Mozambic, off at fea north-eaft winds blow Sabean odour from the spicy shore Of Araby the Bleft; with fuch delay Well pleas'd, they flack their courfe, and many a league Chear'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles. Paradife Loft, b. 4. I have been profufe of examples, to show what power many paffions have to animate their objects. In all the foregoing examples, the perfonification, if I mistake not, is fo complete as to be derived from an actual conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident from numberless inftances, that perfonification is not always fo complete. Perfonification is a common figure in defcriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of any of his perfonages in a fit of paffion. In this cafe, it feldom or never comes up to a conviction, even momentary, of life and intelligence. I give the following examples. Firft in his eaft the glorious lamp was feen, Invested 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. Lefs bright the moon His mirror, with full face borrowing her light Paradife Loft, b. 7. 1. 370.* Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Romeo and Juliet, act 3. Sc. 7. But look, the morn, in ruffet mantle clad, Hamlet, at 1. f. 1. It may, I prefume, be taken for granted, that, in the foregoing inftances, the perfo nification, either with the poet or his reader, amounts not to a conviction of intelligence; nor that the fun, the moon, the The chastity of the English language, which in common ufage distinguishes by genders no words but what fignify beings male and female, gives thus a fine opportunity for the profopopoeia; a beauty unknown in other languages, where every word is masculine or feminine. day, day, the morn, are here understood to be fenfible beings. What then is the nature of this perfonification? Upon confidering the matter attentively, I difcover that this fpecies of perfonification must be referred to the imagination. The inanimate object is imagined to be a fenfible being, but without any conviction, even for a moment, that it really is fo. Ideas or fictions of imagination have power to raise emotions in the mind *; and when any thing inanimate is, in imagination, fuppofed to be a fenfible 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 fo great as when the perfonification arises to an actual conviction; and therefore must be confi dered as of a lower or inferior fort. Thus perfonification is of two kinds. The firft or nobler, may be termed paffionate perfonification: the other, or more humble, defcriptive perfonification; because feldom or terms. See appendix, containing definitions and explanation of never is perfonification in a description carried the length of conviction. The imagination is fo lively and active, that its images are raised with very little ef fort; and this juftifies the frequent ufe of defcriptive perfonification. This figure abounds in Milton's Allegro and Penferofo. Abstract and general terms, as well as particular objects, are often neceffary 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 perfon. Upon that account, in works addreffed to the imagination, abftract terms are frequently perfonified. But this perfonification never goes farther than the imagination. Sed mihi vel Tellus optem prius ima dehifcat; VOL. III. I Thus, Thus, to explain the effects of flander, it is imagined to be a voluntary agentica me T No, 'tis Slander; Whofe edge is fharper than the fword; 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 ftates, Maids, matrons: nay, the fecrets of the grave Shakespear, Cymbeline, alt 3. fc. 4. As also human paffions. Take the following example. For Pleasure and Revenge Have ears more deaf than adders, to the voice Of any true decifion. Troilus and Creffida, a&t 2. Sc. 4. Virgil explains fame and its effects by a ftill greater variety of action *. And Shakefpear perfonifies death and its operations in a manner extremely fanciful; Æneid. iv. 173 |