DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48955#0131
Ch. XXI. DESCRIPTION.
125
In dialogue-writing, the condition of the speaker
is chiessy to be regarded in framing the expression.
The sentinel in Hamlet, interrogated with relation
to the ghost whether his watch had been quiet, an-
swers with great propriety for a man in his slation ,
“ Not a mouse ssirring9.
I proceed to a second remark, no less import-
ant than the former. No person of ressexion but
musf be sensible, that an incident makes a stronger
impression on an eye-witness , than when heard at
second hand. Writers of genius , sensible that the
eye is the bestavenue to the heart, represent every
thing as palling in our sight; and, from readers
or hearers , transform us as it were into spessa-
tors : a skilsul writer conceals himself, and presents
his peisonages: in a word, every thing becomes
dramatic as much as possible. Plutarch , de gloria
Athenicnjium, observes, that Thucydides makes
his reader a spedlator, and inspires him with the
same passions as if he were an eye-witness ; and
the same observation is applicable to our country-
man Swift. From this happy talent arises that
energy of slyle which is peculiar to him : he can-
9 One can scaree avoid felling at the blindness of a certain
critic, who, with an air of 1’elf-sufficiency, condemns this ex-
pression as low and vulgar. A French poet,- says he , would,
express the same thought in a more sublime manner : n Mais
n toutdort, 8c Farmee, 8c les vents, & Neptune. And he
adds, The Engliffi poet may pleasc at London, but the
<i French every where else. ”
125
In dialogue-writing, the condition of the speaker
is chiessy to be regarded in framing the expression.
The sentinel in Hamlet, interrogated with relation
to the ghost whether his watch had been quiet, an-
swers with great propriety for a man in his slation ,
“ Not a mouse ssirring9.
I proceed to a second remark, no less import-
ant than the former. No person of ressexion but
musf be sensible, that an incident makes a stronger
impression on an eye-witness , than when heard at
second hand. Writers of genius , sensible that the
eye is the bestavenue to the heart, represent every
thing as palling in our sight; and, from readers
or hearers , transform us as it were into spessa-
tors : a skilsul writer conceals himself, and presents
his peisonages: in a word, every thing becomes
dramatic as much as possible. Plutarch , de gloria
Athenicnjium, observes, that Thucydides makes
his reader a spedlator, and inspires him with the
same passions as if he were an eye-witness ; and
the same observation is applicable to our country-
man Swift. From this happy talent arises that
energy of slyle which is peculiar to him : he can-
9 One can scaree avoid felling at the blindness of a certain
critic, who, with an air of 1’elf-sufficiency, condemns this ex-
pression as low and vulgar. A French poet,- says he , would,
express the same thought in a more sublime manner : n Mais
n toutdort, 8c Farmee, 8c les vents, & Neptune. And he
adds, The Engliffi poet may pleasc at London, but the
<i French every where else. ”