CHAPTER VIII.

CONCERNING DRAMATIC MANNERS WHAT CONSTITUTES THEM-MANNERS OF OTHELLO, MACBETH, HAMLET THOSE OF THE LAST QUESTIONED, AND WHY CONSISTENCY REQUIRED YET SOMETIMES BLAMEABLE, AND WHY-GENUINE MANNERS IN SHAKSPEARE-IN LILLO MANNERS, MORALLY BAD, POETICALLY GOOD.

"WHEN the principal persons of any drama preserve such a consistency of conduct, (it matters not whether that conduct be virtuous or vicious,) that, after they have appeared for a scene or two, we conjecture what they will do hereafter from what they have done already, such persons in poetry may be said to have manners, for by this, and this only, are poetic manners constituted."

To explain this assertion by recurring to instances: As soon as we have seen the violent love and weak credulity of Othello, the fatal jealousy, in which they terminate, is no more than what we may conjecture. When we have marked the attention paid by Macbeth to the witches, to the persuasions of his wife, and to the flattering dictates of his own ambition, we suspect something atrocious; nor are we surprised that, in the event, he murders Duncan, and then Banquo. Had he changed his conduct, and been only wicked by halves, his manners would not have been as they now are, poetically good.

If the leading person in a drama, for example Hamlet, appear to have been treated most injuriously, we naturally infer that he will meditate revenge; and should that revenge prove fatal to those who had injured him, it is no more than was probable, when we consider the provocation.

But should the same Hamlet by chance kill an innocent old man-an old man from whom he had never received offence, and with whose daughter he was actually in love-what should we expect then? Should we not look for compassion, I might add, even for compunction? Should we not be shocked, if, in

η Εστι δὲ ἦθος μὲν τὸ τοιούτον, ὃ δηλοῖ τὴν προαίρεσιν ὁποῖα τις ἐστὶν, ἐν οἷς οὐκ ἐστι δῆλον, εἰ προαιρεῖται, ἢ φεύγει ὁ Aéywv: "Manners or character is that which discovers what the determination [of a speaker will be, in matters where it is not yet manifest, whether he chooses to do a thing, or to avoid it." Aristot. Poet. c. 6. p. 231. edit. Sylb.

It was from our being unable, in the persons of some dramas, to conjecture what they will determine, that the above author immediately adds, dióπep oùк exovou

os

ἔνιοι τῶν λόγων : “ for which reason some of the dramatic dialogues have no manners at all.”

And this well explains another account of manners given in the same book: Tà δὲ ἤθη, καθ ̓ ἃ ποιούς τινας εἶναι φάμεν Toùs рάттоνтая: “manners are those qualities through which we say, the actors are men of such or such a character." Ibid.

Bossu, in his Traité du Poeme Epique, has given a fine and copious commentary on this part of Aristotle's Poetics. See his work, 1. iv. c. 4, 5, &c.

stead of this, he were to prove quite insensible, or (what is even worse) were he to be brutally jocose?

Here the manners are blameable, because they are inconsistent; we should never conjecture from Hamlet any thing so unfeelingly cruel.

Nor are manners only to be blamed for being thus inconsistent. Consistency itself is blameable, if it exhibit human beings completely abandoned; completely void of virtue; prepared, like king Richard, at their very birth, for mischief. It was of such models that a jocose critic once said, they might make good devils, but they could never make good men: not (says he) that they want consistency, but it is of a supernatural sort, which human nature never knew.

Quodcumque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

Hor.

Those who wish to see manners in a more genuine form, may go to the characters already alleged in the preceding chapter;' where, from our previous acquaintance with the several parties, we can hardly fail, as incidents arise, to conjecture their future behaviour.s

We may find also manners of this sort in the Fatal Curiosity. Old Wilmot and his wife discover affection for one another; nor is it confined here-they discover it for their absent son; for his beloved Charlotte; and for their faithful servant Randal. Yet, at the same time, from the memory of past affluence, the pressure of present indigence, the fatal want of resources, and the cold ingratitude of friends, they shew to all others (the few above excepted) a gloomy, proud, unfeeling misanthropy.

In this state of mind, and with these manners, an opportunity offers, by murdering an unknown stranger, to gain them immense treasure, and place them above want. As the measure was at once both tempting and easy, was it not natural that such a wife should persuade, and that such a husband should be persuaded? We may conjecture from their past behaviour what part they would prefer, and that part, though morally wicked, is yet poetically good; because here, all we require is a suitable consistence.*

We are far from justifying assassins. Yet assassins, if truly drawn, are not monsters, but human beings; and as such, being chequered with good and with evil, may by their good move our pity, though their evil cause abhorrence.

