It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 3.

Ford. Hum! ha! is this a vision ? is this a dream? do I sleep? Mr. Ford, awake; awake, Mr. Ford; there's a hole made in your best coat, Mr. Ford! this 'tis to be married! this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the leacher; he is at my house; he cannot 'scape me: 'tis impossible he should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse, nor into a pepper-box. But lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places, though what I am I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not, shall not make me tame.

Merry Wives of Windsor, Act III. Sc. last.

These soliloquies are accurate and bold copies of nature in a passionate soliloquy one begins with thinking aloud; and the strongest feelings only, are expressed; as the speaker warms, he begins to imagine one listening, and gradually slides into a connected discourse.

How far distant are soliloquies generally from these models? So far, indeed, as to give disgust instead of pleasure. The first scene of Iphigenia in Tauris discovers that Princess, in a soliloquy, gravely reporting to herself her own history. There is the same impropriety in the first scene of Alcestes, and in the other introductions of Euripide, almost without exception. Nothing can be more ridiculous: it puts one in mind of a most curious device in Gothic paintings, that of making every figure explain itself by a written label issuing from its mouth. The description which a parasite, in the Eunuch of Terence,* gives of himself, makes a sprightly soliloquy : but it is not consistent with the rules of propriety; for no man in his ordinary state of mind, and upon a familiar subject, ever thinks of talking aloud to himself. The same ob

jection lies against a soliloquy in the Adelphi of the same author.* The soliloquy which makes the third scene, act third, of his Heicyra, is insufferable; for there Pamphilus, soberly and circumstantially, relates to himself an adventure which had happened to him a moment before.

Corneille is not more happy in his soliloquies than in his dialogues. Take for a specimen the first scene of Cinna.

Racine also is extremely faulty in the same respect. His soliloquies are regular harangues, a chain completed in every link, without interruption or interval: that of Antiochus in Berenicet resembles a regular pleading, where the parties pro and con display their arguments at full length. The following soliloquies are equally faulty: Bajazet, act iii. sc. 7.; Mithridate, act iii. sc. 4. and act iv. sc. 5.; Iphigenia, act iv. sc. 8.

Soliloquies upon lively or interesting subjects, but without any turbulence of passion, may be carried on in a continued chain of thought. If, for example, the nature and sprightliness of the subject prompt a man to speak his thoughts in the form of a dialogue, the expression must be carried on without break or interruption, as in a dialogue between two persons; which justifies Falstaff's soliloquy upon honour :

What need I be so forward with Death, that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter, Honour pricks me on. But how if Honour prick me off, when I come on? how then? Can Honour set a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? a word.-What is that word honour? Air? a trim reckoning.- -Who hath it? He that dy'd a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, But will it not live with the living? No. Why?

to the dead.

Detraction will not suffer it.

Therefore I'll none of it; honour

is a mere scutcheon; and so ends my catechism.

First Part Henry IV. Act V. Sc. 2.

And even without dialogue, a continued discourse may be justified, where a man reasons in a soliloquy upon an important subject; for if in such a case it be at all excusable to think aloud, it is necessary that the reasoning be carried on in a chain; which justifies that admirable soliloquy in Hamlet upon life and immortality, being a serene meditation upon the most interesting of all subjects. And the same consideration will justify the soliloquy that introduces the 5th act of Addison's Cato.

The next class of the grosser errors which all writers ought to avoid, shall be of language elevated above the tone of the sentiment; of which take the following instances:

Zara. Swift as occasion, I

Myself will fly; and earlier than the morn
Wake thee to freedom. Now 'tis late; and yet
Some news few minutes past arriv'd, which seem'd
To shake the temper of the King-Who knows
What racking cares disease a monarch's bed?
Or love, that late at night still lights his lamp,
And strikes his rays through dusk, and folded lids,
Forbidding rest, may stretch his eyes awake,
And force their balls abroad at this dead hour.

I'll try.

Mourning Bride, Act III. Sc. 4.

The language here is undoubtedly too pompous and laboured for describing so simple a circumstance as absence of sleep. In the following passage, the tone of the language, warm and plaintive, is well suited to the passion, which is recent grief: but every one will be sensible, that in the last couplet save one, the tone is changed, and the mind suddenly elevated to be let fall as suddenly in the last couplet:

Il détest à jamais sa coupable victoire,

Il renonce à la cour, aux humains, à la gloire ;
Et se fuïant lui-même, au milieu des deserts,
Il va cacher sa peine aut bout de l'univers ;
La, soit que le soleil rendit le jour au monde,
Soit qu'il finit sa course au vaste seine de l'onde,
Sa voix faisoit redire aux echos attendris,
Le nom, le triste nom, de son malheureux fils.

Henriade, chant. viii. 229.

Language too artificial or too figurative for the gravity, dignity, or importance, of the occasion, may be put in a third class.

Chimene demanding justice against Rodrigue who killed her father, instead of a plain and pathetic expostulation, makes a speech stuffed with the most artificial flowers of rhetoric:

Sire, mon pere est mort, mes yeux ont vû son sang
Couler à gros bouillons de son généreux flanc;
Ce sang qui tant de fois garantit vos murailles,
Ce sang qui tant de fois vous gagna des battailes,
Ce sang qui, tout sorti, fume encore de courroux
De se voir répandu pour d'autres que pour vous,
Qu'au milieu des hazards n'osoit verser la guerre,
Rodrigue en votre cour vient d'en couvrir la terre.
J'ai couru sur le lieu sans force, et sans couleur :
Je l'ai trouvé sans vie. Excusez ma douleur,
Sire; la voix me manque à ce recit funeste,
Mes pleurs et mes soupirs vous diront mieux le reste.

And again,

Son flanc étoit ouvert, et, pour mieux m'emouvoir.
Son sang sur la poussiere écrivoit mon devoir;

On plûtôt sa valeur en cet état réduite,
Me parloit par se plaie, et hátoit ma poursuite,

Et pour se faire entendre au plus juste des Rois,
Par cette triste bouche elle empruntoit ma voix.

Act II. Sc. 9.

Nothing can be contrived in language more averse to the tone of the passion than this florid speech: I should imagine it more apt to provoke laughter than to inspire concern or pity.

In a fourth class shall be given specimens of language too light or airy for a severe passion.

Imagery and figurative expression are discordant, in the highest degree, with the agony of a mother, who is deprived of two hopeful sons by a brutal murder. Therefore the following passage is undoubtedly in a bad taste.

Queen. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender babes!
My unblown flow'rs, new appearing sweets!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air
And be not fixt in doom perpetual,
Hover about me with your airy wings,
And hear your mother's lamentation.

Again,

Richard III. Act IV.

K. Philip. You are as fond of grief as of your child.
Constance. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garment with his form ;
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

King John, Act III. Sc. 6.

A thought that turns upon the expression instead of the subject, commonly called a play of words, being low and childish, is unworthy of any composition, whether gay or serious, that pretends to any degree of elevation: thoughts of this kind make a fifth class.