affected and warmed by the sublime idea which he would con vey. If his own feeling be languid, he can never inspire us with any strong emotion. Instances, which are extremely numerous on this subject, will clearly show the importance of all the requisites which I have just now mentioned. It is, generally speaking, among the most ancient authors, that we are to look for the most striking instances of the sublime. I am inclined to think, that the early ages of the world, and the rude unimproved state of society, are peculiarly favourable to the strong emotions of sublimity. The genius of men is then much turned to admiration and astonishment. Meeting with many objects, to them new and strange, their imagination is kept glowing, and their passions are often raised to the utmost. They think and express themselves boldly, and without restraint. In the progress of society, the genius and manners of men undergo a change more favourable to accuracy, than to strength or sublimity. Of all writings, ancient or modern, the sacred scriptures afford us the highest instances of the sublime. The descriptions of the Deity, in them, are wonderfully noble; both from the grandeur of the object, and the manner of representing it. What an assemblage, for instance, of awful and sublime ideas is presented to us, in that passage of the eighteenth psalm, where an appearance of the Almighty is described! "In my distress I called upon the Lord; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills were moved; because he was wroth. He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet; and he did ride upon a cherub, and did fly; yea he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters, and thick clouds of the sky." Here, agreeably to the principles established in the last lecture, we see with what propriety and success the circumstances of darkness and terror are applied for heightening the sublime. So, also the prophet Habakkuk, in a similar passage: "He stood, and measured the earth; he beheld, and drove asunder the nations. The everlasting mountains were scattered; the perpetual hills did bow; his ways are everlasting. The mountains saw thee; and they trembled. The overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered his voice and lifted up his hands on high." The noted instance, given by Longinus, from Moses, "God said, Let there be light; and there was light;" is not liable to the censure which I passed on some of his instances, of being foreign to the subject. It belongs to the true sublime; and the sublimity of it arises from the strong conception it gives, of an exertion of power, producing its effect with the utmost speed and facility. A thought of the same kind is magnificently amplified in the following passage of Isaiah (chap. xliv. 24, 27, 28.): Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb: I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself—that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers; that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid." There is a passage in the Psalms, which deserves to be mentioned under this head; " God," says the Psalmist, "stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumults of the people." The joining together two such grand objects as the ragings of the waters and the tumults of the people, between which there is so much resemblance as to form a very natural association in the fancy, and the representing them both as subject, at one moment, to the command of God, produces a noble effect. Homer is a poet, who, in all ages, and by all critics, has been greatly admired for sublimity, and he owes much of his grandeur to that native and unaffected simplicity which characterises his manner His descriptions of hosts engaging; the animation, the fire, and rapidity, which he throws into his battles, present, to every reader of the Iliad, frequent instances of sublime writing. His introduction of the gods tends often to heighten, in a high degree, the majesty of his warlike scenes. Hence Longinus bestows such high and just commendations on that passage, in the fifteenth book of the Iliad, where Neptune, when preparing to issue forth into the engagement, is described as shaking the mountains with his steps, and driving his chariot along the ocean; Minerva arming herself for fight, in the fifth book; and Apollo, in the fifteenth, leading on the Trojans, and flashing terror with his ægis on the face of the Greeks, are similar instances of great sublimity added to the description of battles, by the appearances of those celestial beings. In the twentieth book, where all the gods take part in the engagement, according as they severally favour either the Grecians or the Trojans, the poet's genius is signally displayed, and the description rises into the most awful magnificence. All nature is represented as in commotion. Jupiter thunders in the heavens ; Neptune strikes the earth with his trident; the ships, the city, and the mountains shake; the earth trembles to its centre; Pluto starts from his throne, in dread lest the secrets of the infernal region should be laid open to the view of mortals. The passage is worthy of being inserted. Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ λεθ ̓ ὄμιλον, Ολύμπιοι ἤλυθον ἀνδρῶν, Iliad, xx. 47, &c. The works of Ossian (as I have elsewhere shown) abound • But when the powers descending swell'd the fight, Leapt from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay And pour in light on Pluto's drear abodes, Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful ev'n to gods. Such wars th' immortals wage, such horrors rend The world's vast concave, when the gods contend.—Pore.] with examples of the sublime. The subjects of which that author treats, and the manner in which he writes, are particularly favourable to it. He possesses all the plain and venerable manner of the ancient times. He deals in no superfluous or gaudy ornaments; but throws forth his images with a rapid conciseness, which enables them to strike the mind with the greatest force. Among poets of more polished times, we are to look for the graces of correct writing, for just proportion of parts, and skilfully conducted narration. In the midst of smiling scenery and pleasurable themes, the gay and the beautiful will appear, undoubtedly, to more advantage. But amidst the rude scenes of nature and of society, such as Ossian describes; amidst rocks, and torrents, and whirlwinds, and battles, dwells the sublime, and naturally associates itself with that grave and solemn spirit which distinguishes the author of Fingal. As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, so towards each other approached the heroes. As two dark streams from high rocks meet and mix, and roar on the plain loud, rough, and dark, in battle, met Lochlin and Inisfail; chief mixed his strokes with chief, and man with man. Steel clanging sounded on steel. Helmets are cleft on high; blood bursts, and smokes around. As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the noise of battle. The groan of the people spread over the hills. It was like the thunder of night, when the cloud bursts on Cona, and a thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind." Never were images of more awful sublimity employed to heighten the terror of battle. I have produced these instances in order to demonstrate that conciseness and simplicity are essential to sublime writing. Simplicity I place in opposition to studied and profuse ornament, and conciseness to superfluous expression. The reason why a defect, either in conciseness or simplicity, is hurtful in a peculiar manner to the sublime, I shall endeavour to explain. The emotion occasioned in the mind by some great or noble object raises it considerably above its ordinary pitch. A sort of enthusiasm is produced, extremely agreeable while it lasts, but from which the mind is tending every moment to fall down into its ordinary situation. Now, when an author has brought us, or is attempting to bring us, into this state; if he multiplies words unnecessarily, if he decks the sublime object which he presents to us, round and round, with glittering orna ments; nay, if he throws in any one decoration that sinks in the least below the capital image, that moment he alters the key; he relaxes the tension of the mind; the 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 further from the sublime, till it end at last in a tumid declamation. Sperne minas, inquit, pelagi, ven oque furenti Non puppis nostræ labor est. Hanc Cæsare pressam Iste ratis:Quid tanta strage paretur Quid præstet fortuna mihi.*-Phars. v. 578. 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 But Cæsar, still superior to distress, And still enhance what they are sure to give.-RowE |