But this in the present case is not all. The innocent parties, made miserable, exhibit a distress which comes home; a distress which, as mortals, it is impossible we should not feel.

* See p. 433.

⚫ See p. 434.

* See above.

Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt."

Virg. Æn.

quotations from different parts of this af fecting tragedy, what is asserted in various parts of these Inquiries. But the intention

" It was intended to illustrate, by large was laid aside, (at least in greater part,) by

CHAPTER IX.

A

CONCERNING DRAMATIC SENTIMENT-WHAT CONSTITUTES IT-CONNECTED WITH MANNERS, AND HOW-CONCERNING SENTIMENT, GNOMOLOGIC, OR PRECEPTIVE-ITS DESCRIPTION-SOMETIMES HAS REASON ANNEXED TO IT—SOMETIMES LAUDABLE, SOMETIMES BLAMEABLE WHOM IT MOST BECOMES TO UTTER IT, AND WHY - BOSSU— TRANSITION TO DICTION.

FROM manners we pass to sentiment; a word which, though sometimes confined to mere gnomology, or moral precept, was often used by the Greeks in a more comprehensive meaning, including every thing for which men employ language; for proving and solving; for raising and calming the passions; for exaggerating and depreciating; for commands, monitions, prayers, narratives, interrogations, answers, &c. &c. In short, sentiment, in this sense, means little less than the universal subjects of our discourse. X

It was under this meaning the word was originally applied to the drama, and this appears not only from authority, but from fact for what can conduce more effectually than discourse to establish with precision dramatic manners and characters? To refer to a play already mentioned, the Fatal Curiosity:

refecting that the tragedy was easily to be procured, being modern, and having passed through several editions, one particularly so late as in the year 1775, when it was printed with Lillo's other dramatic pieces.

If any one read this tragedy, the author of these Inquiries has a request or two to make, for which he hopes a candid reader will forgive him: one is, not to cavil at minute inaccuracies, but look to the superior merit of the whole taken together; another is, totally to expunge those wretched rhymes which conclude many of the scenes; and which it is probable are not from Lillo, but from some other hand, willing to conform to an absurd fashion, then practised, but now laid aside, the fashion (I mean) of a rhyming conclusion.

* There are two species of sentiment successively here described, both called in English either a sentiment or a sentence, and in Latin sententia. The Greeks were more exact, and to the different species assigned different names, calling the one διάνοια, the other γνώμη.

Of your we shall speak hereafter: of Savoia their descriptions are as follows: Ἔστι δὲ κατὰ τὴν διάνοιαν ταῦτα, ὅσα ὑπὸ

τοῦ λόγου δεῖ παρασκευασθῆναι· μέρη δὲ τούτων, τό, τε ἀποδεικνῦναι, καὶ τὸ λύειν, καὶ τὸ πάθη παρασκευάζειν, οἷον ἔλεον, ἢ φόβον, ἢ ὀργὴν, καὶ ὅσα τοιαῦτα, καὶ ἔτι μέγεθος καὶ σμικρότητα : “ All those things belong to sentiment (or diάvoia) that are to be performed through the help of discourse: now the various branches of these things are to prove, and to solve, to excite passions, (such as pity, fear, anger, and the like,) and, besides this, to magnify, and to diminish." Arist. Poet. c. 19. p. 245. edit. Sylb.

We have here chosen the fullest description of diavola; but in the same work there are others more concise, which yet express the same meaning. In the sixth chapter we are told it is, τὸ λέγειν δύνασθαι τὰ ἐνόντα καὶ τὰ ἁρμόττοντα, “ to be able to say (that is, to express justly) such things as necessarily belong to a subject, or properly suit it." And again, soon after: Aiávola δὲ, ἐν οἷς ἀποδεικνύουσι τι, ὡς ἔστιν, ἢ ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν, ἢ καθόλου τι ἀποφαίνονται : "Atávola, or sentiment, exists, where men demonstrate any thing either to be, or not to be; or through which they assert any thing general, or universal,” Ibid. p. 231.

When old Wilmot discharges his faithful servant from pure affection, that he might not starve him, how strongly are his manners delineated by his sentiments? The following are among his monitions:

Shun my example; treasure up my precepts;
The world's before thee; be a knave and prosper.

