Elements of Criticism, Volume II.Kames, Henry Home, Lord
Philosophy
Elements of Criticism, Volume II.
Kames, Henry Home, Lord
Criticism; Literary style
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish’d marble emulate thy face?
What though no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow’d dirge be muttered o’er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;
While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.
Fifth. Fanciful or sinical sentiments, sentiments that degenerate into
point or conceit, however they may amuse in an idle hour, can never be
the offspring of any serious or important passion. In the _Ierusalem_
of Tasso, Tancred, after a single combat, spent with fatigue and loss of
blood, falls into a swoon. In this situation, understood to be dead, he
is discovered by Erminia, who was in love with him to distraction. A
more happy situation cannot be imagined, to raise grief in an instant to
its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most
abominably to antithesis and conceit, even of the lowest kind.
E in lui versò d’inessicabil vena
Lacrime, e voce di sospiri mista.
In che misero punto hor qui me mena
Fortuna? a che veduta amara e trista?
Dopo gran tempo i’ ti ritrovo à pena
Tancredi, e ti riveggio, e non son vista,
Vista non son da te, benche presente
E trovando ti perdo eternamente.
_Cant. 19. st. 105._
Armida’s lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo[54], is in the same
vitious taste.
_Queen._ Give me no help in lamentation,
I am not barren to bring forth complaints:
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being govern’d by the wat’ry moon,
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.
Ah, for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward.
_King Richard III. act 2. sc. 2._
_Jane Shore._ Let me be branded for the public scorn,
Turn’d forth, and driven to wander like a vagabond,
Be friendless and forsaken, seek my bread
Upon the barren wild, and desolate waste,
_Feed on my sighs, and drink my falling tears_;
Ere I consent to teach my lips injustice,
Or wrong the orphan who has none to save him.
_Jane Shore, act 4._
Give me your drops, ye soft-descending rains,
Give me your streams, ye never-ceasing springs,
That my sad eyes may still supply my duty,
And feed an everlasting flood of sorrow.
_Jane Shore, act 5._
Jane Shore utters her last breath in a witty conceit.
Then all is well, and I shall sleep in peace----
’Tis very dark, and I have lost you now----
Was there not something I would have bequeath’d you?
But I have nothing left me to bestow,
Nothing but one sad sigh. Oh mercy, Heav’n! [_Dies._
_Act 5._
Gilford to Lady Jane Gray, when both were condemned to die:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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