APPENDIX. 173 



st To exprefs the paffions, which are feated on the heart 

 by outward figns," is one great precept of the Painters, and 

 very difficult to perform. In Poetry the fame paffions and 

 motions of the mind are to be exprefTed ; and in this confifts 

 the principal difficulty, as well as the excellency of that Art. 

 "This," fays my Author, "is the gift of Jupiter;" and, 

 to fpeak in the fame Heathen language, We call it the gift 

 of our Apollo, not to be obtained by pains or ftudy, if we are 

 not born to it : For the motions which are ftudied are never 

 fo natural as thofe which break out in the height of a real 

 paffion. Mr. Otway pofTelled this part as thoroughly as any 

 of the antients or moderns. I will not defend every thing 

 in his Venue Preferred; but I.muft bear this teftimony to his 

 memory, that the paffions are truly touched in it, though, 

 perhaps, there is fomewhat to be defired both in the grounds 

 of them, and in the height and elegance of expreffion; but 

 Nature is there, which is the greateft beauty. 



" In the paffions," fays our Author, " we muft have a very 

 great regard to the quality of the perfons who are actually 

 pofleffed with them." The joy of a Monarch for the news of 

 a victory mufl not be expreffed like the extafy of a Harlequin 

 on the receipt of a letter from his Miftrefs : This is fo much 

 the fame in both the Arts, that it is no longer a comparifon. 

 What he fays of face-painting, or the portrait of any one par- 

 ticular perfon, concerning the likenefs, is alfo applicable to 

 Poetry: In the character of an hero, as w-ell as in an inferior 

 figure, there is a better or worfe likenefs to be taken 5 the 

 better is a panegyric, if it be not falfe, and the worfe is a 

 libel. Sophocles, fays Ariftotle, always drew men as they 

 ought to be; that is, better than they were. Another, whole 

 name I have forgotten, drew them worfe than naturally they 



Y 3 were. 