The young man, shocked at such advice from a master whose virtues he had been accustomed so long to venerate, ventures modestly to ask him,

Where are your former principles ?

The old man's reply is a fine picture of human frailty; a striking, and yet a natural blending of friendship and misanthropy; of particular friendship, of general misanthropy:

No matter (says he) for principles;

Suppose I have renounc'd 'em: I have passions,

And love thee still; therefore would have thee think

The world is all a scene of deep deceit,

And he who deals with mankind on the square

Is his own bubble, and undoes himself.

He departs with these expressions, but leaves the young man far from being convinced.

The suspicious gloom of age, and the open simplicity of youth, give the strongest contrast to the manners of each, and all this from the sentiments alone; sentiments which, though opposite, are still perfectly just, as being perfectly suited to their different characters.

It is to this comprehensive meaning of sentiment that we may in a manner refer the substance of these inquiries; for such sentiment is every thing, either written or spoken.

Something, however, must be said upon that other, and more limited species of it, which I call the gnomologic, or preceptive; a species, not indeed peculiar to the drama, but, when properly used, one of its capital ornaments.

The following description of it is taken from antiquity. A gnomologic sentiment, or precept, is an assertion or propositionnot however all assertions, as that, "Pericles was an able statesman," "Homer a great poet;" for these assertions are particular, and such a sentiment must be general-nor yet is it every assertion, though general; as that, "The angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles"-but it is an assertion which, though general, is only relative to human conduct, and to such objects, as in moral action we either seek or avoid."

* We now come to the second species of sentiment, called in Greek yvwun, and which Aristotle describes much in the same manner as we have done in the text: 'EσT δὲ γνώμη ἀπόφανσις, οὐ μέντοι περὶ τῶν καθ ̓ ἕκαστον, οἷον, ποιός τις Ιφικράτης

οὔτε περὶ πάντων καθόλου, οἷον, ὅτι τὸ ἐνθὼ τῷ καμπύλῳ ἐναντίον· ἀλλὰ περὶ ὅσων αἱ πράξεις εἰσὶ, καὶ αἱρετὰ ἢ φευκτά ἐστι Tpòs To Tрáσσew. Arist. Rhetor. 1. ii, c. 21. p. 96. edit. Sylb. So too the Scriptor. ad Herennium, i. iv. s. 24. Sententia est

Among the assertions of this sort we produce the following; the precept which forbids unseasonable curiosity:

Seek not to know, what must not be reveal'd.

Or that which forbids unrelenting anger:

Within thee cherish not immortal ire.

We remark, too, that these sentiments acquire additional strength, if we subjoin the reason.

For example:

Or again:

Seek not to know what must not be reveal'd;
Joys only flow where fate is most conceal'd.

Within thee cherish not immortal ire,

When thou thyself art mortal.

In some instances, the reason and sentiment are so blended as to be in a manner inseparable. Thus Shakspeare:

He who filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

But makes me poor indeed.

There are, too, sentiments of bad moral and evil tendency: If sacred right should ever be infring'd,

And again:

It should be done for empire and dominion:
In other things pure conscience be thy guide."

The man's a fool,

Who, having slain the father, spares the sons.b

These ideas are only fit for tyrants, usurpers, and other profligate men; nor ought they to appear in a drama, but to shew such characters.

On gnomologic sentiments in general it has been observed, that though they decorate, they should not be frequent, for then the drama becomes affected and declamatory.

It has been said, too, they come most naturally from aged persons, because age may be supposed to have taught them ex

confirmatur subjectione rationis, hoc modo: omnes bene vivendi rationes in virtute sunt collocandæ, propterea quod sola virtus in sua potestate est. Scriptor. ad Heren. 1. iv. 8. 24.

a Vid. Cic. de Officiis, 1. iii. c. 21; who thus translates Euripides:

Nam si violandum est jus, regnandi gratia
Violandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas.
ο Νήπιος, ὃς, πατέρα κτείνας, παῖδας
Karaλeiro. Arist. Rhet. 1. i. c. 16. 1. iii.
c. 22. p. 98. edit. Sylb.

So the same Latin rhetorician, above quoted: Sententias interponi raro convenit, ut rei actores, non vivendi præceptores esse videamur. Scriptor. ad Herenn. lib. iv. 8. 25.