to fublime writing. Simplicity is properly oppofed to ftudied and profufe ornament; and concifenefs to fuperfluous expreffion. It will eafily appear, why a de-fect either in concifenefs or fimplicity is peculiarly hurt-ful to the fublime. The emotion, excited in the mind by fome great or noble object, raises it confiderably above its common pitch. A fpecies of enthusiasm is produced, extremely pleafing, while it lafts; but the mind is tending every moment to fink into its ordinary ftate. When an author has brought us, or is endeav— · ouring to bring us into this ftate, if he multiply words: unneceffarily; if he deck the fublime object on all fides with glittering ornaments; nay, if he throw in any one decoration, which falls in the leaft below the principal image; that moment he changes the key; he relaxes. the tenfion of the mind; the ftrength of the feeling is emasculated; the Beautiful may remain; but the sublime is extinguished.. Homer's defcription of the nod of Jupiter, as shaking the heavens, has been admired in all ages, as wonderfully fublime. Literally tranflated, it runs thus ; "He fpoke, and bending his fable brows 'gave the awful nod; while he fhook the celeftial locks "of his immortal head, all Olympus was fhaken." Mr. Pope tranflates it thus ;

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He spoke; and awful bends his fable brows,.
Shakes his ambrofial curls, and gives the nod,

The stamp of fate, and sanction of a god ;
High heaven with trembling the dread fignal took,,
And all Olympus to its centre hook.

The image is expanded, and attempted to be beautified; but in reality it is weakened. The third line, "The ftamp of fate, and fanction of a God," is entirely expletive, and introduced only to fill up the rhyme; for it interrupts the defcription, and clogs the image. For the fame reafon Jupiter is reprefented,as fhaking his locks, before he gives the nod; "Shakes his ambrofial curls, "and gives the nod;" which is trifling and infignificant ; whereas in the original the fhaking of his hair is the confequence of his nod, and makes a happy picturesque circumftance in the description.

The boldness, freedom, and variety of our blank verfe are infinitely more propitious, than rhyme, to all kinds of fublime poetry. The fullest proof of this is afforded by Milton; an author, whofe genius led him peculiarly to the fublime. The first and second books of Paradife Loft are continued examples of it. Take for instance the following noted defeription of Satan, after his fall appearing at the head of his infernal hofts;

-He above the reft,

In fhape and gefture proudly eminent,
Stood, like a tower; his form had not yet loft
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Lefs, than Archangel ruined, and the excefs

́Of glory obscured; As when the sun, new risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,

In dim eclipfe, difaftrous twilight fheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet fhone
Above them all the Archangel.

Here various fources of the fublime are joined together; the principal object fuperlatively great; a high,, fuperior nature, fallen indeed, but raifing itself against distress; the grandeur of the principal object heightened by connecting it with fo noble an idea, as that of the fun fuffering an eclipfe; this picture, fhaded with all thofe images of change and trouble, of darknefs and terror, which coincide fo exquifitely with the fublime emotion; and the whole expreffed in a ftyle and verfification easy, natural, and fimple, but magnificent.

Befide fimplicity and conciseness strength is effentially neceffary to fublime writing. Strength of defcription: proceeds in a great meafure from concifenefs; but it im plies fomething more, namely a judicious choice of cir-cumstances in the defcription; fuch, as will exhibit the object in its full and moft ftriking point of view. Fort every object has feveral faces, by which it may be prefented to us, according to the circumftances, with which we furround it; and it will appear fuperlatively fublime, or not, in proportion, as these circumstances are happily chofen, and of a fublime kind. In this the great art of the writer consists; and indeed the princi-pal difficulty of fublime description. If the defcription be too general, and divested of circumstances; the object is fhewn in a faint light, and makes a feeble impreffion, or no impreffion, on the reader. At the fame time, if

any trivial or improper circumstances be mingled, the whole is degraded.

The nature of that emotion, which is aimed at by fublime defcription, admits no mediocrity, and cannot subfift in a middle ftate; but muft either highly transport us; or, if unsuccessful in the execution, leave us execedingly difgufted. We attempt to rife with the writ er; the imagination is awakened, and, put upon the stretch; but it ought to be fupported; and, if in the midst of its effort it be deferted unexpectedly, it falls with a painful fhock. When Milton in his battle of the Angels describes them, as tearing up mountains, and throwing them at one another; there are in his defcription, as Mr. Addifon has remarked, no circumstances, but what are truly fublime :

From their foundations loosening to and fro,

They pluck'd the feated hills with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods; and by the fhaggy tops
Uplifting bore them in their hands.-

This idea of the giants throwing the mountains, which is in itself so grand, Claudian renders burlesque and ridiculous by the single circumstance of one of his giants with the mountain Ida upon his shoulders, and a river, which flowed from the mountain, running down the giant's back, as he held it up in that posture. Virgil in his description of mount Etna is guilty of a flight inaccuracy of this kind. After feveral magnificent images the poet concludes with perfonifying the mountain under this figure,

"Eructans vifcera cum gemitu"

"belching up its bowels with a groan;" which by making the mountain refemble a fick or drunken perfon degrades the majesty of the description. The debafing effect of this idea will appear in a ftronger light from obferving, what figure it makes in a poem of Sir Richard Blackmore; who though an extravagant perverfity of tafte felected it for the principal circumftance in his defcription; and thereby, as Dr. Arburthnot humorously obferves, represented the mountain, as in a fit of the cholic.

Ætna and all the burning mountains find

Their kindled stores with inbred storms of wind
Blown up to rage, and roaring out complain,
As torn with inward gripes and torturing pain;
Laboring they caft their dreadful vomit round,
And with their melted bowels fpread the ground.

Such inftances fhow how much the fublime depends upon a proper felection of circumstances; and with how great care every circumstance must be avoided, which by approaching in the smallest degree to the mean, or even to the gay or trifling, changes the tone of the

emotion.

What is commonly called the fublime ftyle, is for the moft part a very bad one, and has no relation whatever to the true Sublime. Writers are apt to imagine that e.) fplendid words, accumulated epithets, and a certain fwelling kind of expreffion, by rifing above what is cuf