strength of the feeling is emasculated; the Beautiful may remain, but the Sublime is gone. When Julius Cæsar said to the Pilot who was afraid to put to sea with him in a storm, "Quid times? Cæsarem vehis;" we are struck with the daring magnanimity of one relying with such confidence on his cause and his fortune. These few words convey every thing necessary to give us the impression full. Lucan resolved to amplify and adorn the thought. Observe how, every time he twists it round, it departs farther from the Sublime, till it end at last in tumid declam ation. Sperne minas, inquit, pelagi, ventoque furenti pressam PHARS. V. 578. * But Cæsar still superior to distress, Fearless, and confident of sure success, Thus to the pilot loud : The seas despise, And the vain threat'ning of the noisy skies: On account of the great importance of simplicity. and conciseness, I conceive rhyme, in English verse, to be, if not inconsistent with the Sublime, at least very unfavourable to it. The constrained elegance of this kind of verse, and studied smoothness of the sounds, answering regularly to each other at the end of the line, though they be quite consistent with gentle emotions, yet weaken the native force of Sublimity; besides, that the superfluous words which the poet is often obliged to introduce, in order to fill the rhyme, tend farther to enfeeble it. Homer's description of the nod of Jupiter, as shaking the heavens, has been admired in all ages, as highly 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: 66 up He spoke; and awful bends his sable brows, And all Olympus to its centre shook. The image is spread out and attempted to be beautified; but it is, in truth, weakened. The third Let winds, and seas, loud wars at freedom wage, Rowe. line" The stamp of fate, and sanction of a God," is merely expletive; and introduced for no other reason but to fill up the rhyme; for it interrupts the description, and clogs the image. For the same reason, out of mere compliance with the rhyme, Jupiter is represented as shaking his locks before he gives the nod; -"Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod," which is trifling, and without meaning. Whereas, in the original, the hair of his head shaken, is the effect of his nod, and makes a happy picturesque circumstance in the description. * 66 The boldness, freedom, and variety of our blank verse, is infinitely more favourable than rhyme, to all kinds of Sublime poetry. The fullest proof of this is afforded by Milton; an author whose genius led him eminently to the Sublime. The whole first and second books of Paradise Lost, are continued instances of it. Take only for an example, the following noted description of Satan after his fall, appearing at the head of the infernal hosts: He, above the rest, In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Shorn of his beams; or, from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disasterous twilight sheds See Webb, on the Beauties of Poetry. 'Here concur a variety of sources of the Sublime; the principal object eminently great; a high superior nature, fallen indeed, but erecting itself against distress; the grandeur of the principal object heightened, by associating 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 finely with the Sublime emotion; and the whole expressed in a style and versification, easy, natural, and simple, but magnificent. I have spoken of simplicity and conciseness as essential to Sublime Writing. In my general de"scription of it, I mentioned Strength, as another necessary requisite. The Strength of description arises, in a great measure, from a simple conciseness; but, it supposes also something more; namely, a proper choice of circumstances in the description, so as to exhibit the object in its full and most striking point of view. For every object has several faces, so to speak, by which it may be presented to us, according to the circumstances with which we surround it; and it will appear eminently Sublime, or not, in proportion as all these circumstances are happily chosen, and of a Sublime kind. Here lies the great art of the writer; and, indeed, the great difficulty of Sublime description. If the description be too general, and divested of circumstances, the object appears in a faint light; it makes a feeble impression, or no impression at all, on the reader. At the same time, if any trivial or improper circumstances are mingled, the whole is degraded. A storm or tempest, for instance, is a Sublime object in nature. But, to render it Sublime in description, it is not enough, either to give us mere general expressions concerning the violence of the tempest, or to describe its common vulgar effects, in overthrowing trees and houses. It must be painted with such circumstances as fill the mind with great and awful ideas. This is very happily done by Virgil, in the following passage: Ipse Pater, mediâ nimborum in nocte, coruscâ Every circumstance in this noble description is the *The Father of the Gods his glory shrouds, } DRYDEN. |