Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam, Eneid. iv. l. 24. Thus, to explain the effects of slander, it is imagined to be a voluntary agent. -No, 'tis Slander; Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue Cymbeline, Act. III. Sc. 4. As also human passions: take the following ex ample: For Pleasure and Revenge Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice Of any true decision. Troilus and Cressida, Act II. Sc. 2. Virgil explains fame and its effects by a still greater variety of action.* And Shakespeare personifies death and its operations in a manner singularly fanciful: Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Allowing him a breath, a little scene * Eneid, iv. 173. To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; As if his flesh, which walls about our life, Bores through his castle-walls, aud farewell king. Not less successfully is life and action given even to sleep: King Henry. How many thousands of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them And in the calmest and the stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a King? Then, happy low! lie down; Second Part Henry IV. Act III. Sc. 1. I shall add one example more, to shew that descriptive personification may be used with propriety, even where the purpose of the discourse is instruction merely: Oh! let the steps of youth be cautious, The precipices we may fall into. Therefore let Virtue take him by the hand: Directed so, he leads to certain joy.. Southern. Hitherto success has attended our steps: but whether we shall complete our progress with equal success, seems doubtful; for when we look back to the expressions mentioned in the beginning, thirsty ground, furious dart, and such like, it seems no less difficult than at first to say, whether there be in them any sort of personification. Such expressions evidently raise not the slightest convic tion of sensibility: nor do I think they amount to descriptive personification; because in them, we do not even figure the ground or the dart to be animated. If so, they cannot at all come under the present subject. To shew which, I shall endeavour to trace the effect that such expressions have in the mind. Doth not the expression angry ocean, for example, tacitly compare the ocean in a storm to a man in wrath? By this tacit comparison, the ocean is elevated above its rank in nature; and yet personification is excluded, because, by the very nature of comparison, the things compared are kept distinct, and the native appearance of each is preserved. It will be shewn afterward, that expressions of this kind belong to another figure, which I term a figure of speech, and which employs the seventh section of the present chap ter. Though thus in general we can distinguish descriptive personification from what is merely a figure of speech, it is, however, often difficult to say, with respect to some expressions, whether they are of the one kind or of the other. Take the following instances: The moon shines bright: in such a night as this, Merchant of Venice, Act v. Sc. 1. I have seen Th' ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, Julius Cæsar, Act 1. Sc. 3. With respect to these and numberless other examples of the same kind, it must depend upon the reader, whether they be examples of personification, or of a figure of speech merely: a sprightly imagination will advance them to the former class; with a plain reader they will remain in the latter. Having thus at large explained the present figure, its different kinds, and the principles upon which it is founded; what comes next in order is, to show in what cases it may be introduced with propriety, when it is suitable, when unsuitable. I begin with observing, that passionate personification is not promoted by every passion indifferently. All dispiriting passions are averse to it; and remorse, in particular, is too serious and severe to be gratified with a phantom of the mind. I cannot therefore approve the following speech of Enobarbus, who had deserted his master Antony: Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon, Oh sovereign mistress of true melancholy, The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me, That life, a very rebel to my will, May hang no longer on me. Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Sc. 9. |