of wind. In another passage, where Cleopatra is also the subject, the personification of the air is carried beyond all bounds:

The city cast Its people out upon her; and Antony Inthron’d i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to th’ air, which but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, And made a gap in nature. _Antony and Cleopatra, act 2. sc. 3._

The following personification of the earth or soil is not less wild.

She shall be dignify’d with this high honour To bear my Lady’s train; lest the base earth Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss; And of so great a favour growing proud, Disdain to root the summer swelling flower, And make rough winter everlastingly. _The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. sc. 7._

Shakespear, far from approving such intemperance of imagination, puts this speech in the mouth of a ranting lover. Neither can I relish what follows.

Omnia quæ, Phœbo quondam meditante, beatus Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros, Ille canit. _Virgil, Buc. vi. 82._

The chearfulness singly of a pastoral song, will scarce support personification in the lowest degree. But admitting, that a river gently flowing may be imagined a sensible being listening to a song, I cannot enter into the conceit of the river’s ordering his laurels to learn the song. Here all resemblance to any thing real is quite lost. This however is copied literally by one of our greatest poets; early indeed, before maturity of taste or judgement.

Thames heard the numbers as he flow’d along, And bade his willows learn the moving song. _Pope’s Pastorals, past. 4. l. 13._

This author, in riper years, is guilty of a much greater deviation from the rule. Dullness may be imagined a deity or idol, to be worshipped by bad writers: but then some sort of disguise is requisite, some bastard virtue must be bestowed, to give this idol a plausible appearance. Yet in the _Dunciad_, dullness, without the least disguise, is made the object of worship. The mind rejects such a fiction as unnatural; for dullness is a defect, of which even the dullest mortal is ashamed:

Then he: great tamer of all human art, &c. _Book i. 163._

The following instance is stretched beyond all resemblance. It is bold to take a part or member of a living creature, and to bestow upon it life, volition, and action: after animating two such members, it is still bolder to make them envy each other; for this is wide of any resemblance to reality:

De nostri baci Meritamente sia giudice quella, &c. _Pastor Fido, act 2. sc. 1._

Fifthly, The enthusiasm of passion may have the effect to prolong passionate personification: but descriptive personification cannot be dispatched in too few words. A minute description dissolves the charm, and makes the attempt to personify appear ridiculous. Homer succeeds in animating his darts and arrows: but such personification spun out in a French translation, is mere burlesk:

Et la fléche en furie, avide de son sang, Part, vole à lui, l’atteint, et lui perce le flanc.

Horace says happily, “Post equitem sedet atra Cura.” See how this thought degenerates by being divided, like the former, into a number of minute parts:

Un fou rempli d’erreurs, que le trouble accompagne Et malade à la ville ainsi qu’à la campagne, En vain monte à cheval pour tromper son ennui, Le Chagrin monte en croupe et galope avec lui.

The following passage is, if possible, still more faulty.

Her fate is whisper’d by the gentle breeze, And told in sighs to all the trembling trees; The trembling trees, in ev’ry plain and wood, Her fate remurmur to the silver flood; The silver flood, so lately calm, appears Swell’d with new passion, and o’erflows with tears; The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore, Daphne, our grief! our glory! now no more. _Pope’s Pastorals, iv. 61._

Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a single expression. Even in that case, the figure seldom has a good effect; because grief or love of the pastoral kind, are causes rather too faint for so violent an effect as imagining the winds, trees, or floods, to be sensible beings. But when this figure is deliberately spread out with great regularity and accuracy through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is struck with its ridiculous appearance.

SECT. II.

_APOSTROPHE._

This figure and the former are derived from the same principle. If, to gratify a plaintive passion, we can bestow a momentary sensibility upon an inanimate object, it is not more difficult to bestow a momentary presence upon a sensible being who is absent.

