_PERSONIFICATION._
This figure, which gives life to things inanimate, is so bold a delusion
as to require, one should imagine, very peculiar circumstances for
operating the effect. And yet, in the language of poetry, we find
variety of expressions, which, though commonly reduced to this figure,
are used without ceremony or any sort of preparation. I give, for
example, the following expressions. _Thirsty_ ground, _hungry_
church-yard, _furious_ dart, _angry_ ocean. The epithets here, in their
proper meaning, are attributes of sensible beings. What is the effect of
such epithets, when apply’d to things inanimate? Do they raise in the
mind of the reader a perception of sensibility? Do they make him
conceive the ground, the church-yard, the dart, the ocean, to be endued
with animal functions? This is a curious inquiry; and whether so or not,
it cannot be declined in handling the present subject.
One thing is certain, that the mind is prone to bestow sensibility upon
things inanimate, where that violent effect is necessary to gratify
passion. This is one instance, among many, of the power of passion to
adjust our opinions and belief to its gratification[12]. I give the
following examples. Antony, mourning over the body of Cæsar, murdered in
the senate-house, vents his passion in the following words.
_Antony._ O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
_Julius Cæsar, act 3. sc. 4_.
Here Antony must have been impressed with some sort of notion, that the
body of Cæsar was listening to him, without which the speech would be
foolish and absurd. Nor will it appear strange, after what is said in
the chapter above cited, that passion should have such power over the
mind of man. Another example of the same kind is, where the earth, as a
common mother, is animated to give refuge against a father’s unkindness.
_Almeria_. O Earth, behold, I kneel upon thy bosom,
And bend my flowing eyes to stream upon
Thy face, imploring thee that thou wilt yield;
Open thy bowels of compassion, take
Into thy womb the last and most forlorn
Of all thy race. Hear me thou, common parent;
---- I have no parent else.---- Be thou a mother,
And step between me and the curse of him,
Who was--who was, but is no more a father;
But brands my innocence with horrid crimes;
And for the tender names of _child_ and _daughter_,
Now calls me _murderer_ and _parricide_.
_Mourning Bride, act. 4. sc. 7_.
Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent. A soliloquy
commonly answers the purpose. But when a passion swells high, it is not
satisfied with so slight a gratification: it must have a person to
complain to; and if none be found, it will animate things devoid of
sense. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the
isle of Lemnos[13]; and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of
day, the clouds, the earth, her husband’s palace, _&c._[14]. Plaintive
passions carry the mind still farther. Among the many principles that
connect individuals in society, one is remarkable: it is that principle
which makes us earnestly wish, that others should enter into our
concerns and think and feel as we do[15]. This social principle, when
inflamed by a plaintive passion, will, for want of a more complete
gratification, prompt the mind to give life even to things inanimate.
Moschus, lamenting the death of Bion, conceives that the birds, the
fountains, the trees, lament with him. The shepherd, who in Virgil
bewails the death of Daphnis, expresseth himself thus:
Daphni, tuum Pœnos etiam ingemuisse leones
Interitum, montesque feri sylvæque loquuntur.
_Eclogue_ v. 27.
Again,
Illum etiam lauri, illum etiam flevere myricæ.
Pinifer illum etiam sola sub rupe jacentem
Mænalus, et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycæi.
_Eclogue_ x. 13.
Again,
Ho visto al pianto mio
Responder per pietate i sassi e l’onde;
E sospirar le fronde
Ho visto al pianto mio.
Ma non ho visto mai,
Ne spero di vedere
Compassion ne la crudele, e bella.
_Aminta di Tasso, act 1. sc. 2._
Earl Rivers carried to execution, says,
O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
Fatal and ominous to Noble peers!
Within the guilty closure of thy walls
Richard the Second, here, was hack’d to death;
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
_Richard III, act 3. sc. 4._
King Richard having got intelligence of Bolingbroke’s invasion, says,
upon his landing in England from his Irish expedition, in a mixture of
joy and resentment,
---- I weep for joy
To stand upon my kingdom once again.
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses hoofs.
As a long parted mother with her child
Plays fondly with her tears, and smiles in meeting;
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his rav’nous sense:
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treach’rous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
And, when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pr’ythee, with a lurking adder;
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.
Mock not my senseless conjuration, Lords:
This earth shall have a feeling; and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall faulter under foul rebellious arms.
