day
life. But energetical passions electrify all the mental powers, and
will consequently, in highly-favored natures, give utterance to
themselves in ingenious and figurative expressions. It has been often
remarked that indignation makes a man witty; and as despair
occasionally breaks out into laughter, it may sometimes also give vent
to itself in antithetical comparisons.

Besides, the rights of the poetical form have not been duly weighed.
Shakespeare, who was always sure of his power to excite, when he
wished, sufficiently powerful emotions, has occasionally, by indulging
in a freer play of fancy, purposely tempered the impressions when too
painful, and immediately introduced a musical softening of our
sympathy.[25] He had not those rude ideas of his art which many
moderns seem to have, as if the poet, like the clown in the proverb,
must strike twice on the same place. An ancient rhetorician delivered
a caution against dwelling too long on the excitation of pity; for
nothing, he said, dries so soon as tears; and Shakespeare acted
conformably to this ingenious maxim without having learned it. The
paradoxical assertion of Johnson that "Shakespeare had a greater
talent for comedy than tragedy, and that in the latter he has
frequently displayed an affected tone," is scarcely deserving of
lengthy notice. For its refutation, it is unnecessary to appeal to the
great tragical compositions of the poet, which, for overpowering
effect, leave far behind them almost everything that the stage has
seen besides; a few of their less celebrated scenes would be quite
sufficient. What to many readers might lend an appearance of truth to
this assertion are the verbal witticisms, that playing upon words,
which Shakespeare not unfrequently introduces into serious and sublime
passages and even into those also of a peculiarly pathetic nature.

I have already stated the point of view in which we ought to consider
this sportive play upon words. I shall here, therefore, merely deliver
a few observations respecting the playing upon words in general, and
its poetical use. A thorough investigation would lead us too far from
our subject, and too deeply into considerations on the essence of
language, and its relation to poetry, or rhyme, etc.

There is in the human mind a desire that language should exhibit the
object which it denotes, sensibly, by its very sound, which may be
traced even as far back as in the first origin of poetry. As, in the