ternal ftate of mind, and fo far we shall be moved: but the direct and immediate way to the heart is by the Sufferer's expreffion of his paffion. As there may be fome obfcurity in what I have faid on this fubject, I will endeavour to illuftrate the doctrine by examples.

Sophocles, in his admirable Tragedy of dipus Coloneus, makes

tulate with his undutiful fon.

dipus expofThe injured

parent exposes the enormity of filial disobedience; sets forth the duties of this relation in a very ftrong and lively manner; but it is only by the vehemence with which he speaks of them, and the imprecations he utters against the delinquent fon, that we can guess at the violence of his emotions; therefore he excites more indignation at the conduct of Polynices, than fympathy with his own forrow; of which we can judge only as Spectators: for he has explained to us merely the external duties and relations of Parent and Child. The pangs of paternal

tenderness, thus wounded, are more pathetically expreffed by King Lear, who leaves out whatever of this enormity is equally fenfible to the fpectator, and immediately exposes to us his own internal feelings, when, in the bitterness of his foul, curfing his daughter's offspring, he adds,

That she may feel,

How sharper than a ferpent's tooth it is,
To have a thankless child.

By this we perceive, how deeply paternal affection is wounded by filial ingratitude.

In the play of King John, the legate offers many arguments of confolation to Constance, on the lofs of Arthur; they appear, to the Spectator, reafonable, till fhe fo ftrongly expreffes the peculiar tenderness of maternal love, by answering,

He speaks to me that never had a fon.

One might be made to conceive, in fome

degree,

degree, the horrors of a murderer, under whose knife the bleeding victim is expiring in agonies, by a description of the unhappy object; but how fully, and how forcibly is the consciousness of guilt expreffed by Macbeth, when, speaking of the grooms who lay near Duncan, he says,

MACBETH.

One cry'd, God blefs us! and Amen! the other;
As they had feen me with these hangman's hands,
Liftening their fear. I could not say, Amen,
When they did fay, God bless us !

These expreffions open to us the internal state of the perfons interested, and never fail to command our fympathy. Shakespear feems to have had the art of the Dervife, in the Arabian tales, who could throw his foul into the body of another man, and be at once poffeffed of his fentiments, adopt his paffions, and rife to all the functions and feelings of his situation.

Shakespear was born in a rank of life, in which

C2

which men indulge themselves in a free expreffion of their paffions, with little regard to exterior appearance. This perhaps made him more acquainted with the emotions of the heart, and lefs knowing or obfervant of outward forms: against the one he often offends, he very rarely misrepresents the other. contrary, attend not to the nature of the Man, whom they reprefent, but to the decorums of his Rank: fo that their best tragedies are made ridiculous, by changing the condition of the persons of the drama; which could not be fo eafily effected, if they spoke the language of paffion, which in all ranks of men is much alike. This kind of exterior reprefentation falls intirely fhort of the intention of the Drama: and indeed many Plays are little more than Poems rehearsed; and the theatrical decorations are used rather to improve the Spectacle, than to affift the Drama, of which the Poet remains the apparent hero. We are told by a French Critic, that the great pleasure of a French audience

The French tragedians, on the

arifes

arifes from a reflection on the difficulty of rhyming in that language.-If that be the case, it is plain neither the French Tragedians endeavour at, nor their Audience expect from them, the true perfections of the Drama. For, by the fame rule, if Hercules was reprefented under the difficulties of performing any of the tasks enjoined by Euryftheus, the attention of the Audience would not be engaged fo much to the means, by which he atchieved his heroic labours, as to the fweat and toil of the Poet in his closet, in afforting male and female rhymes. We have already remarked, that the more we revert from the Stage to the Poet, the lefs we shall be affected by what is acted; and therefore if the difficulty of rhyme, and its apparent difference from the common language of dialogue, be fuch, as continually to fet the Art and the Artist before our eyes, the specific merit of a piece intended to conceal the Poet, and represent certain perfons and events, does not, in any degree, exist in such compofitions. Sophocles certainly unfolds the fatal myftery

C 3