As they wrought much for churches and
convents, they have chiefly represented such horrible subjects
as crucifixions and martyrdoms, where nothing appears but
tortures, wounds, executions, and passive suffering, without
any action or affection. When they turned their pencil from
this ghastly mythology, they had commonly recourse to Ovid,
whose fictions, though passionate and agreeable, are scarcely
natural or probable enough for painting.
The same inversion of that principle, which is here insisted
on, displays itself in common life, as in the effects of
oratory and poetry. Raise so the subordinate passion that it
becomes the predominant, it swallows up that affection which
it before nourished and encreased. Too much jealousy
extinguishes love: Too much difficulty renders us indifferent:
Too much sickness and infirmity disgusts a selfish and unkind
parent.
What so disagreeable as the dismal, gloomy, disastrous
stories, with which melancholy people entertain their
companions? The uneasy passion being there raised alone,
unaccompanied with any spirit, genius, or eloquence, conveys a
pure uneasiness, and is attended with nothing that can soften
it into pleasure or satisfaction.
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