_Richard II. act 3. sc. 2._
Among the ancients, it was customary after a long voyage to salute the
natal soil. A long voyage, was of old a greater enterprise than at
present: the safe return to one’s country after much fatigue and danger,
was a circumstance extremely delightful; and it was natural to give the
natal soil a temporary life, in order to sympathise with the traveller.
See an example, _Agamemnon_ of Æschilus, act 3. in the beginning. Regret
for leaving a place one has been accustomed to has the same effect[16].
Terror produceth the same effect. A man, to gratify this passion,
extends it to every thing around, even to things inanimate:
Speaking of Polyphemus,
Clamorem immensum tollit, quo pontus et omnes
Intremuere undæ penitusque exterrita tellus
Italiæ.
_Æneid._ iii. 672.
---- As when old Ocean roars,
And heaves huge surges to the _trembling_ shores.
_Iliad_ ii. 249.
And thund’ring footsteps _shake_ the sounding shore.
_Iliad_ ii. 549.
Then with a voice that _shook_ the vaulted skies.
_Iliad_ v. 431.
Racine, in the tragedy of _Phedra_, describing the sea-monster that
destroy’d Hippolitus, conceives the sea itself to be inspired with
terror as well as the spectators; or more accurately transfers from the
spectators their terror to the sea, with which they were connected:
Le flot qui l’apporta recule epouvanté.
A man also naturally communicates his joy to all objects around, animate
or inanimate:
---- As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odour from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest; with such delay
Well pleas’d, they slack their course, and many a league
Chear’d with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.
_Paradise Lost, b. 4._
I have been profuse of examples, to show what power many passions have
to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the
personification, if I mistake not, is so complete as to be derived from
an actual conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it
is evident from numberless instances, that personification is not always
so complete. Personification is a common figure in descriptive poetry,
understood to be the language of the writer, and not of any of his
personages in a fit of passion. In this case, it seldom or never comes
up to a conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the
following examples.
First in _his_ east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all th’ horizon round
Invested with bright rays; jocund to run
_His_ longitude through heav’n’s high road: the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades before _him_ danc’d,
Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon
But opposite, in levell’d west was set
_His_ mirror, with full face borrowing _her_ light
From _him_; for other light _she_ needed none.
_Paradise Lost, b. 7. l. 370._[17]
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
_Romeo and Juliet, act 3. sc. 7._
But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
_Hamlet, act 1. sc. 1._
It may, I presume, be taken for granted, that, in the foregoing
instances, the personification, either with the poet or his reader,
amounts not to a conviction of intelligence; nor that the sun, the moon,
the day, the morn, are here understood to be sensible beings. What then
is the nature of this personification? Upon considering the matter
attentively, I discover that this species of personification must be
referred to the imagination. The inanimate object is imagined to be a
sensible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it
really is so. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raise
emotions in the mind[18]; and when any thing inanimate is, in
imagination, supposed to be a sensible being, it makes by that means a
greater figure than when an idea is formed of it according to truth. The
elevation however in this case, is far from being so great as when the
personification arises to an actual conviction; and therefore must be
considered as of a lower or inferior sort. Thus personification is of
two kinds. The first or nobler, may be termed _passionate
personification_: the other, or more humble, _descriptive
personification_; because seldom or never is personification in a
description carried the length of conviction.
The imagination is so lively and active, that its images are raised with
very little effort; and this justifies the frequent use of descriptive
personification. This figure abounds in Milton’s _Allegro_ and
_Penseroso_.
Abstract and general terms, as well as particular objects, are often
necessary in poetry. Such terms however are not well adapted to poetry,
because they suggest not any image to the mind: I can readily form an
image of Alexander or Achilles in wrath; but I cannot form an image of
wrath in the abstract, or of wrath independent of a person. Upon that
account, in works addressed to the imagination, abstract terms are
frequently personified. But this personification never goes farther than
the imagination.
Sed mihi vel Tellus optem prius ima dehiscat;
Vel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras,
Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam,
Ante pudor quam te violo, aut tua jura resolvo.
_Æneid. 4. l. 24._
Thus, to explain the effects of slander, it is imagined to be a
voluntary agent:
---- No, ’tis Slander;
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Out venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world, kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons: nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous Slander enters.
_Shakespear, Cymbeline, act. 3. sc. 4._
As also human passions. Take the following example.
----For Pleasure and Revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice
Of any true decision.
