But, when the powers descending swell'd the flight,
Then tumult rose, fierce rage, and pale affright.
Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls,
And now she thunders from the Grecian walls.
Mars, hovering o'er his Troy, his terror shrouds,
In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds;
Now through each 'Trojan heart he fury pours
With voice divine, from Ilion's topmost towers;
Above the sire of gods his thunder rolls,
And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles.
Beneath. stern Neptune shakes the solid ground,
The forests wave, the mountains nod around;
Through all her summits tremble Ida's woods,
And from their sources boil her hundred floods:
Troy's turrets totter on the rocking plain,
And the toss'd navies beat the heaving main;
Deep in the dismal region of the dead

The infernal monarchi rear'd his horrid bead,

Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay
His dark dominions open to the day,

And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes,

Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful e'en to gods.

Such wars the immorta's wage; such horrors rend
The world's vast concave, when the gods contend.

Conciseness and simplicity will ever be found essen tial to sublime writing. Simplicity is properly op posed to studied and profuse ornament; and conciseness to superfluous expression. It will easily appear, why a defect either in conciseness or simplicity, is peculiarly hurtful to the sublime. The emotion, excited in the mind by some great or noble object, raises it considerably above its common pitch. A species of enthusiasm is produced, extremely pleasing, while it lasts; but the mind is tending every moment to sink into its ordinary state. When an author has brought us, or is endeavouring to bring us into this state, if he multiply words unnecessarily; if he deck the sublime object on all sides with glittering ornaments; nay, if he throw in any one decoration, which falls in the least below the principal image; that moment he changes the key; he relaxes the tension of the mind;

from Pope's translation of the Iliad?

What is essential to sublime writing?-What is simplicity opposed to?-What conciseness?--Show how a defect either in conciseness or simplicity is peculiarly hurtful to the sublime.

the strength of the feeling is emasculated; the beautiful may remain; but the sublime is extinguished. Homer's description of the nod of Jupiter, as shaking the heavens, has been admired in all ages, as wonderfully sublime. Literally translated, it runs thus: "He spoke, and bending his sable brows, gave the awful nod; while he shook the celestial locks of his immortal head, all Olympus was shaken." Mr. Pope translates it thus.

He spoke; and awful bends his sable brows,
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod;
The stamp of fate, and sanction of a God;

High heaven with trembling the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to its centre shook.

The image is expanded, and attempted to be beautified; but in reality it is weakened. The third line, "The stamp of fate, and sanction of a God," is entirely expletive, and introduced only to fill up the rhyme; for it interrupts the description, and clogs the image. For the same reason Jupiter is represented, as shaking his locks, before he gives the nod; "shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod;" which is trifling and insignificant; whereas in the original the shaking of his hair is the consequence of his nod, and makes a happy picturesque circumstance in the description.

The boldness, freedom, and variety of our blank verse are infinitely more propitious than rhyme, to all kinds of sublime poetry. The fullest proof of this is afforded by Milton; an author, whose genius led him peculiarly to the sublime. The first and second books of Paradise Lost are continued examples of it. Take, for instance, the following noted description of Satan, after his fall, appearing at the head of his infernal hosts.

-He, above the rest,

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,

Stood, like a tower; his form had not yet lost

What is said of blank verse?-What proof is afforded of this? What are examples of it?-Example—Remarks.

All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less, than Archangel ruin'd, and the excess,
Of glory obscured; as when the sun new risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams; or, from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the Archangel.

Here various sources of the sublime are joined together; the principal object superlatively great; a high, superior nature, fallen indeed, but raising itself against distress; the grandeur of the principal object heightened by connecting it with so noble an idea, as that of the sun suffering an eclipse; this picture, shaded with all those images of change and trouble, of darkness and terror, which coincide so exquisitely with the sublime emotion; and the whole expressed in a style and versification easy, natural, and simple, but magnificent.

