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The cheerfulness 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 judgment:

Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.

Pope's Pastorals, Past. iv. l. 13.

This author, in riper years, is guilty of a much greater deviation from the rule. Dulness 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 make such worship in some degree excusable. Yet in the Dunciad, Dulness without the least disguise, is made the object of worship. The mind rejects such a fiction as unnatural; for dulness is a defect, of which even the dullest mortal is ashamed:

Then he Great tamer of all human art!

First in my care, and ever at my heart;
Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,

With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end,
E'er since Sir Foping's periwig was praise,

To the last honours of the Bull and Bays!
O thou! of bus'ness the directing soul!
To this our head, like bias to the bowl,

Which as more pond'rous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:
O ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still spread a healing mist beford the mind:
And, lest we err by Wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night.

Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and sense;
Or quite unravel all the reas'ning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!

As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urg'd by the load below:
Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity, and fire.

B. 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 one envy the other; for this is wide of any resemblance to reality:

De nostri baci

Meritamenti sia giudice quella,
Che la bocca ha più bella.
Tutte concordemente

Elesser la belissima Amarilli ;

Ed' ella i suoi begli occhi

Dolcemente chinando,

Di modesto rossor tutta si tinse,

E mòstro ben, che non men bella è dentro

Di quel che sia di fuori;

O fosse, che'l bel volto

Avesse invidia all' onorata bocca,

E s'adornasse anch' egli

Della purpurea sua pomposa vesta,
Quasi volesse dir, son bello anch'io.

Pastor Fido, Act II. Sc. 1

Fifthly, The enthusiasm of passion may have the effect to prolong passionate personification: but descriptive personification cannot be despatched in too few words: a circumstantiate 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 burlesque :

Et la flèche en furie, avide de son sang,
Part, vole à lui, l'atteint, et lui perce le flano:

Horace says happily,

Post equitem sedet atra Cura.

Observe 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,
La Chagrin monte en croupe, et galope avec lui.

A poet, in a short and lively expression, may animate his muse, his genius, and even his verse: but to animate his verse, and to address a whole epistle to it, as Boileau doth,* is insupportable.

The following passage is not less 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 despatched 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.

Epistle x.

SECTION II.

Apostrophe.

THIS figure and the former are derived from the same principle. If, to humour 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 portas 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 nequicquam erepte periclis.
Nec vates Helenus, cum multa horrenda moneret,
Hos mihi prædixit luctus; non dira Celæno.

Eneid, iii. 707.

Strike the harp in praise of Bragela, whom I left in the Isle of mist, the spouse of my love. Dost thou raise thy fair face from the rock to find the sails of Cuchullin? The sea is rolling far distant, and its white foam shall deceive thee for my sails. Retire, for it is night my love, and the dark winds sigh in thy hair. Retire to the hall of my feasts, and think of the times that are past; for I will not return tifl the storm of war is gone. O Connal, speak of wars and arms, and send her from my mind: for lovely with her raven-hair is the white-bosom'd daughter of Sorglan.

Speaking of Fingal absent:

Fingal, b. i.

Happy are thy people, O Fingal; thine arm shall fight their battles. Thou art the first in their dangers; the wisest in the days of their peace: thou speakest, and thy thousands obey; and armies tremble at the sound of thy steel. Happy are thy people, O Fingal.

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 Deum, si mens non læva fuisset,
Impulerat ferro Argolicas fœdare latebras :
Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta maneres.

Helena.

Eneid, ii. 54.

-Poor Lord, is't Į

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 III. Sc. 4.

And let them lift ten thousand swords, said Nathos, with a smile the sons of car-horne Usnoth will never tremble in danger. Why dost thou roll with all thy foam, thou roaring sea of Ullin? why do ye rustle on your dark wings, ye whistling tempests of the sky? Do ye think, ye storms, that ye keep Nathos on the coast? No; his soul detains him ; children of the night! Althos, bring my father's arms, &c.

Fingal.

Whither hast thou fled, O wind, said the King of Morven ! Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south, and pursue the shower in other lands? Why comest not thou to my sails, to the blue face of my seas? The foe is in the land of Morven, and the King is absent.

Fingal.

Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-hair'd son of the sky! The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty: they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep; but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy.

Fingal.

Daughter of Heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant. Thou comest forth in loveliness: the stars attend thy blue steps in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O Moon! and brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, daughter of the night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence, and turn aside their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? Hast thou thy hall

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