DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48956#0149
Ch, XVII. LANGUAGE OF PASSION. 143
Ford, Hum ! ha ! is this a viston ? is this a dream ?
do I deep? Mr Ford, awake; awake, Mr Ford;
there’s a hole made in your hest coat, Mr Ford ! this
’tis to be married ! this ’tis to have linen and buck bas-
kets ! Well, I will proclaim mysels what I am; I will
now take the leacher ; he is at my house ; he cannot
’scape me ; ’tis impossible he should ; he cannot creep
into a half-penny purse , nor into a pepper-box. But
lest the devil that guides him stiould aid him , I will
search impostible places; tho’ what lam I cannot avoid,
yet to be what I would not, (hall not make me tame.
Merry Wives of Windfor, aft Mfc. laji.
These soliloquies are accurate and bold copies of
nature : in a passionate soliloquy one begins with,
thinking aloud ; and the strongest feelings only,
are expressed ; as the speaker warms, he begins
to imagine one listening, and gradually Hides into
a connected discourse.
How far distant are soliloquies generally from,
these models ? So far indeed as to give disgust in-
stca,d of pleasure. The sirst sccne os Iphigenia, in
Tauris discovers that princess, in a soliloquy, grave-
ly reporting to herself her own hislory. There is
the same impropriety in the sirsl scene os Alcejles ,
and in the other introductions of Euripides , al-
mosl without exception. Nothing can be more ri-
diculous : it puts one in mind of a m-ost curious
device in Gothic paintings , that of making every
figure explain itself by a written label ilsuing srom
its mouth The descripticm which a parasite, in
Ford, Hum ! ha ! is this a viston ? is this a dream ?
do I deep? Mr Ford, awake; awake, Mr Ford;
there’s a hole made in your hest coat, Mr Ford ! this
’tis to be married ! this ’tis to have linen and buck bas-
kets ! Well, I will proclaim mysels what I am; I will
now take the leacher ; he is at my house ; he cannot
’scape me ; ’tis impossible he should ; he cannot creep
into a half-penny purse , nor into a pepper-box. But
lest the devil that guides him stiould aid him , I will
search impostible places; tho’ what lam I cannot avoid,
yet to be what I would not, (hall not make me tame.
Merry Wives of Windfor, aft Mfc. laji.
These soliloquies are accurate and bold copies of
nature : in a passionate soliloquy one begins with,
thinking aloud ; and the strongest feelings only,
are expressed ; as the speaker warms, he begins
to imagine one listening, and gradually Hides into
a connected discourse.
How far distant are soliloquies generally from,
these models ? So far indeed as to give disgust in-
stca,d of pleasure. The sirst sccne os Iphigenia, in
Tauris discovers that princess, in a soliloquy, grave-
ly reporting to herself her own hislory. There is
the same impropriety in the sirsl scene os Alcejles ,
and in the other introductions of Euripides , al-
mosl without exception. Nothing can be more ri-
diculous : it puts one in mind of a m-ost curious
device in Gothic paintings , that of making every
figure explain itself by a written label ilsuing srom
its mouth The descripticm which a parasite, in