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fignify, though he doth not plainly speak it out, that the discovery made by the hearer, of the admirable art and ingenuity of the speaker, and of the elegance and harmony of what is fpoken, gives that peculiar pleasure to the mind, which makes even the painful paffions become delightful.

Ir the first of these be all that he intended to affirm, he hath told us indeed a certain truth, but nothing new or uncommon; nay more, he hath told us nothing that can serve in the smallest degree for a folution of the difficulty. Who ever doubted, that it is the defign and work of eloquence to move the paffions, and to please? The question which this naturally gives rife to, is, How doth eloquence produce this effect? This, I believe, it will be acknowledged to do principally, if not folely, agreeably to the doctrine explained above, by communicating lively, distinct, and strong ideas of the diftrefs which it exhibits. By a judicious, yet natural arrangement of the most affecting circumftances, by a proper felection of the most suitable tropes and figures, it enlivens the ideas raised in the imagination to fuch a pitch, as makes them strongly • Chap. VI.

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refemble the perceptions of the fenfes, or the tranfcripts of the memory. The queftion then, with which we are immediately concerned, doth obviously recur, and feems, if poffible, more myfterious than before: for how can the aggravating of all the circumstances of mifery in the reprefentation, make it be contemplated with pleafure? One would naturally imagine, that this must be the most effectual method for making it give fill greater pain. How can the heightening of grief, fear, anxiety, and other uneafy fenfations, render them agreeable?

BESIDES, this ingenious author has not adverted, that his hypothefis, inftead of being fupplementary to Fontenelle's, as he appears to have intended, is fubverfive of the principles on which the French critic's theory is founded. The ef fect, according to the latter, results from moderating, weakening, foftening, and diminishing the paffion according to the former, it refults from what is directly oppofite, from the arts employed by the orator for the purpose of exaggerating, rengthening, heightening, and inflaming the paffion. Indeed, neither of these writers feems to have attended fufficiently to one particular, which of itself might have shown the infuffi

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infufficiency of their fyftems. The particular alluded to is, that pity, if it exceed not a certain degree, gives pleafure to the mind, when excited by the original objects in distress, as well as by the representations made by poets, painters, and orators: and, on the contrary, if it exceed a certain degree, it is on the whole painful, whether awakened by the real objects of pity, or roused by the exhibitions of the hiftorian or of the poet. Indeed, as fenfe operates much more ftrongly on the mind than imagination does, the excess is much more frequent in the former cafe than in the latter.

Now in attempting to give a folution of the difficulty, it is plain, that all our theorists ought regularly and properly to begin with the former cafe. If in that, which is the original and the fimpleft, the matter is fufficiently accounted for, it is accounted for in every cafe, it being the manifeft defign both of painting and of oratory, as nearly as poffible, to produce the fame affections which the very objects reprefented would have produced in our minds: whereas, though Mr. Hume fhould be admitted to have account

ed fully for the impreffion made by the poet and the orator, we are as far as ever from the difco

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very of the cause why pity excited by the objects themselves, when it hath no eloquence to recommend it, is on the whole, if not exceffive, a pleafant emotion.

BUT if this celebrated writer intended to affert, that the discovery of the oratory; that is, of the address and talents of the speaker; is what gives the hearer a pleasure, which, mingling itself with pity, fear, indignation, converts the whole, as he expreffeth it, into one ftrong movement, which is altogether delightful; if this be his fentiment, he hath indeed advanced fomething extraordinary, and entirely new. And that this is his opinion, appears, I think, obliquely, from the expreffions which he ufeth. "The genius re

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quired, the art employed, the judgment dif"played, along with the force of expreffion, "and beauty of oratorial numbers, diffuse the "highest fatisfaction on the audience."

Again," The impulfe or vehemence arifing from "forrow, compaffion, indignation, receives a "new direction from the fentiments of beauty." If this then be a juft folution of the difficulty, and the detection of the speaker's talents and addrefs be neceffary to render the hearer fufceptible of this charming forrow, this delightful anguish,

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guish, how grofsly have all critics and rhetoricians been deceived hitherto? Thefe, in direct oppofition to this curious theory, have laid it down in their rhetorics as a fundamental maxim, that "it is effential to the art to conceal the art *;' a maxim too, which, in their eftimation, the orator, in no part of his province, is obliged to fuch a fcrupulous obfervance of, as in the pathetic §. In this the speaker, if he would prove fuccefsful, muft make his fubject totally engross the attention of the hearers; infomuch that he himself, his genius, his art, his judgment, his richness of language, his harmony of numbers, are not minded in the least †,

NEVER does the orator obtain a nobler triumph by his eloquence, than when his fentiments and style and order appear fo naturally to

*Artis eft celare artem.

Effugienda igitur in hac præcipuè parte omnis calliditatis. fufpicio nihil videatur fictum, nihil folicitum : omnia potius a caufa, quam ab oratore profecta credantur. Sed hoc pati non poffumus, et perire artem putamus, nifi appareat: cùm definat ars effe, fi apparet. QUINT. Inft. lib. iv. cap. 2.

+ Ubi res agitur, et vera dimicatio eft, ultimus fit famæ locus. Propterea non debet quifquam, ubi maxima rerum momenta verfantur, de verbis effe folicitus. Neque hoc eò pertinet, ut in his nullus fit ornatus, fed uti preffior et feverior, minus confeffus, præcipuè ad materiam accommodatus. QUINT. Init. lib. viii. cap. 3.

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