“In hoc legato vestro, nec hominis quicquam est, Patres Conscripti, præter figuram et speciem; neque Romani civis, præter habitum vestitumque, et sonum linguæ Latinæ. Pestis et bellua immanis, quales fretum, quondam, quo ab Sicilia dividimur, ad perniciem navigantium circumsedisse, fabulæ ferunt[53].” Congreve shows a fine taste in the sentiments of the _Mourning Bride_. But in the following passage the picture is too artful to be suggested by severe grief: _Almeria._ O no! Time gives increase to my afflictions. The circling hours, that gather all the woes Which are diffus’d through the revolving year, Come heavy-laden with th’ oppressing weight To me; with me, successively, they leave The sighs, the tears, the groans, the restless cares, And all the damps of grief, that did retard their flight, They shake their downy wings, and scatter all The dire collected dews on my poor head; Then fly with joy and swiftness from me. _Act 1. sc. 1._ In the same play, Almeria seeing a dead body, which she took to be Alphonso’s, expresses sentiments strained and artificial, which nature suggests not to any person upon such an occasion: Had they, or hearts, or eyes, that did this deed? Could eyes endure to guide such cruel hands? Are not my eyes guilty alike with theirs, That thus can gaze, and yet not turn to stone? --I do not weep! The springs of tears are dry’d, And of a sudden I am calm, as if All things were well; and yet my husband’s murder’d! Yes, yes, I know to mourn! I’ll sluice this heart, The source of wo, and let the torrent loose. _Act 5. sc. 11._ _Lady Trueman._ How could you be so cruel to defer giving me that joy which you knew I must receive from your presence? You have robb’d my life of some hours of happiness that ought to have been in it. _Drummer, act 5._ Pope’s Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, expresses delicately the most tender concern and sorrow for the deplorable fate of a person of worth. A poem of this kind, deeply serious and pathetic, rejects all fiction with disdain. We therefore can give no quarter to the following passage, which is eminently discordant with the subject. It is not the language of the heart, but of the imagination indulging its flights at ease. It would be a still more severe censure, if it should be ascribed to imitation, copying indiscreetly what has been said by others.