404 ON THE SUBLIME. accord and harmonize perfectly with this natural Essay II. group of associations ;-abstracting altogether from the powerful aid which they occasionally contribute in strengthening the other impressions connected with the Terrible. And here I must beg leave to turn the attention of my readers, for a moment, to the additional effect which these conspiring associations (more particularly those arising from religious impressions) lend to every object which we consider as Sublime, in the literal sense of that word. I before took notice of the sublime flight of the Eagle; but what an accession of poetical sublimity has the Eagle derived from the attributes ascribed to him in ancient mythology, as the sovereign of all the other inhabitants of the air; as the companion and favourite of Jupiter; and as the bearer of his armour in the war against the giants! In that celebrated passage of Pindar (so nobly imitated by Gray and by Akenside), where he describes the power of music in soothing the angry passions of the gods; the abruptness of the transition from the thunderbolt to the eagle, and the picturesque minuteness of the subsequent lines, sufficiently shew what a rank was occupied by this bird in the warm imagination of Grecian idolatry. *—Of the two English poets just mentioned, it is observable that the former has made no farther reference to Jupiter, than as carrying "on his scepter'd hand;" but, in order to compen"the feathered king * Και τον αιχματὰν κεραυνον σβεννύεις Δενάου πυρός. Ευ be and oxarty Aios dietos, &c. &c, sate for this omission, he has contrived, in his picture of the eagle's sleep, by the magical charm of figurative language, to suggest, indirectly, the very same sublime image with which the description of Pindar commences : "Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie, "The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye.” After these remarks, it will not appear surprising that the same language should be transferred from the objects of religious worship, to whatever is calculated to excite the analogous, though comparatively weak, sentiments of admiration and of wonder. The word suspicere (to look up) is only one example out of many which might be mentioned. Cicero * May I be permitted to add, that in Akenside's imitation, as well as in the original, the reader is prepared for the short episode of the Eagle (which in all the three descriptions is unquestion ably the most prominent feature), by the previous allusion to the xsgάuvov asvaοu zugos; and to suggest my doubts, whether in Gray, the transition to this picture from Thracia's Hills and the Lord of War, be not a little too violent, even for lyric poetry? -The English reader may judge of this from the verses of Akenside. "Those lofty strings "That charm the mind of gods; that fill the courts "Of wide Olympus with oblivion sweet "Of evils, with immortal rest from cares, "L Assuage the terrors of the throne of Jove ; "And quench the formidable thunderbolt "Sleeps the stern eagle; by the number'd notes 66 66 has furnished us with instances of its application, both to the religious sentiment, and to the enthusiastic admiration with which we regard some of the objects of taste. "Esse præstantem aliquam æternamque naturam, et eam suspiciendam admirandamque hominum generi, pulchritudo mundi ordoque rerum cœlestium cogit confiteri."*" Eloquentiam, quam suspicerent omnes, quam admira"rentur," &c. t On the latter occasion, as well as on the former, the words suspicio and admiror are coupled together, in order to convey more forcibly one single idea. 66 On this particular view of the Sublime, considered in connection with religious impressions, I have only further to take notice of a remarkable coincidence between their influence and that of the feelings excited by literal Sublimity, in assimilating the poetical effects of the two opposite dimensions of Depth and of Height. In the case of literal Sublimity, I have already endeavoured to account for this assimilation. In that now before us, it seems to be the obvious result of those conceptions, so natural to the human mind, which have universally suggested a separation of the invisible world into two distinct regions; the one situated at an immense distance above the earth's surface; the other at a corresponding distance below;-the one a blissful and glorious abode, to which virtue is taught to aspire as its final reward; the other inhabited by beings in a state of punishment and of degradation. The powers to whom the infliction of this punishment is committed, cannot fail to be invested by the fancy, as the ministers and executioners of divine justice, with some of the attributes which are characteristical of the Sublime; and this association it seems to have been a great object of the heathen mythology to strengthen, as much as possible, by the fabulous accounts of the alliances between the celestial and the infernal deities; and by other fictions of a similar tendency. Pluto was the son of Saturn, and the brother of Jupiter; Proserpine, the daughter of Jupiter and of Ceres; and even the river Styx was consecrated into a divinity, held in veneration and dread by all the Gods. The language of the Inspired Writings is, on this as on other occasions, beautifully accommodated to the irresistible impressions of nature; availing itself of such popular and familiar words as upwards and downwards, above and below, in condescension to the frailty of the human mind, governed so much by sense and imagination, and so little by the abstractions of philosophy. Hence the expression of fallen Angels, which, by recalling to us the eminence from which they fell, communicates, in a single word, a character of Sublimity to the bottomless abyss: "Tum Tartarus ipse "Bis patet in præceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, Eneid. Lib. vi. 1. 577. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son "of the morning!" The Supreme Being is himself represented as filling hell with his presence; while the throne where he manifests his glory is conceived to be placed on high: "If I ascend into heaven, "thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, thou art "there also." To these associations, Darkness, Power, Terror, Eternity, and various other adjuncts of Sublimity, lend their aid in a manner too palpable to admit of any comment. |