In short, I'd tell all the
different Ways of shewing Wit, if I knew of any more.
But all these Brightnesses (and I speak not of the false ones) agree
not, or very seldom agree with a serious Work, which ought to be
interesting. The Reason of it is, that 'tis then the Author that
appears, and the Publick will see no body but the Hero. Moreover the
Hero is always either in a Passion, or in Danger. Danger, and the
Passions seek not Expressions of Wit. _Priam_ and _Hecuba_ don't make
Epigrams, when their Children's Throats are cut and _Troy_ in
Flames:--_Dido_ does not sigh in Madrigals, when she flies to the Pile
upon which she's going to sacrifice herself:--_Demosthenes_ has no
Prettinesses, when he animates the _Athenians_ to War; if he had, he'd
be a Rhetorician indeed, instead of which he's a Statesman.
If _Pyrrhus_ was always to express himself in this Stile:
_'Tis true,
My Sword has often reek'd in_ Phrygian _Blood,
And carried Havock through your Royal Kindred:
But you, fair Princess, amply have aveng'd
Old_ Priam's _vanquish'd House: And all the Woes,
I brought on them, fall short of what I suffer._
This Character wou'd not touch at all: 'Twou'd soon be perceiv'd, that
true Passion seldom makes Use of such Comparisons, and that there is
very little Proportion between the real Fires which consumed _Troy_,
and the amorous Fires of _Pyrrhus_; between the Havock he made amongst
_Andromache_'s Kindred and the Cruelty she shews him.
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