ing he could have spoken.

The next instance I shall mention is in Virgil, where the poet,
doubtless, imitates this silence of Ajax in that of Dido;[91] though I
do not know that any of his commentators have taken notice of it. AEneas
finding among the shades of despairing lovers, the ghost of her who had
lately died for him, with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses
himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most
passionate professions of his own innocence as to what had happened; all
which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover,
and an injured Queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that
she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning
away her face from him while he spoke to her; and after having kept her
eyes for some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his
protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the
arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love.[92]

I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in
this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their
works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such
passions, as it is not in the power of language to express. There is
something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre
is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend,[93] as a
reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to
rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is
going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it,
but withdraws his face from his friend's ear, and bursts into tears.
The melancholy silence that follows hereupon, and continues till he has
recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the
spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a
complicated distress in the actor as words cannot utter. It would look
as ridiculous to many readers to give rules and directions for proper
silences, as for penning a whisper: but it is certain, that in the
extremity of most passions, particularly surprise, admiration,
astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to
see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an
agreeable suspense during the silence of a skilful actor.

But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is
made the