ACCOUNT of the GERMAN THEATRE. 17! 



ftudy the expreflions in which thofe feelings are vented ; yet I 

 think it will be found in nature, that a certain elevated diction 

 will often be that in which the mind will pour its moft genuine 

 and deepefl forrows. There is a pride and dignity in fbrrow 

 which renders it eloquent ; which, rifing above the level of 

 ordinary things, fpeaks in a ftyle more lofty than that of com- 

 mon life. I believe it will alfo be found, that, in compofition, 

 the aflumed loftinefs of language will have fome effect in pro- 

 ducing a loftinefs of idea ; that " the words that glow" will 

 fometimes, as it were, create " the thoughts that burn." I 

 think it is Plato who, fomewhere in his works, makes a re- 

 mark of this kind as to poetry, whofe meafure and majeflic 

 march give an infpiration to the poet, which the train of 

 thought in common language would not have produced. And 

 I am perfuaded that the dramatic writer who, in the fervour 

 of compofition, gives to the diftreffes of his fancy a language 

 of that elevated kind, will fometimes, in the very flow; and 

 current of his words, feel his heart fwell, and tears gulli from 

 his eyes, with an energy of paflion which a more ordinary 

 diction would have failed to roufe. It mufl, however, at the 

 fame time, be confeffed, that the moft common fault lies on 

 the oppofite fide ; and that authors of but moderate genius 

 often invert their characters, rather in the parade of words than 

 in the dignity of fentiment, rather in a coldly imitative phrafe 

 of feeling than in feeling itfelf. A fault of this kind is fome- 

 times difcernible in the dramas before us, where, in the deve- 

 lopement of fentimental diftrefs, the characters talk rather than 

 feel their fituation ; where the poet, refining on his art, rather 

 colours than draws the picture of the fcene, or, to purfue 

 the allufion, gives us fhades of language inftead of fhades of 

 thought. 



This laboured difplay of fentiment and fenfibility is liable 

 to the general objection which ftrikes one in every dramatic 

 performance, as lying againft the perfons of the drama in- 



Y 2 forming 



