respective values assigned. The best criterion of interest is endurance without weariness. Mr. Matthew Arnold is fond of quoting a Greek proverb-Tell me a good thing twice'. As individuals differ greatly in their susceptibility to every kind of emotion, the measure of the degree is the time of endurance with pleasure.

An important part of literary criticism consists in tracing the adoption of figures and other effects already used, but with improvements in the application of them. This is one of the forms of refinement in poetical art. Gray is a wellknown example: his images are in many instances borrowed, but with more or less of gain in the new setting.

ACTION AND PLOT.

1. In addition to the recognized importance of narrated Action in evolving the emotions, we have to take note of the peculiar feeling of suspense, commonly called the interest of PLOT.

In following most narratives, our attention is kept alive by a desire to learn the conclusion; and the attitude of suspense is accompanied by a peculiar emotional condition whose recurrence is counted among our undying pleasures. This interest was adopted into poetry from the very earliest days; and its modes have been cultivated both in Poetry and in Prose Fiction to a high degree. A plot is essential to the novel or romance, although writers differ greatly in the complexity and ingenuity of their plots. The construction of a plot is well known to be a perpetual demand upon the ingenuity of authors of fictitious tales; readers being already familiar with so many existing ones.

2. The leading conditions of plot interest are:— (1) Uncertainty in regard to the issue of events in progress. This is the most essential and universal require

ment.

(2) The feelings have to be aroused in favour of a particular issue. A moderate degree of preference for one conclusion keeps up the agreeable suspense; while utter indifference to the termination would invalidate the effect.

(3) The conclusion is protracted so as to give scope for the attitude of suspense.

REQUISITES OF A GOOD PLOT.

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(4) It is usual to supply fluctuating indications, whereby the probable issue is made to flit about in different directions. In this way the pleasurable excitement is prolonged and increased. Nevertheless, the interest in the final issue must not be so intense that unfavourable omens will be felt as simply painful. We can afford a certain lowering of the chances of the side we prefer, with an adequate compensation in the rebound of final success.

The trial scene in the Merchant of Venice' is a case of tension carried to the extreme point of endurance.

(5) If the end can be made a surprise after all, while still agreeing with our wishes and feelings, the effect is all the greater.

Plot is not merely an independent means of interest; it also affords scope for the evolution of the intense emotions. It is, moreover, a collateral means of attaining unity in narrative composition.

When plot is wanting, the interest of a poem must be supported by the power of the isolated passages. Speaking of Young's 'Night Thoughts,' Campbell remarks-The poem excites no anticipation as it proceeds'. 'The power of the poet instead of "being in the whole," lies in short, vivid and broken gleams of genius.'

In History, no less than in Poetry and Fiction, the interest of a plot may be developed. The historian is limited to his facts, but these may be so arranged as either to gain, or else to lose, the interest of plot; and the same thing applies to the narration of the simplest story.

REFINEMENT.

1. By the aid of poetic handling, the grossness of the strong animal passions can be transformed and converted into REFINED PLEASURE.

Such feelings as the sensuality of love and eating, or the coarser forms of malevolence, are not accepted in polite literature. It is possible, nevertheless, to make them yield products not unsuitable to the purest poetry.

The gross pleasures, in their naked presentation, are not merely objectionable on moral grounds: they have the further defect of being violent and therefore transient. To moderate and prolong their agreeable tremor, is one of the

achievements of Art in general, and of Poetry in particular. It is this operation that gives another meaning to the mode of defining poetry by help of the term 'spiritualizing'.

The principal examples are the following: Eating and Drinking; Sexual Love; Malevolence; Tender Feeling; together with Utilities of the grosser kind, as the appliances for removing filth, and for the treatment of diseases.

The refining process also finds scope in the emotion of Fear; mitigating the painful effects, and distilling out of them small portions of pleasure.

2. The methods that have already come under review, for this object, are chiefly these:

The

(1) The Euphemism (PART FIRST, p. 183). The primary intention of this figure is to keep out of view a repulsive or painful subject that must nevertheless be referred to. method employed-namely, to point to something different, which, however, in the circumstances, lets the true meaning be known-applies to the palliation of coarse effects generally.

