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 IV. Sc. 7.

Plaintive passions are extremely solicitous for vent: and a soliloquy commonly answers the purpose: but when such passion becomes excessive, it cannot be gratified but by sympathy from others; and if denied that consolation in a natural way, it will convert even things inanimate into sympathising beings. Thus Philoctetes complains to the rocks and promontories of the isle of Lemnos ;* and Alcestes dying, invokes the sun, the light of day, the clouds, the earth, her husband's palace, &c. 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 Ponos etiam ingemuisse leones
Interitum, montesque feri sylvæque loquuntur.

Again:

Illum etiam lauri, illum etiam flevere myricæ.
Pinifer illum etiam sola sub rupe jacentem
Mænalus, et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycœi.

Again:

Ho vista al pianto mio

Responder per pietate i sassi e l'onde ;

E sospirar le fronde

Ho visto al pianto mio.

* Philoctetes of Sophocles, act iv. sc. 2.

+ Alcestes of Euripides, act ii. sc. 1.

Eclogue v. 27.

Eclogue x. 13.

Ma non ho visto mai,

Ne spero di vedere

Compassion ne la crudelle, e bella.

Aminta di Tasso, Act I. Sc. 2.

That such personification is derived from nature, will not admit the least remaining doubt, after finding it in poems of the darkest ages and remotest countries. No figure is more frequent in Ossian's works; for example,

The battle is over, said the king, and I behold the blood of my friends. Sad is the heath of Lena, and mournful the oaks of Cromla.

Again,

The sword of Gaul trembles at his side, and longs to glitter in his hand.

King Richard having got intelligence of Bolingbroke's invasion, says, upon 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 thý 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 falter under foul rebellious arms.

Richard II. A et III. Sc. 2.

After a long voyage it was customary among the ancients to salute the natal soil. A long voyage being of old a greater enterprise than at present, the safe return to one's country after much fatigue and danger, was a delightful circumstance; and it was natural to give the natal soil a temporary life, in order to sympathise with the traveller. See an example, Agamemnon of Eschilus, act iii. in the beginning. Regret for leaving a place one has been accustomed to, has the same effect.*

Terror produceth the same effect: it is communicated in thought to every thing around, even to things inanimate:

Speaking of Polyphemus,

Clamorem immensum tollit, quo pontus et omnes
Intremuere undæ, penitusque exterrita tellus

Italiæ.

Eneid, iii. 672.

As when old Ocean roars,

And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores.

Iliad, ii. 249.

Go, view the settling sea. The stormy wind is laid; but the billows still tremble on the deep, and seem to fear the blast.

Fingal.

Racine, in the tragedy of Phedra, describing the sea-monster that destroyed Hippolytus, conceives the sea itself to be struck with terror as well as the spectators:

Le flot qui l'apporta recule epouvanté.

A man also naturally communicates his joy to all objects around, animate or inanimate;

VOL. II.

* Philoctetes of Sophocles, at the close.
220

-As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozembic, 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
Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.

Paradise Lost, b. iv.

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 afford conviction, momentary indeed, of life and intelligence. But it is evident, from numberless instances, that personification is not always so complete: it is a common figure in descriptive poetry, understood to be the language of the writer, and not of the persons he describes: in this case it seldom or never comes up to 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 grey
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. vii. 1. 370*

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III. Sc. 7.

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.

Hamlet, Act I. Sc. 1.

The chastity of the English language, which in common usage distin guishes by genders no words but what signify beings male and female, gives thus a fine opportunity for the prosopopæia; a beauty unknown in other languages, where every word is masculine or feminine.

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: that the sun, the moon, the day, the morn, are not here understood to be sensible beings. What then is the nature of this personification? I think it 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:* 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. This sort of personification, however, is far inferior to the other in elevation. Thus personification is of two kinds. The first being more noble, may be termed passionate personification; the other, more humble, descriptive personification; because seldom or never is personification in a description carried to 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 adapled to poetry, because they suggest not any image: 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, ab

See Appendix, containing definitions and explanations of terms, sect 28.