Hinc Drepani me portus et illætabilis ora Accipit. Hic, pelagi tot tempestatibus actus, Heu! genitorem, omnis curæ casusque levamen, Amitto Anchisen: _hic me pater optime fessum Deseris_, heu! tantis nequiequam erepte periclis. Nec vates Helenus, cum multa horrenda moneret, Hos mihi prædixit luctus; non dira Celæno. _Æneid. iii. 707._

This figure is sometimes joined with the former: things inanimate, to qualify them for listening to a passionate expostulation, are not only personified, but also conceived to be present.

Et, si fata Deûm, si mens non læva fuisset, Impulerat ferro Argolicas fœdare latebras: _Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres_. _Æneid. ii. 54._

_Helena._---- Poor Lord, is’t I That chase thee from thy country, and expose Those tender limbs of thine to the event Of non-sparing war? And is it I That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers, That ride upon the violent speed of fire, Fly with false aim; pierce the still moving air, That sings with piercing; do not touch my Lord. _All’s well that ends well, act 3. sc. 4._

This figure, like all others, requires an agitation of mind. In plain narrative, as, for example, in giving the genealogy of a family, it has no good effect:

----Fauno Picus pater; isque parentem Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor. _Æneid. vii. 48._

SECT. III.

_HYPERBOLE._

In this figure we have another effect of the foregoing principle. An object uncommon with respect to size, either very great of its kind or very little, strikes us with surprise; and this emotion, like all others, prone to gratification, forces upon the mind a momentary conviction that the object is greater or less than it is in reality. The same effect, precisely, attends figurative grandeur or littleness. Every object that produceth surprise by its singularity, is always seen in a false light while the emotion subsists: circumstances are exaggerated beyond truth; and it is not till after the emotion subsides, that things appear as they are. A writer, taking advantage of this natural delusion, enriches his description greatly by the hyperbole. And the reader, even in his coolest moments, relishes this figure, being sensible that it is the operation of nature upon a warm fancy.

It will be observed, that a writer is generally more successful in magnifying by a hyperbole than in diminishing: a minute object contracts the mind, and fetters its power of conception; but the mind, dilated and inflamed with a grand object, moulds objects for its gratification with great facility. Longinus, with respect to the diminishing power of a hyperbole, cites the following ludicrous thought from a comic poet. “He was owner of a bit of ground not larger than a Lacedemonian letter.[22]” But, for the reason now given, the hyperbole has by far the greater force in magnifying objects; of which take the following specimen.

For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

_Genesis xiii. 15. 16._

Illa vel intactæ segetis per summa volaret Gramina: nec teneras cursu læsisset aristas. _Æneid. vii. 808._

---- Atque imo barathri ter gurgite vastos Sorbet in abruptum fluctus, rursusque sub auras Erigit alternos, et sidera verberat undà. _Æneid. iii. 421._

---- Horrificis juxta tonat Ætna ruinis, Interdumque atram prorumpit ad æthera nubem, Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla: Attollitque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit. _Æneid. iii. 571._

Speaking of Polyphemus,

---- Ipse arduus, altaque pulsat Sidera. _Æneid. iii. 619._

---- When he speaks, The air, a charter’d libertine, is still. _Henry V. act 1. sc. 1._

Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet clos’d, To armour armour, lance to lance oppos’d, Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew, The sounding darts in iron tempests flew, Victors and vanquish’d join promiscuous cries, And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise; With streaming blood the slipp’ry fields are dy’d, And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide. _Iliad iv. 508._

The following may also pass, though stretched pretty far.

Econjungendo à temerario ardire Estrema forza, e infaticabil lena Vien che si’ impetuoso il ferro gire, Che ne trema la terra, e’l ciel balena. _Gierusalem, cant. 6. st. 46._

Quintilian[23] is sensible that this figure is natural. “For,” says he, “not contented with truth, we naturally incline to augment or diminish beyond it; and for that reason the hyperbole is familiar even among the vulgar and illiterate.” And he adds, very justly, “That the hyperbole is then proper, when the subject of itself exceeds the common measure.” From these premisses, one would not expect the following conclusion, the only reason he can find for justifying this figure of speech. “Conceditur enim amplius dicere, quia dici quantum est, non potest: meliusque ultra quam citra stat oratio.” (We are indulged to say more than enough, because we cannot say enough; and it is better to be over than under). In the name of wonder, why this slight and childish reason, when immediately before he had made it evident, that the hyperbole is founded on human nature? I could not resist this personal stroke of criticism, intended not against our author, for no human creature is exempt from error; but against the blind veneration that is paid to the ancient classic writers, without distinguishing their blemishes from their beauties.

