Volume Ii Part 8 (2/2)

So when Contagion with mephitic breath And withered Famine urged the work of death; 435 Ma.r.s.eilles' good Bishop, London's generous Mayor, With food and faith, with medicine and with prayer, Raised the weak head and stayed the parting sigh, Or with new life relumed the swimming eye.-- 440 --And now, PHILANTHROPY! thy rays divine Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line; O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light, Like northern l.u.s.tres o'er the vault of night.--

[_Ma.r.s.eillle's good Bishop_. l. 435. In the year 1720 and 1722 the Plague made dreadful havock at Ma.r.s.eilles; at which time the Bishop was indefatigable in the execution of his pastoral office, visiting, relieving, encouraging, and absolving the sick with extream tenderness; and though perpetually exposed to the infection, like Sir John Lawrence mentioned below, they both are said to have escaped the disease.]

[_London's generous Mayor_, l. 435. During the great Plague at London in the year 1665, Sir John Lawrence, the then Lord Mayor, continued the whole time in the city; heard complaints, and redressed them; enforced the wisest regulations then known, and saw them executed. The day after the disease was known with certainty to be the Plague, above 40,000 servants were dismissed, and turned into the streets to perish, for no one would receive them into their houses; and the villages near London drove them away with pitch-forks and fire-arms. Sir John Lawrence supported them all, as well as the needy who were sick, at first by expending his own fortune, till subscriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation. _Journal of the Plague-year, Printed for E. Nutt, &c. at the R. Exchange_. 1722.]

From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd, Where'er Mankind and Misery are found, 445 O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow, Thy HOWARD journeying seeks the house of woe.

Down many a winding step to dungeons dank, Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank; To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone, 450 And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan; Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose, No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows, HE treads, inemulous of fame or wealth, Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health; 455 With soft a.s.suasive eloquence expands Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands; Leads stern-ey'd Justice to the dark domains, If not to fever, to relax the chains; Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom, 460 And shews the prison, sister to the tomb!-- Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife, To her fond husband liberty and life!-- --The Spirits of the Good, who bend from high Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye, 465 When first, array'd in VIRTUE'S purest robe, They saw her HOWARD traversing the globe; Saw round his brows her sun-like Glory blaze In arrowy circles of unwearied rays; Mistook a Mortal for an Angel-Guest, 470 And ask'd what Seraph-foot the earth imprest.

--Onward he moves!--Disease and Death retire, And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire.”

Here paused the G.o.ddess,--on HYGEIA'S shrine Obsequious Gnomes repose the lyre divine; 475 Descending Sylphs relax the trembling strings, And catch the rain-drops on their shadowy wings.

--And now her vase a modest Naiad fills With liquid crystal from her pebbly rills; Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn, 480 (Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling f.a.ggots burn), Culls the green herb of China's envy'd bowers, In gaudy cups the steamy treasure pours; And, sweetly-smiling, on her bended knee Presents the fragrant quintessence of Tea.

INTERLUDE II.

_Bookseller._ The monsters of your Botanic Garden are as surprising as the bulls with brazen feet, and the fire-breathing dragons, which guarded the Hesperian fruit; yet are they not disgusting, nor mischievous: and in the manner you have chained them together in your exhibition, they succeed each other amusingly enough, like prints of the London Cries, wrapped upon rollers, with a gla.s.s before them. In this at least they resemble the monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses; but your similies, I suppose, are Homeric?

_Poet._ The great Bard well understood how to make use of this kind of ornament in Epic Poetry. He brings his valiant heroes into the field with much parade, and sets them a fighting with great fury; and then, after a few thrusts and parries, he introduces a long string of similies. During this the battle is supposed to continue; and thus the time necessary for the action is gained in our imaginations; and a degree of probability produced, which contributes to the temporary deception or reverie of the reader.

But the similies of Homer have another agreeable characteristic; they do not quadrate, or go upon all fours (as it is called), like the more formal similies of some modern writers; any one resembling feature seems to be with him a sufficient excuse for the introduction of this kind of digression; he then proceeds to deliver some agreeable poetry on this new subject, and thus converts every simile into a kind of short episode.

_B._ Then a simile should not very accurately resemble the subject?

_P._ No; it would then become a philosophical a.n.a.logy, it would be ratiocination instead of poetry: it need only so far resemble the subject, as poetry itself ought to resemble nature. It should have so much sublimity, beauty, or novelty, as to interest the reader; and should be expressed in picturesque language, so as to bring the scenery before his eye; and should lastly bear so much veri-similitude as not to awaken him by the violence of improbability or incongruity.