_Troilus and Cressida, act 2. sc. 4._
Virgil explains fame and its effects by a still greater variety of
action[19]. And Shakespear personifies death and its operations in a
manner extremely fanciful:
---- Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if his flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and humour’d thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle-walls, and farewell king!
_Richard_ II. _act 3. sc. 4_.
Not less successfully is life and action given even to sleep:
_K. Henry._ How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, Sleep, ly’st thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why ly’st thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch,
A watch-case to a common larum-bell?
Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf’ning clamours in the slipp’ry shrouds,
That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes:
Can’st thou, O partial Sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low! lie down;
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
_Second Part Henry_ IV. _act 3. sc. 1_.
I shall add one example more, to show that descriptive personification
may be used with propriety, even where the purpose of the discourse is
instruction merely:
Oh! let the steps of youth be cautious,
How they advance into a dangerous world;
Our duty only can conduct us safe:
Our passions are seducers: but of all,
The strongest Love: he first approaches us,
In childish play, wantoning in our walks:
If heedlessly we wander after him,
As he will pick out all the dancing way,
We’re lost, and hardly to return again.
We should take warning: he is painted blind,
To show us, if we fondly follow him,
The precipices we may fall into.
Therefore let Virtue take him by the hand:
Directed so, he leads to certain joy.
_Southern._
Hitherto our progress has been upon firm ground. Whether we shall be so
lucky in the remaining part of the journey, seems doubtful. For after
acquiring some knowledge of the subject, when we now look back to the
expressions mentioned in the beginning, _thirsty_ ground, _furious_
dart, and such like, it seems as difficult as at first to say what sort
of personification it is. Such expressions evidently raise not the
slighted conviction of sensibility. Nor do I think they amount to
descriptive personification: in the expressions mentioned, we do not so
much as figure the ground or the dart to be animated; and if so, they
cannot at all come under the present subject. And to show this more
clearly, I shall endeavour to explain what effect such expressions have
naturally upon the mind. In the expression _angry ocean_, for example,
do we not tacitly compare the ocean in a storm, to a man in wrath? It is
by this tacit comparison, that the expression acquires a force or
elevation, beyond what is found when an epithet is used proper to the
object: for I have had occasion to show[20], that a thing inanimate
acquires a certain elevation by being compared to a sensible being. And
this very comparison is itself a demonstration, that there is no
personification in such expressions. For, by the very nature of a
comparison, the things compared are kept distinct, and the native
appearance of each is preserved. It will be shown afterward, that
expressions of this kind belong to another figure, which I term _a
figure of speech_, and which employs the seventh section of the present
chapter.
Though thus in general we can precisely distinguish descriptive
personification from what is merely a figure of speech, it is however
often difficult to say, with respect to some expressions, whether they
are of the one kind or of the other. Take the following instances.
The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently _kiss_ the trees,
And they did make no noise; in such a night,
Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan wall,
And sigh’d his soul towards the Grecian tents
Where Cressid lay that night.
_Merchant of Venice, act 5. sc. 1._
---- I have seen
Th’ _ambitious_ ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds.
_Julius Cæsar, act 1. sc. 6._
_Jane Shore._ My form, alas! has long forgot to please;
The scene of beauty and delight is chang’d,
No roses bloom upon my fading cheek,
No laughing graces wanton in my eyes;
But haggard Grief, lean-looking sallow Care,
And pining Discontent, a rueful train,
Dwell on my brow, all hideous and forlorn.
_Jane Shore, act 1. sc. 2._
With respect to these and numberless other instances of the same kind,
whether they be examples of personification or of a figure of speech
merely, seems to be an arbitrary question. They will be ranged under the
former class by those only who are endued with a sprightly imagination.
Nor will the judgement even of the same person be steady: it will vary
with the present state of the spirits, lively or composed.
* * * * *
Having thus at large explained the present figure, its different kinds,
and the principles from whence derived; what comes next in order is to
ascertain its proper province, by showing in what cases it is suitable,
in what unsuitable. I begin with observing, upon passionate
personification, that this figure is not promoted by every passion
indifferently. All dispiriting passions are averse to it. Remorse, in
particular, is too serious and severe, to be gratified by 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,
When men revolted shall upon record
Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did
Before thy face repent--------
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 4. sc. 7._
If this can be justified, it must be upon the Heathen 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 strictly to its proper province, that of gratifying
the passion; and no sentiment nor action ought to be exerted by the
animated object, but what answers that purpose. 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, that the lover may vent his distress to them:
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,
Se tu nol fai, crudele,
Chiedilo a queste selve,
Che te’l diranno, et te’l diran con esso
Le fere loro e i duri sterpi, e i sassi
Di questi alpestri monti,
Ch’i’ ho si spesse volte
Inteneriti al suon de’ miei lamenti.
