the daring conspirator, whom we are far from approving, we cannot withhold our admiration.*

I have now enumerated a variety of instances, both in inanimate objects and in human life, where the sublime appears. In all these instances the emotion raised in us is of the same kind, although the objects that produce the emotion be of widely different kinds. A question next arises, whether we are able to discover some one fundamental quality in which all these different objects agree, and which is the cause of their producing an emotion of the same nature in our minds? Various

* Silius Italicus studied to give an august idea of Hannibal, by representing him as surrounded with all his victories, in the place of guards. One who had formed a design of assassinating him in the midst of a feast, is thus addressed:

Fallit te, mensas inter quod credis inermem;
Tot bellis quæsita viro, tot cædibus, armat
Majestas æterna ducem. Si admoveris ora
Cannas, et Trebiam ante oculos, Trasymenaque busta
Et Pauli stare ingentem miraberis umbram.

A thought somewhat of the same nature occurs in a French author: "Il se cache; mais sa reputation le decouvre : Il marche "sans suite et sans equipage; mais chacun, dans son esprit, le "met sur un char de triomphe. On compte, en le voiant, les "ennemis qu'il a vaincus, non pas les serviteurs qui le suivent. "Tout seul qu'il est, on se figure, autour de lui, ses vertus et ses "victoires que l'accompagnent. Moins il est superbe, plus il "devient venerable." Oraison funebre de M. de Turenne, par M. Flechier. Both these passages are splendid, rather than sublime. In the first there is a want of justness in the thought; in the second, of simplicity in the expression.

hypotheses have been formed concerning this; but, as far as appears to me, hitherto unsatisfactory. Some have imagined that amplitude or great extent, joined with simplicity, is either immediately, or remotely, the fundamental quality of whatever is sublime; but we have seen that amplitude is confined to one species of sublime objects, and cannot, without violent straining, be applied to them all. The author of "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of "the Sublime and Beautiful," to whom we are indebted for several ingenious and original thoughts upon this subject, proposes a formal theory upon this foundation, that terror is the source of the sublime, and that no objects have this character, but such as produce impressions of pain and danger. It is indeed true, that many terrible objects are highly sublime; and that grandeur does not refuse an alliance with the idea of danger. But though this is very properly illustrated by the author, (many of whose sentiments on that head I have adopted), yet he seems to stretch his theory too far, when he represents the sublime as consisting wholly in modes of danger, or of pain. For the proper sensation of sublimity appears to be distinguishable from the sensation of either of these, and, on several occasions, to be entirely separated from them. In many grand objects, there is no coincidence with terror at all; as in the magnificent prospect of wide-extended plains, and of the starry firmament; or in the moral disposi

tions and sentiments, which we view with high admiration; and in many painful and terrible objects also, it is clear, there is no sort of grandeur. The amputation of a limb, or the bite of a snake, are exceedingly terrible; but are destitute of all claim whatever to sublimity. I am inclined to think, that mighty force or power, whether accompanied with terror or not, whether employed in protecting or in alarming us, has a better title than any thing that has yet been mentioned, to be the fundamental quality of the sublime; as, after the review which we have taken, there does not occur to me any sublime object, into the idea of which, power, strength, and force, either enter not directly, or are not, at least, intimately associated with the idea, by leading our thoughts to some astonishing power, as concerned in the production of the object. However, I do not insist upon this as sufficient to found a general theory; it is enough to have given this view of the nature and different kinds of sublime objects; by which I hope to have laid a proper foundation for discussing, with greater accuracy, the sublime in writing and composition.

LECTURE IV.

THE SUBLIME IN WRITING.

HAVING treated of grandeur or sublimity in external objects, the way seems now to be cleared for treating, with more advantage, of the description of such objects; or, of what is called the sublime in writing. Though I may appear to enter early on the consideration of this subject, yet, as the sublime is a species of writing which depends less than any other on the artificial embellishments of rhetoric, it may be examined with as much propriety here, as in any subsequent part of the Lectures.

Many critical terms have unfortunately been employed in a sense too loose and vague; none more so than that of the sublime. Every one is acquainted with the character of Cæsar's Commentaries, and of the style in which they are written; a style remarkably pure, simple, and elegant;

but the most remote from the sublime of any of the classical authors. Yet this author has a German critic, Johannes Gulielmus Bergerus, who wrote no longer ago than the year 1720, pitched upon as the perfect model of the sublime, and has composed a quarto volume, entitled De naturali Pulchritudine Orationis; the express intention of which is to shew, that Cæsar's Commentaries contain the most complete exemplification of all Longinus's rules relating to sublime writing.— This I mention as a strong proof of the confused ideas which have prevailed concerning this subject. 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 us strong impressions of them. But there is another very indefinite, and therefore very improper sense, which has been too often put upon it; when it is applied to signify any remarkable and distinguishing excellency of composition, whether it raise in us the ideas of grandeur, or those of gentleness, elegance, or any other sort of beauty. In this sense Cæsar's Commentaries may, indeed, be termed sublime; and so may many Sonnets, Pastorals, and Love Elegies, as well as Homer's Iliad. But this evidently confounds the use of words; and marks no one species, or character, of composition whatever.

I am sorry to be obliged to observe, that the sublime is too often used in this last and improper