1 discord of jarring principles. But the end of dramatic poetry not only requires that the characters be judiciously moulded and aptly circumstanced, but that every passion be naturally expressed. There is certainly a wide difference between the description of the sallies, the repulses, and impatience of a violent affection, whether they are described by the agent or the spectator, and their actual imitation and expression. But perfect imitation can never be effectuated, unless the poet in some measure become the person he represents, clothe himself with his character, assume his manners, and transfer himself into his situation. The texture of his mind must be exquisitely fine and delicate; susceptible of every feeling, and easily moved by every impression. Together with this delicacy of affection, he must possess a peculiar warmth and facility of imagination, by which he may retire from himself, become insensible of his actual condition, and, .regardless of external circumstances, feel the very incidents he invents: like the votaries of a pagan religion, he must worship idols, the works of his own hands, and tremble before the demons of his own creation. Nothing affords a stronger evidence of the active, versatile nature of the soul, and of the amazing rapidity of its motions, than these seemingly inconceivable and inconsistent exertions. Shakespeare, inventing the characters of Hamlet, Macbeth, or Othello, actually felt the passions, and contending emotions ascribed to them. Compare a soliloquy of Hamlet, with one of the descriptions of Rodrigue in the Cid. Nothing can be more natural in the circumstances and with the temper of Hamlet, than the following reflections: O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! O fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature, Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! By what it fed on: and yet, within a month- In the Cid, Rodrigue, who is the hero of the tragedy, and deeply enamoured of Chimene, is called upon to revenge a heinous insult done to his father by the father of his mistress; and he delineates the distress of his situation, in the following manner; certainly with great beauty of expression and versification, and with peculiar elegance of description, but not as a real sufferer: Percé jusqu'au fond du coeur D'une atteinte imprevue aussi bien que mortelle; Miserable vengeur d'une trop juste querelle, This harangue would better suit a descriptive novelist or narrator of the story, than the person actually concerned. Let us make the experiment. Let us change the verbs and pronouns from the first person into the third; and, instead of supposing that Rodrigue speaks, let us imagine that the state of his mind is described by a spectator: "Pierced, even to the heart, by an unfore 66 66 seen, as well as mortal stroke, the mi"serable avenger of a just quarrel, and the unhappy object of unjust severity, he re"mains motionless, and his broken spirit yields to the blow that destroys him." 66 Il demeure immobile, et son ame abattue Try the soliloquy of Hamlet by the same test; and, without inserting the words "he said," which render it dramatic, the change will be impossible. Try also the following lines from Virgil: they are taken from that celebrated and well-known passage, where Dido expresses to Anna the passion she had conceived for Æneas. Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes? It may be observed in general, that, whenever a speech seems proper and intelligible with the change of persons above-mentioned, and without inserting some such words as, "he said," or, " he replied," it is narration, it is description; but can scarcely be called the language of passion. I am aware, that some passages, even in Shakespeare, may be opposed to this observation. When Macbeth returns from the assassination of Duncan, Lady Macbeth tells him to carry back the daggers, and smear with blood the faces of the king's attendants, meaning to fasten upon them the suspicion of the murder. Macbeth replies,— I'll go no more ;— I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on't again, I dare not. Is this the direct and natural expression of |