(notwithstanding it be generally efteemed a mark of greater judgment to generalize ftories, and omit thofe particulars) that stories told with all thofe circumftances, provided they be not so many as to diftract the mind of the hearer, and too much retard the relation of the principal incidents, are generally heard with more attention. In fact, it cannot be but that thefe circumftances excite more determinate and precife ideas; and the more precife and vivid are our ideas, with the greater ftrength do they excite all the emotions and paffions that depend upon them. The mention of thefe particulars makes a relation to resemble real and active life.

So important is this cbfervation, and fo far is it from being thoroughly attended to, that it may almoft furnish a criterion to diftinguish true hiftory from fable and romance. Even the best of our modern romances, which are a much more perfect copy of human life than any of the fictions of the ancients, if they be compared with true hiftory, will be found to fall greatly fhort of it in their detail of fuch particulars as, because they have a kind of arbitrary, and, as it were, variable connexion with real facts, do not eafily fuggeft themfelves to thofe perfons who attend only to the connexion and fubordination of the incidents they have invented, and who, therefore, never introduce more perfons or things than are neceffary to fill them up whereas a redundancy of particulars,

which are not neceffarily connected, will croud into a relation of real facts.

It may not be improper to add, in this place, that the mention of fo many particular persons, places, and times, in the books of scripture affords, to the curious obfervers of nature and probability, no small evidence of their genuineness and truth.

The advice I would found upon these observations is, that a writer who would copy nature, and command the paffions which are peculiar to the feveral scenes of it, should, in all narration or defcription, wherever the circumstances of a discourse will admit of it, prefer a more particular to a more general term; as father, mother, brother, fifter, &c. inftead of relation; juftice, temperance, veracity, &c. and cruelty, covetoufnefs, deceit, &c. as the cafe requires, instead of the more definite terms virtue, and vice, and univerfally, the proper names of perfons, places, and things, rather than more comprehenfive terms. which are applicable to other ideas befides thofe that are intended to be conveyed.

Shakespeare interefts his readers more than most dramatic poets, because he copies nature and real life in this refpect more clofely than most others. It will, perhaps, not appear improbable that Shakespeare's frequent ufe of particular terms, and his attention to the choice of them, contributed not a little to his peculiar excellence in diftinguishing the paffions and characters of human nature;

whereas

whereas deal ng much in general terms, leads writers to confund all characters, and not to make hole da nitions which nature doth. If it fhould beer thought that Shakespeare's happiness in

ghing characters led him to be fo particular And trombantial in his defcriptions, it may be -ed without contradicting the converfe of ship tola, and it equally confirms the fupthe connection that is here fuggefted to ik berkein the diftinguishing particular chatry, and the ule of particular terms. Homer no more in the minute details of circumthan Vag, and his characters are better Change had. Virgil ales more general terms upand the fameneis of his charac

x this obfervation, I fhall fubjoin a Sakipeare, of the manner in a prody was talked of among the common 7-, as burg particularly excellent in its kind.

Cfnm, and beds in the fireets
Iainers spent cangerously.

;

Tag stboth is common in their mouths
dog when the top of Elm, they thake their heads,
A vilber or another in the ear;

Ana be that petas doch grap the hearer's wrift,
that hears makes fearful action,

edirows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
Tara fich land with his hammer thus,
The death`anvil cool,
1 durer soun Swallowing a taylor's news,
Fin vois Cars and measure in his hand,
Sinong to Imrers, which his nimble hafte -
Hay upon contrary feet,

Te

Told of a many thousand warlike French
That were embattled, and rank'd in Kent.
Another lean, unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talk's of Arthur's death.

KING JOHN, A& IV. Scene 4.

The facred writings abound with the most lively and animating defcriptions, which derive their excellence from the notice that is taken of particular circumitances. See, among other paffages, Ifaiah xxxix. 4, to 15. and Jer. xiv. 15. to the end.

One reason why philofophers feldom fucceed in poetry, may be, that abftract ideas are too familiar to their minds. Philofophers are perpetually employed in reducing particular to general propofitions, a turn of thinking very unfavourable to poetry. One reafon, likewife, why poetry is generally fooner brought to perfection than any other branch of polite literature, may be, that, in early ages, the state of language is moft favourable to poetry; as it then contains fewer abftract terms On this account, a poet in an early age has the advantage of a later poet, who has equal strength of imagination. It may be faid that, to counterbalance this, the greater progress which the art of criticism will have made in a more refined age, will be an advantage to a later poet. But perhaps refinement in criticism may rather be unfavourable to the genuine fpirit of poetry, as an attention to rules tends to deaden and diffipate the fire of ima gination. LECTURE

1

LECTURE. XIII.

Of the Tendency of ftrong Emotions to produce BELIEF, and the transferring of Paflions from one Object to another.

THE tendency of ftrong emotions and paffions to generate belief may help to throw light upon feveral things which occur upon the subject of criticism, and works of taste and genius. And that we should be prone to conclude, that very vivid ideas, and ftrong emotions of mind, are derived from external objects, and circumstances really exifting, can be no matter of furprise, when we reflect that objects really existing do generally excite fuch ideas and emotions. Vivid ideas and Strong emotions, therefore, having been, through life, affociated with reality, it is easy to imagine that, upon the perception of the proper feelings, the associated idea of reality will likewife recur, and adhere to it as ufual; unlefs the emotion be combined with fuch other ideas and circumstances as have had as strong an affociation with fiction. In this cafe the abfurdity and impoffibility of the fcene precludes affent; and at the fame time, by taking away the associated circumstance, it greatly weakens the original impreffion. But while the impreffions remain vivid, and no certain marks of

fiction