Rambler 168

Number 168
Saturday, October 26, 1751

[Poetry debased by mean expressions. An example from Shakespear.]

— Decipit
Frons prima multos, rara mens intelligit
Quod interiore condidit cura angulo.
— Phædrus.

The tinsel glitter, and the specious° mein,
Delude the most; few pry behind the scene.

It has been observed by Boileau, that “a mean or common thought expressed in pompous diction, generally pleases more than a new or noble sentiment delivered in low and vulgar° language; because the number is greater of those whom custom has enabled to judge of words, than whom study has qualified to examine Things.”

This solution might satisfy, if such only were offended with meanness of expression as are unable to distinguish propriety of thought, and to separate propositions or images from the vehicles by which they are conveyed to the understanding. But this kind of disgust° is by no means confined to the ignorant or superficial; it operates uniformly and universally upon readers of all classes; every man, however profound or abstracted, perceives himself irresistibly alienated° by low terms, and they who profess the most zealous adherence to truth are forced to admit that she owes part of her charms to her ornaments, and loses much of her power over the soul, when she appears disgraced by a dress uncouth or ill-adjusted.

We are all offended by low terms, but are not pleased or disgusted alike by the same compositions, because we do not all agree to censure° the same terms as low. No word is naturally or intrinsically meaner° than another; our notions therefore of words, as of other things arbitrarily and capriciously° established, depend wholly upon accident and custom. The cottager thinks those apartments splendid and spacious, which an inhabitant of palaces will despise for their inelegance; and to him who has passed most of his hours with the delicate and polite, many expressions will seem despicable and sordid, which another, equally acute and judicious may hear without offence; but a mean term never fails to displease him to whom it appears mean, as poverty is certainly and invariably despised, though he who is poor in the opinion of some, may by others be envied for his wealth.

Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they produce, arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united. Thus if, in the most solemn discourse, a phrase happens to occur which has been successfully employed in some ludicrous narrative, the gravest° auditor finds it difficult to restrain from laughter, when they who are not prepossessed by the same accidental association are utterly unable to guess the reason of his merriment. Words which convey ideas of dignity in one age, are banished from elegant writing or conversation in another, because they are in time debased by vulgar° mouths, and can be no longer heard without the involuntary recollection of unpleasing images.

When Macbeth is confirming himself in his horrid purpose, he breaks out amidst the violence of his emotions into a wish natural to a murderer,

— Come, thick night!
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That may keen knife see not the wound it makes;
Nor heav’n peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, hold, hold! —

In this passage is exerted all the force of poetry, that force which calls new powers into being, which embodies sentiment, and animates matter; yet perhaps scarce any man now peruses it without some disturbance of his attention from the counteraction of the words to the ideas. What can be more dreadful than to implore the presence of night, invested not in common obscurity, but in the smoke of hell? Yet the efficacy of this invocation is destroyed by the insertion of an epithet now seldom heard but in the stable, and dun° night may come or go without any other notice than contempt.

If we start into raptures when some hero of the Iliad tells us that δορυ μαινεται, his lance rages with eagerness to destroy; if we are alarmed at the terror of the soldiers commanded by Cæsar to hew° down the sacred grove, who dreaded, says Lucan, lest the axe aimed at the oak should fly back upon the striker.

— Si robora sacra ferirent,
In sia credebant redituras membra secures.

None dares with impious steel the grove to rend,
Lest on himself the destin’d stroke descend.

we cannot surely but sympathise with the horrors of a wretch about to murder his master, his friend, his benefactor, who suspects that the weapon will refuse its office,° and start back from the breast which he is preparing to violate. Yet this sentiment is weakened by the name of an instrument used by butchers and cooks in the meanest employments; we do not immediately conceive that any crime of importance is to be committed with a knife, and at last from the long habit of connecting a knife with sordid offices, feel aversion rather than terror.

Mackbeth proceeds to wish, in the madness of guilt, that the inspection of heaven may be intercepted, and that he may in the involutions of infernal° darkness escape the eye of providence.° This is the utmost extravagance of determined wickedness; yet this is so debased by two unfortunate words, that while I endeavour to impress on my reader the energy of the sentiment, I can scarce° check° my risibility,° when the expression forces itself upon my mind; for who without some relaxation of his gravity can hear of the avengers of guilt peeping through a Blanket?

These imperfections of diction° are less obvious to the reader, as he is less acquainted with the common usages of the age; they are therefore wholly imperceptible to a foreigner, who learns our language only from books, nor will strike a solitary academick so forcibly as a modish° lady.

Among the numerous requisites° that must concur° to compleat an author, few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world. The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in publick. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement, but the artifice° of embellishment, and the powers of attraction can be gained only by general converse.

An acquaintance with prevailing customs and fashionable elegance is necessary likewise for other purposes. The injury that noble sentiments suffer° from unsuitable language, personal merit may justly fear from rudeness and indelicacy. When the success of Æneas depended on the favour of the queen upon whose coasts he was driven, his celestial° protectress thought him not sufficiently secured against rejection by his piety or bravery, but decorated him for the interview with preternatural beauty. Whoever desires, what none can reasonably contemn,° the favour of mankind, must endeavour to add grace to strength, to make his conversation agreeable as well as useful, and to accomplish himself with the petty qualifications necessary to make the first impressions in his favour. Many complain of neglect who never used any efforts to attract regard. It cannot be expected that the patrons of science or virtue should be solicitous° to discover excellencies which they who possess them never display. Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments, must submit to the fate of just sentiments meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.