صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

cult to decide which is fuperior; and those who have given the preference to particular ones, only defcribe their own taftes; and this point depends almost entirely on the different fancies of individuals. That poetry has a power over the paffions, every one must be fenfible. Many fublime paffages are there which lift the foul to aim at heroifm and greatnefs; pathetic ones, that melt us into pity the very reading of fome tragedies difplay the power of the poet to turn and wind our paffions as he will. He infufes into our minds every movement of sentiment and affection which beft fuits his purpose: we rage with fury, burn with revenge, or melt with love. From the most impaffioned ftate of mind he penetrates our hearts with all the foft feelings of compaffion and benevolence. In one word, poetry indubitably contains the fe

veral

veral powers of eloquence, painting, and mufic-although there are fome fubjects in which the picture of an action is much more ftriking than the defcription of it; and there are alfo fome few paffions which mufic may imitate to fuch perfection as FO rival poetry; but this is more doubtful.

That painting can make great impreffions on the mind, must be acknowledged by all. There are more inftances than one to be met with in hiftory of this kind, and fuch as difplay its powers very evidently.-A Picture, fays Quintilian, a filent and uniform addrefs, yet penetrates fo deeply into our inmoft affections, that it ftems often to exceed even the powers of eloquence *.

We

• Pictura, tacens opus & habitus femper ejusdem, fic in intimos penetrat affectus, ut ipfam vim dicendi nonnunquam fuperare videatur.

[blocks in formation]

cannot doubt, fays Mr. Webb, the fincerity of this decifion, if we confider the character of the perfon from whom it comes. Cicero was equally fenfible of the powers of the pencil, and often fets them in competition with thofe of his favourite art. Their effects are fometimes wonderful. It is faid that Alexander trembled and grew pale, on feeing a picture of Palamedes betrayed to death by his friends; it bringing to his mind a ftinging remembrance of his treatment of Ariftonicus. Portia could bear with an unshaken conftancy her laft separa tion from Brutus; but when fhe faw, fome hours after, a picture of the part ing of Hector and Andromache, fhe burst into a flood of tears: full as feemed her forrow, the painter fuggefted new ideas of grief, or impreffed more ftrongly

her own.

I

I have fomewhere met with a pretty fory of an Athenian courtezan, who, in the midst of a riotous banquet with her lovers, accidentally caft her eye on the portrait of a philofopher that hung oppofite to her feat: the happy character of temperance and virtue ftruck her with fo lively an image of her own unworthinefs, that the inftantly quitted the room; and returning home became ever after an example of temperance, as fhe had been before of debauchery. You might tax me with doing injuftice to the prefent times, were I to draw all my proofs from the antient: I appeal therefore to yourself, who have had an opportunity to prove it, whether you could look on the death of Germanicus, as painted by Pouffin, without feeling a generous indignation at the cruelty of his oppreffor, K 4

and

and an equal compaffion for unhappy virtue. The reprefentation of a plague by the fame author, melts the foul into a tender participation of human miferies: These impreffions end not here; they give a turn to the mind advantageous to fociety; every argument of forrow, every object of distress, renews the fame foft vibrations, and quickens us to acts of humanity and benevolence *.

The powers which are juftly due to mufic are as well known as univerfally allowed. Its powers, fays Sir William Temple, are either felt or known by all men, and are allowed to work strangely upon the mind and the body, the paffions and the blood; to raise joy and grief, to give pleasure and pain, to cure

* See Mr. Webb on Painting, p. 34.

diseases,

« السابقةمتابعة »