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the mind muft meet the dreadful certainty ; and mufl harden it- 

 felf, by an effort, to encounter it. This effort, often repeated, and 

 accompanied with encreafed firmnefs of nerves, may, at length, 

 degenerate into habits of cruelty. Eefides, the reprefentation 

 is always lefs vivid than the reality. Strong enough it may be, 

 to produce a momentary d^lufion, and excite terror and pity ; 

 but not ftrong enough, either, to overwhelm the fpirit, or to 

 harden the nature. Though we are ftruck with horror, and 

 melted into tears, at the reprefentation of a murder, on the 

 ftage, we do not feel the fame phyfical effedls ; we do not trem- 

 ble, and perceive a ficknefs, -a cold fweat, perhaps a faininefs ; 

 whereas, a perfon unufed to fcenes of cruelty would mod pro- 

 bably experience thefe inconveniencies ; were he to fee a perfon 

 ftabbed befide him, and falling at his feet ; were he to hear his 

 dying groan, or be fprinkled with his blood. 



Wherein confifts the true difference? In the real catallrophe, 

 the different fenfes, fight, hearing, touch, all concur in bearing 

 teftimony to each other, and afcertain the dreadful certainty 

 beyond a poffibility of doubt. Where the imitative arts repre- 

 fent any fingle adlion, or feries of adlions, there is not the 

 mutual fuffrage, or reciprocal corroboration. Poetry and hiftory 

 •imitate adlions and obje6ls, by a very indiredl agency of the 

 fenfe of feeing, prefeuting to us words, which recall the ideas of 

 what we have feen and known ; to which medium of words, as 

 figns of ideas, the force of articulate founds is added, when com- 

 pofitions are read aloud or recited. Painting imitates, through 



the 