_Pastor fido, act 3. sc. 3._
No lover who is not crazed will utter such a sentiment: it is plainly
the operation of the writer, indulging his imagination without regard to
nature. The same observation is applicable to the following passage.
In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages, long ago betid:
And ere thou bid goodnight, to quiet their grief,
Tell them the lamentable fall of me,
And send the hearers weeping to their beds.
For why! the senseless brands will sympathise
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
And in compassion weep the fire out.
_Richard II. act 5. sc. 1._
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 be conceived as rising in rebellion
against self.
_Cleopatra_. Haste, bare my arm, and rouze the serpent’s fury.
Coward flesh--------
Would’st thou conspire with Cæsar, to betray me,
As thou wert none of mine? I’ll force thee to’t.
_Dryden, All for Love, act 5._
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 strong sentiments; and the
reader, catching fire by sympathy, relishes the boldest
personifications. But a writer, even in the most lively description,
ought to take a lower flight, and content himself with such easy
personifications as agree with the tone of mind inspired by the
description. In plain narrative, again, 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 burlesk. “Vix descenderat a
prætoria navi Cæsar; cum fœda illico exorta in portu tempestas, classem
impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit: quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem,
Cæsarisque fortunam[21].” Neither do I approve, in Shakespear, the
speech of King John, gravely exhorting the citizens of Angiers to a
surrender; though a tragic writer has much greater latitude than a
historian. Take the following specimen of this speech.
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath;
And ready mounted are they to spit forth
Their iron-indignation ’gainst your walls.
_Act 2. sc. 3._
Secondly, If extraordinary marks of respect put upon a person of the
lowest rank be ridiculous, not less so is the personification of a mean
object. This rule chiefly regards descriptive personification: for an
object can hardly be mean that is the cause of a violent passion; in
that circumstance, at least, it must be an object of importance. With
respect to this point, it would be in vain to set limits to
personification: taste is the only rule. A poet of superior genius hath
more than others the command of this figure; because he hath more than
others the power of inflaming the mind. 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,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
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 burlesk.
How now? What noise? that spirit’s possess’d with haste,
That wounds th’ unresisting postern with these strokes.
_Shakespear, Measure for Measure, act 4. sc. 6._
The following little better:
---- Or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o’er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the list’ning waste.
_Thomson, Spring, l. 23._
Speaking of a man’s hand cut off in battle:
Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit:
Semianimesque micant digiti; ferrumque retractant.
_Æneid. x. 395._
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 quite licentious. Witness the following instances out of
many.
O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills!
On which _the power of cultivation_ lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
_Summer, l. 1423_.
Then sated _Hunger_ bids his brother _Thirst_
Produce the mighty bowl:
Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn
Mature and perfect, from _his_ dark retreat
Of thirty years; and now _his honest front_
Flames in the light refulgent.
_Autumn, l. 516._
Thirdly, it is not sufficient to avoid improper subjects. Some
preparation is necessary, in order to rouze the mind. 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,
Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth.
He comes attended by the sultry hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way,
While from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face, and earth and skies
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
_Summer, l. 1._
See _Winter_ comes, to rule the vary’d year,
Sullen and sad with all his rising train,
_Vapours_, and _clouds_, and _storms_.
_Winter, l. 1._
This has violently the air of writing mechanically without taste. It is
not natural, that the imagination of a writer should be so much heated
at the very commencement; and, at any rate, he cannot expect such
ductility in his readers: but if this practice can be justified by
authority, Thomson has one of no mean note: Vida begins his first
eclogue in the following words.
Dicite, vos Musæ, et juvenum memorate querelas;
Dicite; nam motas ipsas ad carmina cautes
Et requiesse suos perhibent vaga flumina cursus.
Even Shakespear is not always careful to prepare the mind for this bold
figure. Take the following instance:
---------------- Upon these taxations,
The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to them ’longing, have put off
The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers; who,
Unfit for other life, compell’d by hunger
And lack of other means, in desp’rate manner
Daring th’ event to th’ teeth, are all in uproar,
And _Danger_ serves among them.
