On Tragical Representations. 323 
xives a great deal from one simple and uniform 
principle. If, indeed, there be such a principle 
in human nature, exactly .as he represents it, 
original and independant ; and if it be adequate 
to the effect which he ascribes to it; and if the 
mind be sensible of such a reference in the in- 
stant of its most interesting emotions; and if the 
inclination to be thus moved, be proportioned to 
the force of this supposed principle; we could 
not wish for a more satisfactory solution, for one 
which more happily applied itself to the whole 
subject in question. * . 
Another ingenious Frenchman, Monsieur 
Fontenelle, so well known to the literary world 
by his Dialogues, History of Oracles, and Plu- 
rality of Worlds, in some reflections on the sub- 
ject of poetry, has hazarded the following fine- 
spun. theory :—Pleasure and pain, says he, like 
many other extremes, approach, and, at a certain 
point, pass into each other. Pleasure, pushed 
too far, becomes pain; and the movement of 
‘pain, a little moderated, becomes pleasure.— 
He is obliged to adopt into his system the funda- 
mental principle of Du Bos; for the heart, he 
says, loves to be moved, and therefore objects, 
which are melancholy, and even disastrous and 
sorrowful, are adapted'to it; provided that they © 
are softened by some circumstance. ‘This soft- 
ning circumstance, according tohim, is the com- 
fortable ‘reflection, that the whole is but a fiction; 
