Victors and vanquish’d join promiscuous cries,
Triumphing shouts and dying groans arise,
With streaming blood the slipp’ry field is dy’d,
And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide.26
In this passage we may observe how the writer, inflamed with the subject, insensibly advances from the past time to the present; led to that form of narration by conceiving every circumstance as passing in his own sight: which at the same time has a fine effect upon the reader, by presenting things to him as a spectator. But change from the past to the present requires some preparation; and is not sweet where there is no stop in the sense; witness the following passage.
Thy fate was next, O Phaestus! doom’d to feel
The great Idomeneus’ protended steel;<99>
Whom Borus sent (his son and only joy)
From fruitful Tarne to the fields of Troy.
The Cretan jav’lin reach’d him from afar,
And pierc’d his shoulder as he mounts his car.
Iliad, v. 57.
It is still worse to fall back to the past in the same period; for that is an anticlimax in description:
Through breaking ranks his furious course he bends,
And at the goddess his broad lance extends;
Through her bright veil the daring weapon drove,
Th’ ambrosial veil, which all the graces wove:
Her snowy hand the razing steel profan’d,
And the transparent skin with crimson stain’d.
Iliad, v. 415.
Again, describing the shield of Jupiter,
Here all the terrors of grim War appear,
Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear,
Here storm’d Centention, and here Fury frown’d,
And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crown’d.
Iliad, v. 914.
Nor is it pleasant to be carried backward and forward alternately in a rapid succession:
Then dy’d Scamandrius, expert in the chace,
In woods and wilds to wound the savage race;
Diana taught him all her sylvan arts,
To bend the bow and aim unerring darts:
But vainly here Diana’s arts he tries,
The fatal lance arrests him as he flies;<100>
From Menelaus’ arm the weapon sent,
Through his broad back and heaving bosom went:
Down sinks the warrior with a thund’ring sound,
His brazen armour rings against the ground.
Iliad, v. 65.
It is wonderful to observe, upon what slight foundations nature erects some of her most solid and magnificent works. In appearance at least, what can be more slight than ideal presence? and yet from it is derived that extensive influence which language hath over the heart; an influence, which, more than any other means, strengthens the bond of society, and attracts individuals from their private system to perform acts of generosity and benevolence. Matters of fact, it is true, and truth in general, may be inculcated without taking advantage of ideal presence; but without it, the finest speaker or writer would in vain attempt to move any passion: our sympathy would be confined to objects that are really present; and language would lose entirely its signal power of making us sympathize with beings removed at the greatest distance of time as well as of place. Nor is the influence of language, by means of ideal presence, confined to the heart: it reacheth also the understanding, and contributes to belief. For when events are related in a lively manner, and every circumstance appears as passing before us, we suffer not patiently the truth of the facts to be<101> questioned. An historian accordingly who hath a genius for narration, seldom fails to engage our belief. The same facts related in a manner cold and indistinct, are not suffered to pass without examination: a thing ill described is like an object seen at a distance, or through a mist; we doubt whether it be a reality or a fiction. Cicero says, that to relate the manner in which an event passed, not only enlivens the story, but makes it appear more credible.* For that reason, a poet who can warm and animate his reader, may employ bolder fictions than ought to be ventured by an inferior genius: the reader, once thoroughly engaged, is susceptible of the strongest impressions:
Veraque constituunt, quae belle tangere possunt
Aureis, et lepido quae sunt fucata sonore.
Lucretius, lib. 1. l. 644.27
A masterly painting has the same effect: Le Brun28 is no small support to Quintus Curtius: and among the vulgar in Italy, the belief of scripture-history is perhaps founded as much upon the authority of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and other celebrated painters, as upon that of the sacred writers.*<102>
The foregoing theory must have fatigued the reader with much dry reasoning: but his labour will not be fruitless; because from that theory are derived many useful rules in criticism, which shall be mentioned in their proper places. One specimen shall be our present entertainment. Events that surprise by being unexpected, and yet are natural, enliven greatly an epic poem: but in such a poem, if it pretend to copy human manners and actions, no improbable incident ought to be admitted; that is, no incident contrary to the order and course of nature. A chain of imagined incidents linked together according to the order of nature, finds easy admittance into the mind; and a lively narrative of such incidents, occasions complete images, or in other words ideal presence: but our judgement revolts against an improbable incident; and if we once begin to doubt of its reality, farewell relish and concern—an unhappy effect; for it will require more than an ordinary effort, to restore the waking dream, and to make the reader conceive even the more probable incidents as passing in his presence.
I never was an admirer of machinery in an epic poem, and I now find my taste justified by reason;<103> the foregoing argument concluding still more strongly against imaginary beings, than against improbable facts: fictions of that nature may amuse by their novelty and singularity; but they never move the sympathetic passions, because they cannot impose on the mind any perception of reality. I appeal to the discerning reader, whether that observation be not applicable to the machinery of Tasso and of Voltaire:29 such machinery is not only in itself cold and uninteresting, but gives an air of fiction to the whole composition. A burlesque poem, such as the Lutrin or the Dispensary,30 may employ machinery with success; for these poems, tho’ they assume the air of history, give entertainment chiefly by their pleasant and ludicrous pictures, to which machinery contributes: it is not the aim of such a poem, to raise our sympathy; and for that reason, a strict imitation of nature is not required. A poem professedly ludicrous, may employ machinery to great advantage; and the
