ESSAY XXII.

Of TRAGEDY.

T feems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spec

tators of a well-written tragedy receive from forrow, terror, anxiety, and other paffions, that are in themfelves disagreeable and uneafy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle; and as soon as the uneafy paffions cease to operate, the piece is at an end. One scene of full joy and contentment and fecurity, is the utmoft that any compofition of this kind can bear; and it is fure always to be the concluding one. If, in the texture of the piece, there be interwoven any scenes of fatisfaction, they afford only faint gleams of pleasure, which are thrown in by way variety, and in order to plunge the actors into deeper diftrefs, by means of that contraft and disappointment. The whole art of the poet is employed, in rouzing and fupporting the compaffion and indignation, the anxiety and refentment of his audience. They are pleased in proportion as they are afflicted, and never are fo happy as when they employ tears, fobs, and cries to give vent to their forrow, and relieve their heart, fwoln with the tenderest sympathy and compaffion.

of

The few critics who have had fome tincture of philofophy, have remarked this fingular phænomenon, and have endeavoured to account for it. Q4

L'Abbé

L'Abbé DUBOS, in his reflections on poetry and painting, afferts, that nothing is in general fo difagreeable to the mind as the languid, listless state of indolence, into which it falls upon the removal of all paffion and occupation. To get rid of this painful fituation, it feeks every amusement and purfuit; bufinefs, gaming, fhews, executions; whatever will rouze the paffions, and take its attention from itself. No matter what the paffion is: Let it be difagreeable, afflicting, melancholy, difordered; it is ftill better than that infipid languor, which arifes from perfect tranquillity and repofe.

It is impoffible not to admit this account, as being, at least in part, fatisfactory. You may obferve, when there are feveral tables of gaming, that all the company run to those, where the deepest play is, even though they find not there the best players. The view, or, at least, imagination of high paffions, arifing from great lofs or gain, affects the fpectator by fympathy, gives him fome touches of the fame paffions, and. ferves him for a momentary entertainment. It makes the time pafs the eafier with him, and is fome relief to that oppreffion, under which men commonly labour, when left entirely to their own thoughts and meditations,

We find that common liars always magnify, in their narrations, all kinds of danger, pain, diftrefs, ficknefs, deaths, murders, and cruelties; as well as joy, beauty, mirth, and magnificence. It is an abfurd secret, which they have for pleafing their company, fixing their attention, and attaching them to fuch marvellous relations, by the paffions and emotions which they excite.

There is, however, a difficulty in applying to the prefent fubject, in its full extent, this folution, however ingenious and fatisfactory it may appear. It is certain, that the fame object of diftrefs, which pleases in a tra

gedya

gedy, were it really fet before us, would give the most unfeigned uneasiness; though it be then the most effectual cure to languor and indolence. Monfieur FONTENELLE feems to have been fenfible of this difficulty; and accordingly attempts another folution of the phanomenon; at reaft makes fome addition to the theory

above mentioned *.

15

"Pleasure and pain," fays he," which are two fen"timents fo different in themselves, differ not fo much "in their caufe. From the inftance of tickling, it "appears, that the movement of pleasure, pufhed a little <too far, becomes pain; and that the movement of

pain, a little moderated, becomes pleasure. Hence it "proceeds, that there is fuch a thing as a forrow, soft ❝ and agreeable: It is a pain weakened and diminished. "The heart likes naturally to be moved and affected. "Melancholy objects fuit it, and even difaftrous and "forrowful, provided they are softened by fome circumftance. It is certain, that, on the theatre, the re"presentation has almost the effect of reality; yet it has "not altogether that effect. However we may be hur"ried away by the fpectacle; whatever dominion the

fenfes and imagination may ufurp over the reason, there ftill lurks at the bottom a certain idea of falfe"hood in the whole of what we fee. This idea, though "weak and difguifed, fuffices to diminish the pain which 66 we fuffer from the misfortunes of those whom we love, ❝and to reduce that affliction to fuch a pitch as converts "it into a pleasure. We weep for the misfortune of a "hero, to whom we are attached. In the fame inftant "we comfort ourselves, by reflecting, that it is nothing but a fiction: And it is precifely that mixture of fen

* Reflexions fur la poëtique, § 36.

"timents,

"timents, which compofes an agreeable forrow, and "tears that delight us. But as that, affliction, which is "caused by exterior and fenfible objects, is ftronger "than the confolation which arifes from an internal ❝ reflection, they are the effects and symptoms of forrow, "that ought to predominate in the condition.”

This folution feems juft and convincing; but perhaps it wants still some new addition, in order to make it anfwer fully the phænomenon, which we here examine. All the paffions, excited by eloquence, are agreeable in the highest degree, as well as thofe which are moved by painting and the theatre. The epilogues of CICERO are, on this account chiefly, the delight of every reader of tafte; and it is difficult to read fome of them without the deepeft fympathy and forrow. His merit as an orator, no doubt, depends much on his fuccefs in this particular. When he had raised tears in his judges and all his audience, they were then the most highly delighted, and expreffed the greateft fatisfaction with the pleader. The pathetic defcription of the butchery, made by VERRES of the SICILIAN captains, is a masterpiece of this kind: But I believe none will affirm, that the being prefent at a melancholy fcene of that nature would afford entertainment. Neither is the forrow here softened any by fiction: For the audience were convinced of the reality of every circumftance. What is it then, which in this cafe raises a pleasure from the bofom of uneafiness, fo to speak; and a pleasure, which ftill retains all the features and outward fymptoms of diftrefs and forrow?

I anfwer: This extraordinary effect proceeds from that very eloquence, with which the melancholy scene is reprefented. The genius required to paint objects in a lively manner, the art employed in collecting all the pathetic circumftances, the judgment difplayed in dif