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ON THE LANGUAGE 



weighed in its root, combinations, and inflections; in its strict and fignrative 

 senses ; in its proper enunciation and accent. And hence the origin of the 

 elementary studies of etymology, grammar, prosody, and criticism ; while 

 the general mint of language, thus prepared and struck off, was still subject 

 to the inquisitorial powers of logic and rhetoric ; the art of reasoning or 

 assigning determinate ideas to determinate words ; and the art of polishing 

 or adorning the dry skeleton of naked sense with the gay and ornamental 

 dress of trope, figure, and elegant collocation. 



Rhetoric, therefore, is nothing more than the natural language of the pas- 

 sions, or the imagination which so closely associates with them, reduced to 

 the rules of art. It is the study of those peculiar modes of expression, warm, 

 excJamatory, abrupt, interjective, full of energy, image, and personificatioR, 

 by which the passions characterize themselves when called into action ; and 

 which, as the natural symbols of the passions, have the wonderful power, 

 not only during recitation, but on paper alone, when read by ourselves in the 

 privacy of the closet, of enkindling in the mind of the reader or hearer the 

 very feelings of which they are the representatives. 



Hence the soothing tranquillity produced by pastoral poetry ; the melting 

 sympathy with which we yield to metrical tales of distress and misery ; 

 the rousing, dithyrambic effect of national songs ; the sublime enthusiasm of 

 devotional lyrics. Hence the well-planned fictions of the epic Muse excite 

 all the interest of real life ; the popular orator, laying hold of the same wea- 

 pons, subdues every heart to his own purposes ; but, above all, hence the 

 magic spell of the drama, that, by personating the characters and scenery of 

 the subject it selects, transports us to the time, place, and circumstance of 

 the representation, and makes us parties to its own story. 



The drama, above every thing else, is the language of the passions carried 

 into real life, and enlisted on the side of virtue. I say on the side of virtue, 

 because such power has virtue over the human mind, by the wise and gracious 

 constitution of our nature, that neither epic poetry can excite admiration, nor 

 tragic poetry emotion, unless virtuous feelings be awakened within us. Every 

 poet finds it impossible to interest an audience in a character without repre- 

 senting that character as worthy and honourable, though it may not be per- 

 fect ; and he is equally aware that the great secret for raising indignation, is 

 to paint the person who is to be the object of it in the colours of vice and de- 

 pravity. And hence Aristotle speaks with his usual correctness, when he 

 tells us, that the design of tragedy (and it is to the tragic drama I am now 

 limiting my attention) is to purify our corrupt tendencies by means of pity 

 and terror. Such was the direct scope of the simple tragedy of the Greeks; 

 the uniform object of ^Eschylus who founded it ; of Euripides, who improved, 

 and of Sophocles, who perfected it ; and all within the short space of little 

 more than twenty years. 



And such is equally the object of the more operose and complicated tragedy 

 of modern times, whether French or English ; whether turning, as in the for- 

 mer case, upon a series of artful and refined conversations, connected, indeed, 

 with interesting attractions, but carried on with little action and vehemence, 

 though with much poetical beauty, and the strictest propriety and decorum ; 

 or whether, as in the latter instance, made to hinge on a combat of strong 

 passions, set before us in all their violence, producing deep disasters; often 

 irregularly conducted, abounding in action, and filling the spectators with 

 grief. It is, indeed, peculiarly worthy of remark, that three of the greatest, 

 if not the three greatest, masterpieces of the French tragic theatre turn 

 wholly upon religious subjects : the Athalie of Racine, the Polyeucte of 

 Corneille, and the Zaire of Voltaire. The first is founded upon an historical 

 passage of the Old Testament : while, in the other two, the distress arises 

 from the zeal and attachment of the principal personages to the Christian 

 faith. So powerfully has each of these writers felt, whatever may have been 

 his private creed, the majesty which may be derived from religious ideas, and 

 the deep impression they are calculated to produce on the human heart. 



To select such topics, however, for such a purpose, demands a very deli- 