_Henry VIII. act 1. sc. 4._
Fourthly, Descriptive personification ought never to be carried farther
than barely to animate the subject: and yet poets are not easily
restrained from making this phantom of their own creating behave and act
in every respect as if it were really a sensible being. By such licence
we lose sight of the subject; and the description is rendered obscure or
unintelligible, instead of being more lively and striking. In this view,
the following passage, describing Cleopatra on shipboard, appears to me
exceptionable.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love sick with ’em.
_Antony and Cleopatra, act 2. sc. 3._
Let the winds be personified; I make no objection. But to make them
love-sick, is too far stretched; having no resemblance to any natural
action of wind. In another passage, where Cleopatra is also the subject,
the personification of the air is carried beyond all bounds:
---------------------------- The city cast
Its people out upon her; and Antony
Inthron’d i’ th’ market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to th’ air, which but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.
_Antony and Cleopatra, act 2. sc. 3._
The following personification of the earth or soil is not less wild.
She shall be dignify’d with this high honour
To bear my Lady’s train; lest the base earth
Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss;
And of so great a favour growing proud,
Disdain to root the summer swelling flower,
And make rough winter everlastingly.
_The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 2. sc. 7._
Shakespear, far from approving such intemperance of imagination, puts
this speech in the mouth of a ranting lover. Neither can I relish what
follows.
Omnia quæ, Phœbo quondam meditante, beatus
Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros,
Ille canit.
_Virgil, Buc. vi. 82._
The chearfulness singly of a pastoral song, will scarce support
personification in the lowest degree. But admitting, that a river gently
flowing may be imagined a sensible being listening to a song, I cannot
enter into the conceit of the river’s ordering his laurels to learn the
song. Here all resemblance to any thing real is quite lost. This
however is copied literally by one of our greatest poets; early indeed,
before maturity of taste or judgement.
Thames heard the numbers as he flow’d along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.
_Pope’s Pastorals, past. 4. l. 13._
This author, in riper years, is guilty of a much greater deviation from
the rule. Dullness may be imagined a deity or idol, to be worshipped by
bad writers: but then some sort of disguise is requisite, some bastard
virtue must be bestowed, to give this idol a plausible appearance. Yet
in the _Dunciad_, dullness, without the least disguise, is made the
object of worship. The mind rejects such a fiction as unnatural; for
dullness is a defect, of which even the dullest mortal is ashamed:
Then he: great tamer of all human art, &c.
_Book i. 163._
The following instance is stretched beyond all resemblance. It is bold
to take a part or member of a living creature, and to bestow upon it
life, volition, and action: after animating two such members, it is
still bolder to make them envy each other; for this is wide of any
resemblance to reality:
------------------ De nostri baci
Meritamente sia giudice quella, &c.
_Pastor Fido, act 2. sc. 1._
Fifthly, The enthusiasm of passion may have the effect to prolong
passionate personification: but descriptive personification cannot be
dispatched in too few words. A minute description dissolves the charm,
and makes the attempt to personify appear ridiculous. Homer succeeds in
animating his darts and arrows: but such personification spun out in a
French translation, is mere burlesk:
Et la fléche en furie, avide de son sang,
Part, vole à lui, l’atteint, et lui perce le flanc.
Horace says happily, “Post equitem sedet atra Cura.” See how this
thought degenerates by being divided, like the former, into a number of
minute parts:
Un fou rempli d’erreurs, que le trouble accompagne
Et malade à la ville ainsi qu’à la campagne,
En vain monte à cheval pour tromper son ennui,
Le Chagrin monte en croupe et galope avec lui.
The following passage is, if possible, still more faulty.
Her fate is whisper’d by the gentle breeze,
And told in sighs to all the trembling trees;
The trembling trees, in ev’ry plain and wood,
Her fate remurmur to the silver flood;
The silver flood, so lately calm, appears
Swell’d with new passion, and o’erflows with tears;
The winds, and trees, and floods, her death deplore,
Daphne, our grief! our glory! now no more.
_Pope’s Pastorals, iv. 61._
Let grief or love have the power to animate the winds, the trees, the
floods, provided the figure be dispatched in a single expression. Even
in that case, the figure seldom has a good effect; because grief or love
of the pastoral kind, are causes rather too faint for so violent an
effect as imagining the winds, trees, or floods, to be sensible beings.
But when this figure is deliberately spread out with great regularity
and accuracy through many lines, the reader, instead of relishing it, is
struck with its ridiculous appearance.