In _Les Freres ennemies_ of Racine, the second act is opened with a love-scene. Hemon talks to his mistress of the torments of absence, of the lustre of her eyes, that he ought to die no where but at her feet, and that one moment of absence was a thousand years. Antigone on her part acts the coquette, and pretends she must be gone to wait on her mother and brother, and cannot stay to listen to his courtship. This is odious French gallantry, below the dignity of the passion of love. It would scarce be excusable in painting modern French manners; and is insufferable where the ancients are brought upon the stage. The manners painted in the _Alexandre_ of the same author are not more just. French gallantry prevails there throughout. * * * * * Third. Sentiments that agree not with the tone of the passion; as where a pleasant sentiment is grafted upon a painful passion, or the contrary. In the following instances the sentiments are too gay for a serious passion. No happier talk these faded eyes pursue; To read and weep is all they now can do. _Eloisa to Abelard, l. 47._ Again, Heav’n first taught letters for some wretch’s aid, Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid; They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires, Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; The virgin’s wish without her fears impart, Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart; Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole. _Eloisa to Abelard, l. 51._ These thoughts are pretty; they suit Pope extremely, but not Eloisa. * * * * * Satan, enraged by a threatening of the angel Gabriel, answers thus: Then when I am thy captive talk of chains, Proud limitary cherub; but ere then Far heavier load thyself expect to feel From my prevailing arm, though Heaven’s King Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers, Us’d to the yoke, draw’st his triumphant wheels In progress through the road of heav’n _star-pav’d_. _Paradise Lost, book 4._ The concluding epithet forms a grand and delightful image, which cannot be the genuine offspring of rage. * * * * * Fourth. Sentiments too artificial for a serious passion. I give for the first example a speech of Piercy expiring: O, Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my growth: I better brook the loss of brittle life, Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my flesh. But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. _First part, Henry IV. act 5. sc. 9._ Livy inserts the following passage in a plaintive oration of the Locrenses accusing Pleminius the Roman legate of oppression.