describing the wound of Satan from the sword of the Archangel, he adds,

Yet soon he heal'd: for spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man

In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,

Cannot but by annihilating die.

The third of these lines is offensively chirurgical; and the passage, by its omission, would have lost nothing either in sense or in dignity.

P. 1. He descends here from matters of greater grandeur, to those of less-Examples of this bathos or sinking may be found even in the greatest writers. Pope has furnished an amusing instance of it where addressing Lord Mansfield, he says,

Graced as thou art by all the power of words,
So known, so honoured in the House of Lords:

which Cibber parodied thus :

Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,

And he has chambers in the King's Bench walks. The following whimsical instance of the same kind is taken from the celebrated George Falkener's "Account of Ireland."

"Ploughs were first invented by Triptolemus, a near relation of the Goddess Ceres; and afterwards much improved by Mr. John Wynne, “baker, of Dublin.”

P. 1—. we must not descend to terms sullied by vulgar meanings, or tarnished by common use―The mighty Homer himself, I fear, offends against this precept, not only in some of his epic cookery, but when he compares the sudden healing of the wound of Mars, to the formation of curds.

Such expressions are quite inconsistent with the grandeur of poetry; nor are they to be tolerated in historical composition. And yet Knolles, who wrote the History of the Turkish Empire, and of whom, as an historian, Johnson writes in terms of high commendation, descended so far beneath the dignity of history, as to commence one of his chapters thus: "Now lay the great city of Nice in the suds.”

SECTION XLIV.

The Treatise on the Sublime ends in reality with the preceding Section and the present, which is merely a sort of epilogue to the work, as it contains no precepts, will admit of no illustrations.

FINIS.

INDEX OF THE SECTIONS.

Sect. ii..

Sect. i... The Treatise of Cæcilius imperfect, and why.-Descrip-
tion of Sublimity.-Its powerful effects on the mind.
Whether Sublimity be an art that may be taught.-The
maxim of Demosthenes concerning good fortune and
good sense applied to native talent and education.
Bombast, puerility, parenthyrsus :-Gorgias, Callisthenes,
Clitarchus, Amphicrates, Hegesias, Matris.
The Frigid: Timæus ;-his comparison of Alexander to
Isocrates.-Xenophon and Plato not free from frigidity.
The source of these faults, a fondness for novelty.
To avoid them, a clear notion and an accurate perception
of the true Sublime must be formed.

Sect. iii. ...
Sect. iv. ...

Sect. v.....
Sect. vi....

Sect. vii.... How the true Sublime may be distinguished :-and how
the mind is affected by it.

Sect. viii...
Sect. ix. ...

-

Five sources of Sublimity, one of which, the Passions,
omitted by Cæcilius.

Natural grandeur of sentiment. This may be discovered
without the intervention of words-The silence of
Ajax.-Homer's Discord.-Hesiod's Misery of War.—
Other instances of the Sublime from Homer.-Moses.
The prayer of Ajax.-Homer compared to the setting
sun, and to the ebbing ocean.-Apology for the fables
in the Odyssey.

Sect. x..... Selection and combination of circumstances.-Sappho's
Ode.-Homer's tempests.-The Arimaspeia.-Archi-
lochus.-Demosthenes.

Sect. xi..
Sect. xii....

Amplification,-described. When to be employed.
The common definition of Amplification incorrect.-Am-
plification distinguished from Sublimity.-The styles
of Plato and Demosthenes contrasted.-Those of De-
mosthenes and Cicero distinguished. The proper
occasion for each of these styles.

Sect. xiii... Of the Sublime of Plato.-Of Imitation.-Stesichorus and
Archilochus imitators of Homer.-Plato still more
so.-No plagiarism in this kind of imitation.

Sect. xiv... The great writers to be kept in view as patterns ;-and
we must bear in mind the judgment of posterity.
Imagery. That of the Poet distinguished from that of
the Orator.

Sect. xv....

Sect. xvi...

Figures :-to be briefly treated in the present Treatise.-
Apodeixis. The oath in Demosthenes.

Sect. xvii... Figures and the Sublime mutually aid each other.—
Figures most perfect when not observed to be
Figures. Comparison from the lights and shades in
painting.

Sect. xix...

Sect. xx....
Sect. xxi.

Sect. xxii...
Sect. xxiii.

Sect. xxiv...

Sect. xxv...

Questions and Interrogations.

Asyndeton.

Accumulation of Figures.

Copulatives enfeeble style.

Hyperbatons,-characteristic of an agitated mind.
Change of Numbers,-of Cases,-Collections,-Commu-
tations,-Climaxes ;-all contribute to the Sublime.
Singulars are sometimes Sublime :—and why.
Change of Tense.

Sect. xxvi... Change of Person.

Sect. xxvii.. Change of Person, under another form.

Sect. xxviii. Periphrasis ;-comparison from Music.

Sect. xxix. . Periphrasis very liable to abuse.-End of the digression
concerning figures.

Sect. xxx...

Sect. xxxi..

Sect. xxxii..

Choice of words.-Splendid diction not to be indiscrimi-
nately employed.

Vulgar expressions,-when admissible.

Accumulation of Metaphors.-The authority, Demos-
thenes. Remedy for bold expressions.-Excess to be
avoided.-Lysias and Plato.

Sect. xxxiii. The Sublime, with a few faults, preferable to blameless
mediocrity.-Faults more readily remembered than
excellences. Apollonius, Theocritus, Eratosthenes,
Archilochus, Bacchylides, Pindar, Ion, Sophocles.

Sect. xxxiv.. The subject continued :-Demosthenes and Hyperides
compared, and the former preferred.

Sect. xxxv.. Plato superior to Lysias. Man intended to be a spectator
and admirer of the grand and sublime works of Nature.

The Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, the Ocean :-the
furnaces of Etna.

Sect. xxxvi.. The ennobling power of the Sublime :-to achieve which
natural endowments are to be cultivated by the pre-
cepts of education.

Sect. xxxvii. Similes and Comparisons near akin to Metaphors.-Not
to be overstrained. Hyperboles :-those the best
which do not discover themselves to be Hyperboles.-
Diasyrmus.

Sect. xxxix..
Sect. xl. ...

Arrangement of Words, or Composition.-Harmonious
Arrangement.

Connexion of parts or members.-As in bodies, so in
writing, Sublimity produced by Symmetry.-Even
mean writers have derived from this an air of dignity.—
Philistus, Aristophanes, Euripides.

Sect. xli.... Broken measures, occasioning rapid utterance, injurious
to the Sublime.

Sect. xlii...

Sect. xliii...

Conciseness of phrase injurious to the Sublime.

Words deficient in strength, or debased by common use,
injurious to the Sublime.

Sect. xliv... The Peroration.-The enquiry discussed why there were
so few Sublime Writers in the age of Longinus.

GENERAL INDEX.

Amphitheatre of the world, 125, Athenogenes, 123, 247