Fifth. Fanciful or sinical sentiments, sentiments that degenerate into point or conceit, however they may amuse in an idle hour, can never be the offspring of any serious or important passion. In the _Ierusalem_ of Tasso, Tancred, after a single combat, spent with fatigue and loss of blood, falls into a swoon. In this situation, understood to be dead, he is discovered by Erminia, who was in love with him to distraction. A more happy situation cannot be imagined, to raise grief in an instant to its highest pitch; and yet, in venting her sorrow, she descends most abominably to antithesis and conceit, even of the lowest kind.
E in lui versò d’inessicabil vena Lacrime, e voce di sospiri mista. In che misero punto hor qui me mena Fortuna? a che veduta amara e trista? Dopo gran tempo i’ ti ritrovo à pena Tancredi, e ti riveggio, e non son vista, Vista non son da te, benche presente E trovando ti perdo eternamente. _Cant. 19. st. 105._
Armida’s lamentation respecting her lover Rinaldo[54], is in the same vitious taste.
_Queen._ Give me no help in lamentation, I am not barren to bring forth complaints: All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes, That I, being govern’d by the wat’ry moon, May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world. Ah, for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward. _King Richard III. act 2. sc. 2._
_Jane Shore._ Let me be branded for the public scorn, Turn’d forth, and driven to wander like a vagabond, Be friendless and forsaken, seek my bread Upon the barren wild, and desolate waste, _Feed on my sighs, and drink my falling tears_; Ere I consent to teach my lips injustice, Or wrong the orphan who has none to save him. _Jane Shore, act 4._
Give me your drops, ye soft-descending rains, Give me your streams, ye never-ceasing springs, That my sad eyes may still supply my duty, And feed an everlasting flood of sorrow. _Jane Shore, act 5._
Jane Shore utters her last breath in a witty conceit.
Then all is well, and I shall sleep in peace---- ’Tis very dark, and I have lost you now---- Was there not something I would have bequeath’d you? But I have nothing left me to bestow, Nothing but one sad sigh. Oh mercy, Heav’n! [_Dies._ _Act 5._
Gilford to Lady Jane Gray, when both were condemned to die: