CHAP. Of the Su All this, however, obscure as, I confess, it is to me, seems perfectly clear to the more acute blime and penetration of his disciple and commentator; Pathetic. who obsérves, in terms more direct and explicit The than the author, perhaps, would have desired, that the sublime, being founded on ideas of pain and terror, like them operates by streiching the fibres beyond their natural tone. passion excited by beauty is love and complacency: it acts by relaxing the fibres somewhat below their natural tone; and this is accompanied by an inward sense of melting and languor*. This stretching power of ideas of terror, no pathologist has, I believe, discovered or even surmised, though the laxative power of terror itself is so well known, as to have been celebrated even by poets; with more, indeed, of the accuracy of philosophy than the delicacy of poetry. The laxative powers of beauty, the author has illustrated by the difference of our feelings on a warm genial day in a spot full of the softest beauties of nature, and, when the fibres are braced by a keen air in a wild romantic situation : but I apprehend that this difference, so far as it depends upon the Essays on the Picturesque, Vol. i. p. 103. † Aristoph. Cargax. 479. Ed. Brunk. Gay's Fab. True Story, &c. Essays on the Picturesque, Vol. i. p. 104. relaxation or tension of the fibres, arises entirely from the difference of temperature in the atmosphere, and not at all from that of character in the scenery 64. As for the passions and sensations belonging to self-preservation they are certainly very strong; but how tranquillity, tinged with terror or any thing else, came to be one of them, surpasses all ordinary ingenuity to discover. Such passions, too, are always most strong in the weakest and meanest minds; those of the selfish, the cowardly, and the penurious: for, as avarice is a modification of vanity, so is penury of timidity. They are, therefore, the passions, which Longinus specially excluded * I remember, many years ago, to have met with an account of an experiment to ascertain the pernicious effects of drinking tea; in which it was stated that a single ounce of that deleterious drug, having been steeped for only five minutes in a quart of boiling spring water, rendered it so corrosive, that it immediately took all the hairs off a raw pig's tail, that was put into it. What havock must it then make with the tender coats of the stomach! The chemist was too intent on proving his system to think of trying the effects of hot water without the infusion of tea: for all Philosophers, who find Some favorite system to their mind, Will force all nature to submit. CHAP. I. Of the Su blime and Pathetic. SWIFT. CHAP. I. Of the Su blime and Pathetic. from all possibility of being sublime; and we accordingly find that, when poets or moralists would draw a sublime character, they represent him as free from them as is consistent with the infirmity of human nature, and oftentimes more So. It is he whom, Si fractus illabatur orbis, 65. As for the author's graduated scale of the sublime from respect to astonishment, it cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by applying it to his own character, He was certainly a very respectable man; and reverenced by all who knew him intimately, At one period of his life, too, when he became the disinterested patron of remote and injured nations, who had none to help them, his character was truly sublime; but unless upon those whom he so ably and eloquently arraigned, I do not believe that it impressed any awe. 66. If, during this period, he had suddenly appeared among the managers in Westminsterhall without his wig and coat; or had walked up St. James's street without his breeches, it would have occasioned great and universal astonishment; and if he had, at the same time, carried a loaded blunderbuss in his hands, the astonishment would have been mixed with no small portion of terror; but I do not believe that the united effects of these two powerful passions would have produced any sentiment or sensation approaching to sublime, even in the breasts of those, who had the strongest sense of self-preservation, and the quickest sensibility of danger. ་ 67. From this system the author has deduced. many strange principles of taste; against which, however, his feelings often seem to revolt: but those of his followers have been less scrupulous; as abundantly appears from the works of many modern painters, poets, and romance writers ; which teem with all sorts of terrific and horrific monsters and hobgoblins; but never stoop to the more humble but more difficult task of heightening and embellishing ordinary nature with the energies of poetical fiction, or the colouring of poetical diction. This would be sinking into the tame drudgery of portrait painting and copying; occupations wholly unworthy of that exalted genius, which aims at realizing the visions of the sublime and beautiful. 68. An attempt was once made to introduce these charming delights of danger, pain, terror, and astonishment, into the art of landscape gardening; and at least they would have given it some character: but, unfortunately, the author of the project had not the literary talents of the first discoverer of these exquisite CHAP. I. Of the Sublime and Pathetic. CHAP. I. sources of the sublime; so that his noble de signs were stifled in the birth, for want of being Of the Su- sufficiently guarded against the malignant pow blime and Pathetic. ers of ridicule *. We need not however despair of yet seeing them put in practice; as far at least as the heavy and half-frozen spirits of a northern people are capable of comprehending or enjoying them: for it is not long, since I beheld a most edifying specimen of the happy effects, which might be thus produced. Amidst some very grand scenery of woods, rocks, and mountains, was a spacious and picturesque cave; which, as some improver of this school naturally conceived, only wanted a little terror to render it truly sublime. This, he easily supplied, by prevailing on the then proprietor to place a monstrous figure of a giant or cyclops over the entrance of it, with a huge stone suspended in his hand, and ready to fall upon the head of any person who should presume to enter. Not, however, calculating correctly the exact distance or degree of danger necessary to produce the desired effect, the stone actually did fall; and, coming nearer to the head of one of the spectators, than the laws of the system allow, it has brought the scheme into such disrepute among the ignorant mechanics * See Treatise on Oriental Gardening, and Heroic Epistle to its Author, Sir W. Chambers. |