Beside simplicity and conciseness, strength is essentially necessary to sublime writing. Strength of description proceeds, in a great measure, from conciseness; but it implies something more, namely, a judicious choice of circumstances in the description; such as will exhibit the object in its full and most striking point of view. For, every object has several faces, by which it may be presented to us, according to the circumstances with which we surround it; and it will appear superlatively sublime, or not, in proportion as these circumstances are happily chosen, and of a sublime kind. In this, the great art of the writer consists; and indeed the principal difficulty of sublime description. If the description be too general and divested of circumstances, the object is shown in a faint light, and makes a feeble impression, or no impression, on the reader. At the same

Besides simplicity, &c. what next is necessary to sublime writing?What does strength of description proceed from in a great measure?-What does it imply?Illustrate.

time, if any trivial or improper circumstances be mingled, the whole is degraded.

The nature of that emotion, which is aimed at by sublime description, adnits no mediocrity, and cannot subsist in a middle state; but must either highly transport us; or, if unsuccessful in the execution, leave us exceedingly disgusted. We attempt to rise with the writer; the imagination is awakened, and put upon the stretch; but it ought to be supported; and, if in the midst of its effort it be deserted unexpectedly, it falls with a painful shock. When Milton, in his battle of the angels, describes them, as tearing up mountains, and throwing them at one another; there are in his description, as Mr. Addison has remarked, no circumstances, but what are truly sublime :

From their foundations loos'ning to and fro,
They pluck'd the seated hills with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods; and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting bore them with their hands.-

This idea of the giants throwing the mountains, which is in itself so grand, Claudian renders burlesque and ridiculous, by the single circumstance of one of his giants, with the mountain Ida upon his shoulders, and a river, which flowed from the mountain, running down the giant's back, as he held it up in that posture. Virgil, in his description of Mount Etna, is guilty of a slight inaccuracy of this kind. After several magnificent images, the poet concludes with personifying the mountain under this figure,

"Eructans viscera cum gemitu"

"belching up its bowels with a groan ;" which, by making the mountain resemble a sick or drunken person, degrades the majesty of the description. The debasing effect of this idea will appear in a stronger light, from observing what figure it makes in a poem

What admits of no mediocrity?-Illustrate.-Example How does Claudian render this ridiculous?-How has Virgil been guilty of an inaccuracy of this kind?-How

of Sir Richard Blackmore; who, through an extravagant perversity of taste, selected it for the principal circumstance in his description; and thereby, as Dr. Arbuthnot humorously observes, represented the mountain as in a fit of the cholic.

Etna and all the burning mountains find

Their kindled stores, with inbred storms of wind,
Blown up to rage, and roaring out complain,
As torn with inward gripes and torturing pain;
Labouring, they cast their dreadful vomit round,
And with their melted bowels spread the ground.

Such instances show how much the sublime depends upon a proper selection of circumstances; and with how great care every circumstance must be avoided, which, by approaching in the smallest degree to the mean, or even to the gay or trifling, changes the tone of the emotion.

What is commonly called the sublime style, is for the most part a very bad one, and has no relation whatever to the true sublime. Writers are apt to imagine, that splendid words, accumulated epithets, and a certain swelling kind of expression, by rising above what is customary or vulgar, constitutes the sublime; yet nothing is in reality more false. In genuine instances of sublime writing, nothing of this kind appears. "God said, let there be light; and there was light.' This is striking and sublime, but put it into what is commonly called the sublime style; "The Sovereign Arbiter of nature, by the potent energy of a single word, commanded the light to exist ;" and, as Boileau justly observed, the style is indeed raised, but the thought is degraded. In general, it may be observed, that the sublime lies in the thought, not in the expression; and, when the thought is really noble, it will does this also appear in a poem by Sir R. Blackmore? What do such instances show?

What is said of what is commonly called the sublime style? What are writers apt to imagine?-Is this false? -Does this appear in genuine instances of sublime writing?-Examples.-Remarks.-In general, where does the

sublime lie?