_B._ May not the reverie of the reader be dissipated or disturbed by disagreeable images being presented to his imagination, as well as by improbable or incongruous ones? _P_. Certainly; he will endeavour to rouse himself from a disagreeable reverie, as from the night-mare. And from this may be discovered the line of boundary between the Tragic and the Horrid: which line, however, will veer a little this way or that, according to the prevailing manners of the age or country, and the peculiar a.s.sociations of ideas, or idiosyncracy of mind, of individuals.

For instance, if an artist should represent the death of an officer in battle, by shewing a little blood on the bosom of his s.h.i.+rt, as if a bullet had there penetrated, the dying figure would affect the beholder with pity; and if fort.i.tude was at the same time expressed in his countenance, admiration would be added to our pity. On the contrary, if the artist should chuse to represent his thigh as shot away by a cannon ball, and should exhibit the bleeding flesh and shattered bone of the stump, the picture would introduce into our minds ideas from a butcher's shop, or a surgeon's operation-room, and we should turn from it with disgust. So if characters were brought upon the stage with their limbs disjointed by torturing instruments, and the floor covered with clotted blood and scattered brains, our theatric reverie would be destroyed by disgust, and we should leave the play-house with detestation.

The Painters have been more guilty in this respect than the Poets; the cruelty of Apollo in flaying Marcias alive is a favourite subject with the antient artists: and the tortures of expiring martyrs have disgraced the modern ones. It requires little genius to exhibit the muscles in convulsive action either by the pencil or the chissel, because the interstices are deep, and the lines strongly defined: but those tender gradations of muscular action, which const.i.tute the graceful att.i.tudes of the body, are difficult to conceive or to execute, except by a master of nice discernment and cultivated taste. _B._ By what definition would you distinguish the Horrid from the Tragic?

_P._ I suppose the latter consists of Distress attended with Pity, which is said to be allied to Love, the most agreeable of all our pa.s.sions; and the former in Distress, accompanied with Disgust, which is allied to Hate, and is one of our most disagreeable sensations. Hence, when horrid scenes of cruelty are represented in pictures, we wish to disbelieve their existence, and voluntarily exert ourselves to escape from the deception: whereas the bitter cup of true Tragedy is mingled with some sweet consolatory drops, which endear our tears, and we continue to contemplate the interesting delusion with a delight which it is not easy to explain.

_B._ Has not this been explained by Lucretius, where he describes a s.h.i.+pwreck; and says, the Spectators receive pleasure from feeling themselves safe on land? and by Akenside, in his beautiful poem on the Pleasures of Imagination, who ascribes it to our finding objects for the due exertion of our pa.s.sions?

_P_. We must not confound our sensations at the contemplation of real misery with those which we experience at the scenical representations of tragedy. The spectators of a s.h.i.+pwreck may be attracted by the dignity and novelty of the object; and from these may be said to receive pleasure; but not from the distress of the sufferers. An ingenious writer, who has criticised this dialogue in the English Review for August, 1789, adds, that one great source of our pleasure from scenical distress arises from our, at the same time, generally contemplating one of the n.o.blest objects of nature, that of Virtue triumphant over every difficulty and oppression, or supporting its votary under every suffering: or, where this does not occur, that our minds are relieved by the justice of some signal punishment awaiting the delinquent. But, besides this, at the exhibition of a good tragedy, we are not only amused by the dignity, and novelty, and beauty, of the objects before us; but, if any distressful circ.u.mstances occur too forcible for our sensibility, we can voluntarily exert ourselves, and recollect, that the scenery is not real: and thus not only the pain, which we had received from the apparent distress, is lessened, but a new source of pleasure is opened to us, similar to that which we frequently have felt on awaking from a distressful dream; we are glad that it is not true. We are at the same time unwilling to relinquish the pleasure which we receive from the other interesting circ.u.mstances of the drama; and on that account quickly permit ourselves to relapse into the delusion; and thus alternately believe and disbelieve, almost every moment, the existence of the objects represented before us.

_B_. Have those two sovereigns of poetic land, HOMER and SHAKESPEAR, kept their works entirely free from the Horrid?--or even yourself in your third Canto?

_P_. The descriptions of the mangled carca.s.ses of the companions of Ulysses, in the cave of Polypheme, is in this respect certainly objectionable, as is well observed by Scaliger. And in the play of t.i.tus Andronicus, if that was written by Shakespear (which from its internal evidence I think very improbable), there are many horrid and disgustful circ.u.mstances. The following Canto is submitted to the candour of the critical reader, to whose opinion I shall submit in silence.

THE

LOVES

OF THE

PLANTS.

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