would have been able to fupport the reprefentation. As to the probability of these mixed compofitions, it admits of no doubt. Nature every where prefents a fimilar mixture of tragedy and comedy, of joy and forrow, of laughter and folemnity, in the common affairs of life. The fervants of a court know little of what paffes among princes and statesmen, and may therefore, like the porter in Macbeth, be very jocular when their fuperiors are in deep diftrefs. The death of a favourite child is a great affliction to parents and friends; but the man who digs the grave may, like Goodman Delver in Hamlet, be very chearful while he is going about his work. A confpiracy may be dangerous; but the constable who apprehends the traitors may, like Dogberry, be a ludicrous character, and his very abfurdities may be inftrumental in bringing the plot to light, as well as in delaying or haftening forward the difcovery. I grant, that compofitions, like thofe 1 would now apologize for, cannot properly be called either tragedies or comedies: but the name is of no confequence; let them be called Plays and if in them nature is imitated in fuch a way as to give pleasure and inftruction, they are as well entitled to the denomination of Dramatic Poems, as any thing in Sophocles, Racine, or Voltaire.- But to

breast," of whom they who wish to see the stage transformed into a school of virtue, complain, that his influence in the modern drama is too defpotical. Love, kept within due bounds, is no doubt, as the fong fays, a gentle and a generous paf"fion;" but no other paffion has so strong a tendency to tranfgrefs the due bounds: and the frequent contemplation of its various ardours and agonies, as exhibited in plays and novels, can scarce fail to enervate the mind, and to raise emotions and fympathies unfriendly to innocence. And certain it is, that fables in which there is neither love nor gallantry, may be made highly interesting even to the fancy and affections of a modern reader. This appears, not only from the writings of Shakespeare, and other great authors, but from the Pilgrim's Progrefs of Bunyan, and the history of Robinfon Crufoe: than which laft, there is not perhaps in any language a more interesting narrative; or a tale better contrived for communicating to the reader a lively idea of the importance of the mechanic arts, of the fweets of focial life, and of the dignity of independence.

PART

7

PART ÌÌ.

OF THE LANGUAGE OF POE

TRY.

H

AVING finished what I intended to say on the general nature of Poetry, as an Imitative Art, I proceed to confider the INSTRUMENT which it employs in its imitations; or, in other words, to explain the General Nature of POETIC LANGUAGE. For language is the poet's inftrument of imitation, as found is the musician's, and colour the painter's. My conclufions on this part of the fubject will be found to terminate in the principles already laid down.

Words in Poetry are chofen, firft, for their fenfe; and, fecondly, for their found. That the first of these grounds of choice is the more excellent, nobody can deny. He who in literary matters prefers found to fenfe, is a fool. Yet found is to be attended to, even in profe; and in verfe demands particular attention.

attention. I fhall confider Poetical Language, first, as SIGNIFICANT; and, fecondly, as

SUSCEPTIBLE OF HARMONY,

СНАР. І.

Of Poetical Language, confidered as fignificant.

I

as I have endeavoured to prove, Poetry be imitative of Nature, poetical fictions of real events, poetical images of real appearances in the visible creation, and poetical perfonages of real human characters; it would feem to follow, that the language of Poetry must be an imitation of the language of Nature. For nothing but what is fuppofed to be natural can pleafe; and language, as well as fable, imagery, and moral defcription, may displease, by being unnatural. What then is meant by Natural Language? This comes to be our first inquiry.

SECT,

THE

SECT. I.

An idea of Natural Language.

'HE term Natural Language has fometimes been used by philofophers to denote thofe tones of the human voice, attitudes of the body, and configurations of the features, which, being naturally expreffive of certain emotions of the foul, are univerfal among mankind, and every where understood. Thus anger, fear, pity, adoration, joy, contempt, and almost every other paffion, has a look, attitude, and tone of voice, peculiar to itself; which would seem to be the effect, not of men imitating one another, but of the foul operating upon the body; and which, when well expreffed in a picture or statue, or when it appears in human behaviour, is understood by all mankind, as the external fign of that paffion which it is for the most part obferved to accompany. In this acceptation, natural language is contradiftinguished to thofe articulate voices to which the name of Speech has been appropriated; and which are alfo univerfal among mankind, though different in different nations; but derive all their meaning from human compact and artifice, and are not understood except by

2

those