CURSORY REMARKS ON TRAGEDY.

THE pleasure which is derived from the representation of an affecting tragedy, has often been the subject of enquiry among philosophical critics, as a singular phenomenon. That the mind should receive gratification from the excitement of those passions which are in themselves painful, is really an extraordinary paradox, and is the more inexplicable since, when the same means are employed to rouse the more pleasing affections, no adequate effect is produced.

In order to solve this problem, many ingenious hypotheses have been invented. The Abbe Du Bos tells us that the mind has such a natural antipathy to a state of listlessness and langour, as to render the transition from it to a state of exertion, even though by rousing passions in themselves painful, as in the instance of tragedy, a positive pleasure. Monsieur Fontenelle has given us a more satisfactory account. He tells us that pleasure and pain, two sentiments so different in themselves, do not differ so much in their cause;—that pleasure, carried too far, becomes pain, and pain, a little moderated, becomes pleasure. Hence that the pleasure we derive from tragedy is a pleasing sorrow, a modulated pain. David Hume, who has also written upon this subject, unites the two systems, with this addition, that the painful emotions ex

cited by the representation of melancholy scenes, are further tempered, and the pleasure is proportionably heightened by the eloquence displayed in the relationthe art shewn in collecting the pathetic circumstances, and the judgment evinced in their happy disposition.

But even now I do not conceive the difficulty to be satisfactorily done away. Admitting the postulatum which the Abbe Du Bos assumes, that langour is so disagreeable to the mind as to render its removal positive pleasure, to be true; yet, when we recollect, as Mr. Hume has before observed, that were the same objects of distress which give us pleasure in tragedy set before our eyes in reality, though they would effectually remove listlessness, they would excite the most unfeigned uneasiness, we shall hesitate in applying this solution in its full extent to the present subject. M. Fontenelle's reasoning is much more conclusive; yet I think he errs egregiously in his premises, if he means to imply that any modulation of pain is pleasing, because, in whatever degree it may be, it is still pain, and remote from either ease or positive pleasure: and if by moderated pain he means. any uneasy sensation abated, though not totally banished, he is no less mistaken in the application of them to the subject before us.-Pleasure may very well be conceived to be painful, when carried to excess, because it there becomes exertion, and is inconvenient. We may also form some idea of a pleasure arising from moderated pain, or the transition from the disagreeable to the less disagreeable; but this cannot in any wise be applied to

the gratification we derive from a tragedy, for there no superior degree of pain is left for an inferior. As to Mr. Hume's addition of the pleasure we derive from the art of the poet, for the introduction of which he has written his whole dissertation on tragedy, it merits little consideration. The self-recollection necessary to render this art a source of gratification, must weaken the illusion; and whatever weakens the illusion, diminishes the effect.

In these systems it is taken for granted that all those passions are excited which are represented in the drama. This I conceive to have been the primary cause of error, for to me it seems very probable that the only passion or affection which is excited, is that of sympathy, which partakes of the pleasing nature of pity and compassion, and includes in it so much as is pleasing of hope and apprehension, joy and grief.

The pleasure we derive from the afflictions of a friend is proverbial-every person has felt, and wondered why he felt, something soothing in the participation of the sorrows of those dear to his heart; and he might, with as much reason, have questioned why he was delighted with the melancholy scenes of tragedy. Both pleasures are equally singular; they both arise from the same source. Both originate in sympathy.

It would seem natural that an accidental spectator of a cause in a court of justice, with which he is perfectly unacquainted, would remain an uninterested auditor of

what was going forward. Experience tells us, however, the exact contrary. He immediately, even before he is well acquainted with the merits of the case, espouses one side of the question, to which he uniformly adheres, participates in all its advantages, and sympathizes in its success. There is no denying that the interest this man takes in the business is a source of pleasure to him; but we cannot suppose one of the parties in the cause, though his interest must be infinitely more lively, to feel an equal pleasure, because the painful passions are in him really roused, while in the other sympathy alone is excited, which is in itself pleasing. It is pretty much the same with the spectator of a tragedy. And, if the sympathy is the more pleasing, it is because the actions are so much the more calulated to entrap the attention, and the object so much the more worthy. The pleasure is heightened also in both instances by a kind of intuitive recollection, which never forsakes the spectator; that no bad consequences will result to him from the action he is surveying. This recollection is the more predominant in the spectator of a tragedy, as it is impossible in any case totally to banish from his memory that the scenes are fictitious and illusive. In real life we always advert to futurity, and endeavour to draw inferences of the probable consequences: but the moment we take off our minds from what is passing on the stage to reasonings thereupon, the illusion is dispelled, and it again recurs that it is all fiction.

If we compare the degrees of pleasure we derive from

the perusal of a novel and the representation of a tragedy, we shall observe a wonderful disparity. In both we feel an interest, in both sympathy is excited. But in the one, things are merely related to us as having passed, which it is not attempted to persuade us ever did in reality happen, and from which, therefore, we never can deceive ourselves into the idea that any consequences whatever will result; in the other, on the contrary, the actions themselves pass before our eyes; we are not tempted to ask ourselves whether they did ever happen; we see them happen, we are the witnesses of them, and were it not for the meliorating circumstances before-mentioned, the sympathy would become so powerful as to be in the highest degree painful.

In tragedy, therefore, every thing which can strengthen the illusion should be introduced, for there are a thousand draw-backs on the effect, which it is impossible to remove, and, which have always so great a force, as to put it out of the power of the poet to excite sympathy in a too painful degree. Every thing that is improbable, every thing which is out of the common course of nature should, for this reason, be avoided, as nothing will so forcibly remind the spectator of the unrealness of the illusion.

It is a mistaken idea, that we sympathize sooner with the distresses of kings, and illustrious personages, than with those of common life. Men are, in fact, more inclined to commiserate the sufferings of their equals, than of those whom they cannot but regard rather with awe