storian. Take the following fpecimen of this fpeech.

The cannons have their bowels full of wrath;
And ready mounted are they to fpit forth
Their iron-indignation 'gainst your walls,

Act 2. Sc. 3.

Secondly, If extraordinary marks of respect put upon a perfon of the lowest rank be ridiculous, not lefs fo is the perfonification of a mean object. This rule chiefly regards descriptive personification: for an object can hardly be mean that is the caufe of a violent paffion; in that circumftance, 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 fuperior 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

Dares, as it fparkles on the fair-one's breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.

But there are things familiar and bafe, to which perfonification cannot defcend. 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 fpirit's poffefs'd with haste,

That wounds th' unrefifting postern with thefe ftrokes.

Shakespear, Measure for Measure, aṛt 4. jc. 6.

The following little better;

Or from the shore

The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And fing their wild notes to the lift'ning waste.

Thomfon, Spring, 1.231

Speaking of a man's hand cut off in battle:

Te decifa fuum, Laride, dextera quæriti Semianimefque micant digiti; ferrumque retrac

tant.

Eneid. x. 395.

The

The personification here of a hand is infufferable, especially in a plain narration; not to mention that fuch a trivial incident is too minutely defcribed.

The fame obfervation is applicable to abftract terms, which ought not to be animated unless they have fome natural dignity. Thomson, in this article, is quite licentious. Witness the following inftances out of many.

O vale of blifs! O foftly swelling hills!
On which the power of cultivation lies,
And joys to fee the wonders of his toil.

Summer, l. 1423.

Then fated Hunger bids his brother Thirt
Produce the mighty bowl:

Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat

Of thirty years; and now his honeft front
Flames in the light refulgent.

Autumn, 1. 516.

Thirdly, it is not sufficient to avoid improper fubjects. Some preparation is neceffary, in order to rouze the mind. The imagination

magination refufes its aid, till it be warmed at leaft, if not inflamed. Yet Thomfon, without the least ceremony or preparation, introduceth each feafon as a fenfible being:

From brightening fields of æther fair disclos❜d,
Child of the fun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth.
He comes attended by the fultry hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way,
While from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blufhful face, and earth and skies
All-fmiling, to his hot dominion leaves.

Summer, l. 1.

See Winter comes, to rule the vary'd year,
Sullen and fad with all his rifing train,

Vapours, and clouds, and forms.

Winter, l. 1.

This has violently the air of writing mechanically without tafte. It is not natural, that the imagination of a writer should be fo much heated at the very commencement; and, at any rate, he cannot expect fuch ductility in his readers; but if this practice can be juftified by authority,

Thomfon

Thomson has one of no mean note: Vida begins his firft eclogue in the following words.

Dicite, vos Mufæ, et juvenum memorate querelas ;
Dicite; nam motas ipfas ad carmina cautes
Et requieffe fuos perhibent vaga flumina curfus.

Even Shakespear is not always careful to prepare the mind for this bold figure. Take the following inftance :

Upon these taxations,

The clothiers all, not able to maintain
The many to them 'longing, have put off
The fpinfters, carders, fullers, weavers; who,
Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger
And lack of other means, in defp'rate manner
Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar,
And Danger ferves among them.

Henry VIII. at 1. sc. 4.

Fourthly, Defcriptive perfonification ought never to be carried farther than barely to animate the fubject: and yet poets are not eafily reftrained from making this phantom of their own creating behave and act in every respect as if it were really a fenfible VOL III.

L

being.