RHETORIC AND BELLES-LETTRES. 



This susceptibility can be reached by verbal ex- 

 pression as well as by other means. Any literary 

 work that delicately stirs the fountains of tender- 

 ness is denominated pathetic. This class of com- 

 positions, unfortunately, has had occasion to be 

 very numerous. The woes and sorrows, and the 

 tragic doom of mortal men, have inspired lamen- 

 tations and pathos, elegies and mourning, in every 

 language under heaven. By the ordination of 

 nature, the current of human tenderness is made 

 to flow whenever distress has settled upon a fellow- 

 man, and proves one of the great solacements of 

 affliction. When either sorrow or compassion is 

 aptly expressed in language, we have a stroke of 

 pathos. Burns's Man was made to Mourn is a 

 highly characteristic example. The writings of 

 the Old Testament, especially the book of Job, the 

 Psalms, and the Prophets, furnish abundant in- 

 stances of the same nature. Nothing could exceed 

 the pathos of Jacob's expression to his sons ' If 

 mischief befall him [Benjamin] by the way in 

 which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray 

 hairs with sorrow to the grave.' The Bridge of 

 Sighs is a well-known modern example. When 

 what we have previously denominated ' Feeling ' 

 is called forth by a tragic occasion, and expressed 

 with becoming art, it produces pathos. 



Ludicrous Wit Humour. 



The feeling of the ludicrous being one of the 

 emotions whose stimulus is highly gratifying to 

 human nature, such a stimulus is frequently at- 

 tempted by means of speech. As a spectacle that 

 causes the ludicrous requires to be made up of 

 some intimate conjunction of the dignified, lofty, 

 or grand with what is vulgar, mean, or contempt- 

 ible, so the production of the like effect through 

 language must generally imply the embodying of 

 images or actions that possess the same mixture 

 of incongruity. For example, when Moliere pre- 

 sents the celestial messenger of the gods sitting 

 tired on a cloud, and complaining of the number 

 of Jupiter's errands, Night expresses surprise that 

 a god should be weary, whereupon Mercury indig- 

 nantly asks : ' Are the gods made of iron?' 



But confining our view strictly to style, a ludi- 

 crous effect is produced when the language is at 

 variance with the matter on the score of dignity ; 

 when a mean subject is treated in dignified terms, 

 or a high subject in mean terms. Philips's parody 

 of Milton in the Splendid Shilling is an instance 

 of the first method ; Lucian's Dialogues, and 

 Swift's Tale of a Tub, exemplify the second. 



Humour is the ludicrous with an infusion of the 

 tender or the loving, and is a far more exquisite 

 effect than the ludicrous alone. Don Quixote is 

 probably the greatest work of humour that the 

 literature of the world has produced. Addison is 

 also a very high example of the same combination. 



Cumulative Richness. 



A composition may contain few or many artistic 

 excellences : it may be lean and thin, though not 

 destitute of all merit ; or it may be rich, copious, 

 and luxuriant overflowing in comparisons, pic- 

 tures, sublimity, beauty, pathos, and humour. The 

 taste of the writer may be severe and exclusive, 

 or it may allow of all kinds of effects that can 

 possibly sit upon a literary work. Of rich and 

 massive productions, we have great examples in 

 those of Rabelais, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, 



Richter, and Swift. In the compositions of the 

 seventeenth century in this country, a far greater 

 luxuriance and richness was exhibited than we 

 are accustomed to in the present day. 



We proceed now to the various forms of verbal 

 address and composition. 



COMMUNICATION. 



This branch of the subject divides itself into 

 three subordinate heads Narration, Description, 

 and Exposition: the first two are exemplified 

 m travels and histories, the last deals with 

 science. 



Narration may be said to be the simplest and 

 easiest effort of communication. A stream of 

 words has a natural analogy to a stream of events 

 or actions : hence narrative is the kind of address 

 most easily invented. Ballads, songs, and heroic 

 adventures, where the narrative is stirring and 

 musical, like the conception of the deeds, are in all 

 countries among the most primitive forms of com- 

 position. 



Description, or pictorial expression, is a more 

 difficult effort of invention, from there being a 

 fainter and less suggestive analogy between still- 

 life and a flow of articulate utterance. The 

 painter's canvas is the appropriate means of 

 representation in this case. Besides the faintness 

 of the analogy between the subject and the ex- 

 pression, there is the difficulty already alluded to 

 of raising in the mind the image of expanded 

 space by a dropping current of verbal impres- 

 sions. Under the heads of Travels and Histor- 

 ical Composition we shall advert to the leading 

 points involved in narrative and pictorial descrip- 

 tion. 



OfTraveli. 



The traveller's point of view furnishes the most 

 natural way of conceiving places and transac- 

 tions. The panoramic display of a country, or 

 the gradual unfolding of scene after scene, is more 

 impressive than any other method of bringing 

 before us a wide and varied scene. The other 

 methods of storing up in the mind the entire 

 expanse of a town or a province, are the map, the 

 bird's-eye view, or mountain prospect, and the 

 statistical catalogue. 



To gratify the longings of men to enter into the 

 living experience that lies behind the detail of ex- 

 ports and imports, of cargoes of tea and sugar, of 

 silk and gold, of latitudes and longitudes, mon- 

 soons and rainy seasons, Defoe constructed his 

 admirable fiction of A Voyage Round tiu WorhL, 

 where he exhibits the entire ongoings of the sea- 

 faring and trading life through all the incidents of 

 a circumnavigation of the globe. In this, and in 

 Robinson Crusoe, and in all his other life-pictures 

 and histories, the author h?s adopted the point of 

 view of a traveller, or of a single eye-witness, 

 whose company the reader is supposed to keep. 

 As one person can see as much as one other 

 person can, this mode of description is perfectly 

 adapted to the natural comprehension of men ; 

 while to compare and join together the observa- 

 tions of several persons standing in different posi- 

 tions, is a very distracting operation. The life 

 and manners of the heroic Greeks could not have 

 been painted so vividly and intelligibly in any 

 other form as in the adventures of Ulysse* 



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