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which the short sentence "Conclamant vir, paterque," has a great effect. An injudicious writer would in this case have introduced long and laborious speeches, and have destroyed both nature and pathos.

The other mode of exciting pathetic feelings is by dilating on the subject, and bringing to view every tender and pathetic circumstance. For an historical example of this, I need only refer to the description of Agrippina's return after the death of Germanicus, in Tacitus. A charming example also may be found in the Song of Deborah and Barak, in the book of Judges, where the mother of Sisera is described as anxiously expecting his return:

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Through the window she looked and cried out,
"The mother of Sisera through the lattice;
"Wherefore is his chariot so long in coming?
"Wherefore linger the wheels of his chariot ?
"Her wise ladies answer her;

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Yea she returns answer to herself:

Have they not found....have they not divided the spoil,
To every man a damsel, yea a damsel or two?

To Sisera a spoil of divers colours,

"A spoil for the neck, of divers colours of needle-work."

It depends upon the taste and skill of the writer to employ that mode of exciting pathetic emotions which is best adapted to his subject. The circumstantial method, though the most general, and indeed the most powerful, is very apt, in unskilful hands, to become frigid declamation. I never, on this account, could admire the French tragedies. Racine has less of bombast than Corneille, and Voltaire perhaps than either.

There are some circumstances, the antient critics would call them common-places, which when judiciously resorted to, will be found very productive of pathetic emotions.

1st. When innocent and helpless persons are involved in ruin. To introduce an infant on the stage in a tragedy, though a common trick, is seldom destitute of effect. If however there are many to participate in the

misfortune, the partnership in sorrow seems to lessen its weight. The scenes between Arthur and Hubert in King John, are exquisitely touching; and the pathos in. Othello is greatly heightened by the youth and innocence of Desdemona, and her absence from her father and her relations.

2d. A violent abruption from a state of enjoyment:

"Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom, ́
"Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
"There stern religion quench'd th' unwilling flame,
"There died those best of passions, love and fame."
Pope's Eloisa.

3d. The recollection of past happiness, or happiness that might have been attained but for some intervening circumstance, is a fine source of the pathetic. On this are founded some of our best tragedies....See the Orphan, also the last act of the Fair Penitent....

"Still as thy form before my mind appears,
"My haggard eyes are bath'd in gushing tears;
"Thy lov'd idea rushes to my heart,

"And stern despair suspends the lifted dart.
"O could I burst those fetters which restrain

"My struggling limbs, and waft thee o'er the maių,
"To some far distant shore, where ocean roars
"In horrid tempests round the gloomy shores;
"To some wild mountain's solitary shade,
"Where never European faith betray'd."

The Dying Negro.

4th. Absence from persons very dear. The whole of that inimitable poem, Mr. Pope's Eloisa, affords a fine example of this; and particularly the following lines:

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.No fly me, fly me, far as pole from pole;
"Rise Alps between us, and whole oceans roll!
"Ah! come not, write not, think not once of me."

5th. Exile.....

"Methinks we wandering go

"Through dreary wastes, and weep each other's woe, "Where round some mould'ring tower pale ivy creeps, "And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps."

Eloisa.

6th. Inattention to self in extreme distress, and solicitude for others. Thus Lear to Kent in the storm.....

"Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own ease....
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
"That bide the pelting of this pityless storm,
"How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides,
"Your loop'd and window'd raggedness defend-you
"From seasons such as these."

Such also is the exhortation of our Saviour: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and for your children."

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The Holy Scriptures, which I hope, both as a man of virtue and of taste, you will never cease to read, contain perhaps the very finest instances extant of the pathetic. Who can read aloud the parable of the prodigal son, and not shed a tear? Of Nathan's parable I have already spoken.

The tender is a branch of the pathetic, in which however misery or sorrow are not necessary adjuncts. Here a relief from sorrow, or expected sorrow, is a powerful instrument. Thus Goldsmith, who in the tender excels almost every modern writer:

"Forbid it, Heaven, the hermit cried,
"And clasp'd her to his breast;

"The wond'ring fair one turn'd to chide,
""Twas Edwin's self that press'd."

Edwin and Angelina.

The tender however will sometimes be found in a scene of perfect tranquillity; and it must be remarked that the expression of tenderness is the great excellence in the fine Madonna's of the Italian school of painting.

In the Scripture, the finest examples of this will also be found, as for instance, Isaiah xlix. 14, 15.

"But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me....Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb: yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

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LETTER VI.

V.....THE LUDICROUS.

MY DEAR JOHN,

THE transition from the pathetic to the ludicrous will appear rather violent, though, if you take Dr. Hartley's opinion on the subject, laughing and crying are more nearly allied than is vulgarly supposed. "Laughter," says he, "is a nascent cry raised by pain, or the apprehension of pain, suddenly checked, and repeated at very short intervals." I do not, however, press the doctor's opinion upon you; for really if I was called upon for an example of the ridiculous, I do not know that I should not quote this passage as soon as any of the notions attributed to the mock philosophers, so happily ridiculed by Butler....who knew

"Where entity and quiddity,

"The ghosts of defunct bodies, lie;
"Where truth in person does appear,
"Like words congeal'd in northern air.
"Who knew the seat of paradise,
"Could tell in what degree it lies.....
"What Adam dreamt of when his bride
"Came from the closet in his side," &c.

It may serve to shew you, however, the general inanity of metaphysical speculations, which I advise you by all means to avoid, and to what lengths of folly human reason will go, when it pretends to account for every thing.

Though we discard, however, Dr. Hartley's theory of the ridiculous, yet I think we may fairly say that it always arises from a striking contrast suddenly brought before the mind by an unexpected combination or association of ideas. Contrast alone, unless connected with

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