Elements of Criticism. Henry Home, Lord Kames

I was dry with rage, and extreme toil,

      Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword;

      Came there a certain Lord, neat, trimly dress’d,

      Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new-reap’d,

      Shew’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.

      He was perfumed like a milliner;

      And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held<284>

      A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

      He gave his nose;—and still he smil’d, and talk’d;

      And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,

      He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

      To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse!

      Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

      With many holiday and lady terms

      He question’d me: among the rest, demanded

      My pris’ners, in your Majesty’s behalf.

      I then all smarting with my wounds; being gall’d

      To be so pester’d with a popinjay,

      Out of my grief, and my impatience,

      Answer’d, neglectingly, I know not what:

      He should, or should not; for he made me mad,

      To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

      And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,

      Of guns, and drums, and wounds; (God save the mark!)

      And telling me, the sovereign’st thing on earth

      Was parmacity, for an inward bruise;

      And that it was great pity, so it was,

      This villanous saltpetre should be digg’d,

      Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

      Which many a good, tall fellow had destroy’d

      So cowardly: and but for these vile guns,

      He would himself have been a soldier.—

      First part, Henry IV. act 1. sc. 4.⁴

      Passions and emotions are also inflamed by comparison. A man of high rank humbles the bystanders, even to annihilate them in their own opinion: Caesar, beholding the statue of Alexander, was greatly mortified, that now at the age of thir-<285>ty-two when Alexander died, he had not performed one memorable action.

      Our opinions also are much influenced by comparison. A man whose opulence exceeds the ordinary standard, is reputed richer than he is in reality; and wisdom or weakness, if at all remarkable in an individual, is generally carried beyond the truth.

      The opinion a man forms of his present distress is heightened by contrasting it with his former happiness:

      Could I forget

      What I have been, I might the better bear

      What I am destin’d to. I’m not the first

      That have been wretched: but to think how much

      I have been happier.

      Southern’s Innocent adultery, act 2.⁵

      The distress of a long journey makes even an indifferent inn agreeable: and in travelling, when the road is good and the horseman well covered, a bad day may be agreeable by making him sensible how snug he is.

      The same effect is equally remarkable, when a man opposes his condition to that of others. A ship tossed about in a storm, makes the spectator reflect upon his own ease and security, and puts these in the strongest light:

      Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,

      E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;<286>

      Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas,

      Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.

      Lucret. l. 2. principio.⁶

      A man in grief cannot bear mirth: it gives him a more lively notion of his unhappiness, and of course makes him more unhappy. Satan contemplating the beauties of the terrestrial paradise, has the following exclamation.

      With what delight could I have walk’d thee round,

      If I could joy in ought, sweet interchange