they are of the one kind or of the other. Take the following instances: The moon shines bright; in such a night as this, Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. 1. Th' ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, Julius Cesar, Act I. Sc. 6. With respect to these and numberless other examples of the same kind, it must depend upon the reader, whether they be examples of personification, or of a figure of speech merely; a sprightly imagination will advance them to the former class, with a plain reader they will remain in the latter. Having thus at large explained the present figure, its different kinds, and the principles upon which it is founded; what comes next in order, is, to show in what cases it may be introduced with propriety, when it is suitable, when unsuitable. I begin with observing, that passionate personification is not promoted by every passion indifferently. All dispiriting passions are averse to it; and remorse, in particular, is too serious and severe to be gratified with a phantom of the mind. I cannot therefore approve the following speech of Enobarbus, who had deserted his master Antony: Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon, Oh sovereign Mistress of true melancholy, The poisonous damp of night dispunge upon me, That life, a very rebel to my will, May hang no longer on me. Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Sc. 7. If this can be justified, it must be upon the Hea then system of theology, which converted into deities the sun, moon, and stars. Secondly, after a passionate personification is properly introduced, it ought to be confined to its proper province, that of gratifying the passion, without giving place to any sentiment or action but what answers that purpose; for personification is at any rate a bold figure, and ought to be employed with great reserve. The passion of love, for example, in a plaintive tone, may give a momentary life to woods and rocks, in order to make them sensible of the lover's distress; but no passion will support a conviction so far-stretched, as that these woods and rocks should be living witnesses to report the distress to others: Ch'i' t'ami piu de la mia vita, Chiedilo à queste selve Che te'l diranno, et te'l diran con esse Le fere loro ei duri sterpi, e i sassi Di questi alpestri monti, Ch'i' ho si spesse volte Inteneriti al suon de' miei lamenti. Pastor Fido, Aet III. Sc. 3. No lover who is not crazed will utter such a sentiment; it is plainly the operation of the writer, indulging his inventive faculty without regard to naThe same observation is applicable to the ture. following passage. In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell their tales Of woful ages, long ago betid And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, Tell them the lamentable fall of me, And send the hearers weeping to their beds. And in compassion weep the fire out Richard 11. Act V. Sc. 2. One must read this passage very seriously to avoid laughing. The following passage is quite extravagant; the different parts of the human body are too intimately connected with self to be personified by the power of any passion; and after converting such a part into a sensible being, it is still worse to make it to be conceived as rising in rebellion against self: Cleopatra. Haste, bare my arm, and rouse the serpent's fury. Coward flesh Would'st thou conspire with Cæsar, to betray me, Dryden. All for Love, Act V. Next comes descriptive personification: upon which I must observe, in general that it ought to be cautiously used. A personage in a tragedy, agitated by a strong passion, deals in warm sentiments and the reader, catching fire by sympathy, relisheth the boldest personifications; but a writer, even in the most lively description, taking a lower flight, ought to content himself with such easy personifications as agree with the tone of mind inspired by the description. Nor is even such easy personification always admitted; for in plain narrative, the mind, serious and sedate, rejects personification altogether. Strada, in his history of the Belgic wars, has the following passage, which, by a strained elevation above the tone of the subject, deviates into burlesque. Vix descenderat a prætoria navi Cæsar; cum fœda illico exorta in portu tempestas, classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit; quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem, Cæsarisque fortu nam. Dec. I. 1. 1. Neither do I approve, in Shakspeare, the speech of King John, gravely exhorting the citizens of Angiers to a surrender; though a tragic writer has VOL. II. 23 much greater latitude than a historian. The cannons have their bowels full of wrath; Take the Act II. Sc. 3. Secondly, if extraordinary marks of respect to a person of low rank be ridiculous, no less so is the personification of a low subject. This rule. chiefly regards descriptive personification; for a subject can hardly be low that is the cause of a violent passion in that circumstance, at least, it must be of importance. But to assign any rule other than taste merely, for avoiding things below even descriptive personification, will, I am afraid, be a hard task. A poet of superior genius, possessing the power of inflaming the mind, may take liberties that would be too bold in others. Homer appears not extravagant in animating his darts and arrows nor Thomson in animating the seasons, the winds, the rains, the dews; he even ventures to animate the diamond, and doth it with propriety: That polish'd bright And all its native lustre let abroad, Dares, as it sparkles on the fair one's breast, But there are things familiar and base, to which personification cannot descend. In a composed state of mind, to animate a lump of matter even in the most rapid flight of fancy, degenerates into burlesque: How now! What noise! that spirit's possess'd with haste, The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the list'ning waste, Thomson, Spring, 1. 23. Speaking of a man's hand cut off in battle: Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit: The personification here of a hand is insufferable, especially in a plain narration; not to mention that such a trivial incident is too minutely described. The same observation is applicable to abstract terms, which ought not to be animated unless they have some natural dignity. Thomson, in this article, is licentious; witness the following instances out of many: O vale of bliss! O softly swelling bills! Summer, 1. 1485. Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn Autumn, I. 516. Thirdly, it is not sufficient to avoid improper subjects: some preparation is necessary, in order to rouse the mind; for the imagination refuses its aid, till it be warmed at least, if not inflamed. Yet Thomson, without the least ceremony or preparation, introduceth each season as a sensible being: From brightening fields of æther fair disclos'd, In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth. And ever fanning breezes on his way; Summer, 1. 1, |