Having examined the nature of this figure, and the principle on which it is erected; I proceed, as in the first section, to some rules by which it ought to be governed. And in the first place, it is a capital fault to introduce an hyperbole in the description of an ordinary object or event which creates no surprise. In such a case, the hyperbole is altogether unnatural, being destitute of surprise, the only foundation that can support it. Take the following instance, where the subject is extremely familiar, _viz._ swimming to gain the shore after a shipwreck.

I saw him beat the surges under him, And ride upon their backs; he trode the water; Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head ’Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar’d Himself with his good arms, in lusty strokes To th’ shore, that o’er his wave-born basis bow’d, As stooping to relieve him. _Tempest, act 2. sc. 1._

In the next place, it may be gathered from what is said, that an hyperbole can never suit the tone of any dispiriting passion. Sorrow in particular will never prompt such a figure; and for that reason the following hyperboles must be condemned as unnatural.

_K. Rich._ Aumerle, thou weep’st, my tender-hearted cousin! We’ll make foul weather with despised tears; Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer-corn, And make a dearth in this revolting land. _Richard II. Act 3. Sc. 6._

Draw them to Tyber’s bank, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. _Julius Cæsar, act 1. sc. 1._

Thirdly, a writer, if he wish to succeed, ought always to have the reader in his eye. He ought in particular never to venture a bold thought or expression, till the reader be warmed and prepared for it. For this reason, an hyperbole in the beginning of any work can never be in its place. Example:

Jam pauca aratro jugera regiæ Moles relinquent. _Horat. Carm. lib. 2. ode. 15._

In the fourth place, the nicest point of all, is to ascertain the natural limits of an hyperbole, beyond which being overstrained it has a bad effect. Longinus, in the above-cited chapter, with great propriety of thought, enters a caveat against an hyperbole of this kind. He compares it to a bowstring, which relaxes by overstraining, and produceth an effect directly opposite to what is intended. I pretend not to ascertain any precise boundary: the attempt would be difficult, if not impracticable. I must therefore be satisfied with an humbler task, which is, to give a specimen of what I reckon overstrained hyperboles; and I shall be also extremely curt upon this subject, because examples are to be found every where. No fault is more common among writers of inferior rank; and instances are found even among those of the finest taste; witness the following hyperbole, too bold even for an Hotspur.

Hotspur talking of Mortimer:

In single opposition hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower. Three times they breath’d, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood; Who then affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp’d head in the hollow bank Blood-stained with these valiant combatants. _First Part Henry IV. act 1. sc. 4._

Speaking of Henry V.

England ne’er had a King until his time: Virtue he had, deserving to command: His brandish’d sword did blind men with its beams: His arms spread wider than a dragon’s wings: His sparkling eyes, replete with awful fire, More dazzled, and drove back his enemies, Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces. What should I say? his deeds exceed all speech: He never lifted up his hand, but conquer’d. _First Part Henry VI. act 1. sc. 1._

Lastly, an hyperbole after it is introduced with all advantages, ought to be comprehended within the fewest words possible. As it cannot be relished but in the hurry and swelling of the mind, a leisurely view dissolves the charm, and discovers the description to be extravagant at least, and perhaps also ridiculous. This fault is palpable in a sonnet which passeth for one of the most complete in the French language. Phillis is made as far to outshine the sun as he outshines the stars.

Le silence regnoit sur la terre et sur l’onde, L’air devenoit serain, _&c._ _Collection of French epigrams, vol. 1. p. 66._

There is in Chaucer a thought expressed in a single line, which sets a young beauty in a more advantageous light, than the whole of this much-laboured poem.

Up rose the sun, and up rose Emelie.

SECT. IV.

_The means or instrument conceived to be the agent._