(2) Innuendo or Suggestion (p. 212). This states more precisely the operation implied in the euphemism. When the wholesale slaughter of human beings would excite revulsion and disgust, it is left to distant suggestion; thus, a sanguinary battle is described as being attended with 'considerable loss'. An agonizing struggle is simply 'painful'. Swift's cannibal proposals regarding Irish children are too horrible either for a jest or for irony; but he throws a veil over them, by using the language of the shambles, and making us think rather of calves and lambs.

(3) The Ideal. It is the nature of Ideality in Poetry to put everything in the most favourable aspect to suit our feeling. The grossness of eating is done away with in the feasts of the pagan gods, and in the nutriment of the angels in Milton.

(4) Harmony (see p. 34). (5) Plot. The operation of plot has been already explained; as also its magical power of protracting our enjoyment in connexion with the stronger passions (p. 46). The interest of a romance is spread over numerous details, before reaching the denouement.

3. The following are additional arts of Refinement:

ARTS OF REFINEMENT.

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(1) The various devices of Language contribute largely to the moderating and protracting of our strong passions. Metre is known to exercise a control over the violence of the feelings; so the polish, elegance, splendour and elevation of the language generally, impart an agreeable diversion of mind, which calms the fury of the excitement. The ceremonial of worship is calculated to convert an outburst of religious emotion into a gentle and enduring flame. Polished circumlocution is one of the habitual means of cooling the heat engendered by the war of words in debate. To call attention to beauties of pure form, is to draw off the mind from the grosser aspects of things; as in the Greek sculpture.

(2) Reviewing the chief methods for attaining the desired end, we find them summed up under MIXTURE, with which is included Diversion and Dilution.*

For example, eating and drinking, though highly important to us in the reality, and interesting even to think of, are too purely sensual to be treated in art, unless by being imbedded in surroundings that divide our regards. Homer has abundance of feasting, but it is either in connexion with sacrifices to the gods, or mixed up with hospitality, which was equally sacred in his eyes.

So the Trojan War involves untold miseries; but Achilles, the author of the misery, is shown to have an amiable side. This does not remove the painful elements, any more than the stimulus of tea is abolished by the softening addition of sugar and milk. But the consequence is to reconcile us to an amount of malignant pleasure that, in its unmixed form, would grate on other sensibilities of the mind.

4. Fear unalloyed is a painful passion, and ministers to pleasure only by reaction.

For abating the pain of the state itself, and for enhancing the pleasurable rebound, the artist has recourse to fictitious terrors, as in Tragedy. The foregoing arts of mixture, dilution and diversion are available to qualify the painful side, while allowing the pleasure to spring from the remission or relief.

*There is an illustrative parallel to this in the practice of using sugar and milk with tea. Many persons cannot partake of the stimulation, if the tea is given by itself; even dilution would not overcome the repugnance. The mixture has the happy effect of leaving the stimulus in full force, while yet so diverting and otherwise engaging the organ of taste, that the harshness proper to the tea by itself is no longer discerned.

CHARACTERS.

1. CHARACTER is the continuous and consistent embodiment and manifestation of personal feelings and doings.

While every action of a person operates on the spectator according to its own nature, and is so judged, there is a certain harmony in the conduct of individuals, which is designated their Character.

The interest attaching to isolated displays is multiplied by repetition, and makes the collective interest of a personality. Our admiration of a single act of nobleness is transformed into a new product, admiration of the nobleness of a life. The principles of critical judgment are the same for both cases.

2. The treatment of Character in Art involves regard to consistency in its development.

When a character is introduced in narrative, we expect it to agree with itself, or to be in accordance with the type intended by the author.

3. The choice of Characters is not limited to intrinsic attractions.

Among characters intrinsically attractive, we place, first, those that rise above the ordinary in any form of excellence -physical, moral or intellectual. Among the least tolerable are the purely common-place.

The physically defective, the morally bad, the intellectually stupid,-would all seem in poetry, as in real life, naturally devoid of interest, not to say repellent. Yet, by particular kinds of management, even these can be made to enter into art-compositions.

Among the most mournful incidents of our precarious existence, is the loss of reason. Looked at in itself, the spectacle of insanity ought to give us only unmingled pain: our pity yields no adequate compensation for the shock to our feelings. Yet, the insane have been frequently employed for poetic purposes. In the ancient world, a certain mysterious reverence was maintained towards them: they were supposed to be inspired by some good or bad demon. Even when viewed more literally, they can be made use of as an illustration of the tragic consequences of crime and calamity. Their incoherent utterances are shaped so as to have some