peculiar favour and affection testified by Augustus towards his former preceptor Apollodorus a native of Pergamus, tells us that this rhetorician had a disciple of eminence, who was himself a respectable rhetorician, a prose writer, and a composer of orations: oss, ἱκανὸς, καὶ συγγραφεὺς, καὶ λογογράφος. This was Dionysius, surnamed Atticus; an appellation by which he might be better, or earlier known, than by that which he prefixed to his only remaining work: for I entirely agree with Weiske in attributing the Treatise on the Sublime to this writer. As he was a fellow-citizen of Apollonius, and consequently a native of Pergamus, the surname of Atticus was not applied to him because he was of Attic origin. Perhaps then he had resided and taught in Attica, at Athens; or, which is quite as likely, he might have won this honourable designation by the Attic elegance of his writings.

Now let us see the result of the train of reasoning through which I have led my reader. Although, in the absence of direct evidence, we can obtain no absolute certainty in the present enquiry, yet we may arrive, I think, at the following probable conclusions:

That the writer of the Treatise on the Sublime, who calls himself a Greek, had also been a resident Athenian :

That he was one of those learned and ingenious men, who are known to have been occupied both at Athens and at Rome, in giving the last finish to the education. of the higher class of Roman youth:

That, in this capacity, he was the preceptor of Terentianus, a young Roman, probably of the gens Cassiorum, and of the familia Longinorum :

That he was contemporary with Cæcilius, who is known to have lived in the reign of Augustus:

That he wrote the present Treatise while the minds of men were still sore from the overthrow of the Republic: That, although the precise time is not ascertained, it seems to have been between the death of Cicero, and the publication of the great work of Quintilian :

That the period may be fixed, with much probability, about the time of the last sickness of Augustus :

That the Treatise was not written with a view to publication, and was, in fact, never published:

That the name of the writer was, originally, Dionysius; that he was the same, who is mentioned by Strabo under the designation of Dionysius Atticus; and that after he obtained the patronage of the family of his former pupil he was called

DIONYSIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS.

F

DISQUISITION II.

Ir is well known that certain severe remarks have proceeded from the pen of a critic and scholar no less able, and elegant in his taste, than Doctor Blair, which have a direct tendency to injure the long-established reputation of Longinus. The duration and stability of that writer's fame might seem sufficient to attest that it had not been built upon ignorance, upon caprice, or upon an absurd fondness for whatever is ancient; but that it is grounded upon principles, which approve themselves to the taste and judgment of mankind. It may not be improper, then, to examine these remarks in the present work, and to enquire somewhat at large, into the grounds on which they rest, and the justice of the animadversions, which they appear to convey.

The Doctor observes, "The true sense of sublime writing, undoubtedly, is such a description of objects, or exhibition of sentiments, which are in themselves of a "sublime nature,* as shall give a strong impression of

It does not, I think, appear absolutely necessary that the objects or sentiments themselves should be of a sublime nature, to render the description of them sublime: as in painting, many objects give no pleasure in the representation, the reality of which would occasion horror or disgust. At any rate, there are sentiments and emotions of a kind very different from sublimity, which, when experienced to an excessive degree, are capable of

"them. But," says he, "there is another very ndefinite, and therefore very improper, sense, which has

being sublimely described. What, for instance, can be a more debasing passion than fear?-the fear of guilt ?—the murderer's fear? Now, observe to what a harrowing pitch of sublimity our great Dramatist has wrought up this passion, in his Macbeth!

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65 W MACBETH solus.

now o'er one half the world

"Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

"The curtain'd sleep".... "Thou sure and firm-set earth,

"Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear

"And take the present horror from the time,

"Which now suits with it".. "While I threat, he lives,-
"I go, and it is done!

"Hark!

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"Enters LADY MACBETH.
Peace!

[Exit.]

'It was the owl that shriek'd!-He is about it!

And 'tis not done !-Hark !—I laid the daggers ready,

"He could not miss them.-Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done 't.-My husband!
"Enters MACBETH.

"I have done the deed !-Didst thou not hear a noise?
"LADY M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.-
Did you not speak?-

[Looking at his bloody hands.]" What a scene of awful sublimity is this! How all the circumstances that precede the horrid crime prepare the mind for that intensity of guilty terror which follows it! Even the bare perusal makes us sick at heart, and chills the blood in our veins. First, the solemn hour of midnight; then the

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"been too often put upon it; when it is applied to signify any remarkable and distinguished excellency "of composition; whether it raise in us the ideas of grandeur, or those of gentleness, elegance, or any "other sort of beauty." He then proceeds, "I am sorry to be obliged to observe that The Sublime is too often used in this last and improper sense, by the celebrated critic Longinus, in his treatise on this subject. He sets out, indeed, with describing it in "its just and proper meaning, as something that ele"vates the mind above itself, and fills it with high conceptions, and a noble pride. But from this view of it he frequently departs, and substitutes in the place of it, whatever, in any strain of composition, pleases highly. Thus, many of the passages, which he pro"duces as instances of the Sublime, are merely elegant, without having the most distant relation to proper Sublimity witness Sappho's famous ode, on which "he descants at considerable length.

"He points out five sources of the sublime. The first is, Boldness or Grandeur in the thoughts; the "second is, the Pathetic; the third, the proper applica

awakening alarm of the guilty accomplice, and the ill-omen'd sounds which caused that alarm. Then, the voice of the murderer heard within: and her alarm lest the attempt should have failed. Then comes the consciencesmitten assassin, with his hands smeared with gore: and, no sooner has he announced the perpetration of his crime, than he betrays the horror which agitates his frame, by the abrupt enquiry "Didst thou not hear a noise ?” The dialogue which then ensues, interrupted by sudden exclamations of terror; and the final start of horror, at seeing the blood on his hands,—all these together produce such an interest of appalling sublimity as is, perhaps, unequalled by any writer ancient or modern. Yet all these are founded upon no more promising a subject than the dastardly fears of a consciencesmitten murderer !