of history. To descend through future duration, by anticipating events before they happen, is, of all employments of the understanding, the most difficult; and it is one, in which the soundest and most sagacious judgments are perpetually liable to error and disappointment. It is singular, that the use which Mr Hume has made, in the above sentence, of the metaphorical expressions ascending and descending, did not suggest to him a simpler solution of the problem.

I will take the liberty of remarking further, with respect to this theory of Mr Hume's, that it is not "with our anticipations of the "future, that our veneration for the persons and objects of antiqui"ty" ought to have been contrasted, but with our sentiments concerning what is contemporary with ourselves, or of a very modern date. The idea of the future, which is the region of all our hopes, and of all our fears, is, in most cases, for that very reason, more interesting to the imagination than the idea of the past; and the idea of the eternity post (to borrow a scholastic phrase) incomparably more so than that of the eternity ante.

The bias of the mind to connect together the ideas of antiquity, and of elevated place, is powerfully confirmed by another associa tion, coinciding entirely with the former, in suggesting the same modes of expression. Among the various natural objects which attract a child's curiosity, there is, perhaps, none which awakens a more lively interest, than the river which it sees daily and hourly hastening along its channel. Whence does it come? and where is it going? are questions which some of my readers may still remember to have asked: Nor is it even impossible, that they may retain a faint recollection of the surprise and delight with which they first learned, that rivers come down from the mountains, and that they all run into the sea. As the faculties of the understanding begin to open to notions abstracted from matter, an analogy comes invariably and infallibly to be apprehended between this endless stream of water, and the endless stream of time; an analogy rendered still more impressive by the parallel relations which they bear, the one to the Ocean, the other to Eternity. The flux of time, the lapse of time, the tide of time, with many other expressions of the same sort, afford sufficient evidence of the facility with which the fancy passes from the one subject to the other. Hence, too, it is, that the antiquary is said to trace the history of laws, of arts, and of languages, to their fountain heads, or original sources; and hence, the synonymous meanings, wherever time is concerned, of the words backward and upward. To carry our researches up or back to a particular æra, are phrases equally sanctioned by our best writers. Nor is it only in our own language that these terms are convertible. In the Greek, they are so to a still greater extent; the preposition avα, when in composition, sometimes having the force of the word sursum, sometimes that of the word retro.

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simplifier ses idées, à mesure qu'elles se multiplient; et ces gé"néralisations, dans lesquelles les différences spécifiques et indivi"duelles sont oubliées, et qui réunissent une multitude de souve❝nirs en un seul point de ressemblance, ne sont qu'une facilité "que se donne l'esprit pour soulager sa vue. C'est une position "commode qu'il prend pour dominer sur un plus grand nombre "d'objets; et, de cette espèce d'éminence où il s'est placé, sa vé "ritable action consiste à redescendre l'echelle des idées, en resti“tuant à chacune les différences de son objet, ses propriétés dis"tinctives; et en recomposant, par la synthèse ce que par l'analyse "il avoit simplifié.”—Grammaire, p. 8.

Note (H h.) p. 428.

Mr Maclaurin has taken notice of the former of these circumstances in the introduction to his Treatise of Fluxions :-" Others, "in the place of indivisible, substituted infinitely small divisible "elements, of which they supposed all magnitudes to be formed. "After these came to be relished, an infinite scale of infinitudes "and infinitesimals (ascending and descending always by infinite steps) was imagined and proposed to be received into geometry, as of the greatest use for penetrating into its abstruse parts. "Some have argued for quantities more than infinite; and others "for a kind of quantities that are said to be neither finite nor infi"nite, but of an intermediate and indeterminate nature.

"This way of considering what is called the sublime part of geo"metry has so far prevailed, that it is generally known by no less a "title than the science, the arithmetic, or the geometry of infinities. "These terms imply something lofty but mysterious; the contem"plation of which may be suspected to amaze and perplex, rather "than satisfy or enlighten the understanding; and while it seems greatly to elevate geometry, may possibly lessen its true and real "excellency, which chiefly consists in its perspicuity and perfect "evidence."-Maclaurin's Fluxions, Vol. I. p. 2.

Fontenelle, who possessed the rare talent of adorning mathematical science with the attractions of a refined wit and a lively eloquence, contributed perhaps more than any other individual, by the popularity of his writings, to give a currency to this paradoxical phraseology. In one passage he seems to reproach his predecessors for the timid caution with which they had avoided these sublime speculations; ascribing it to something resembling the holy dread inspired by the mysteries of religion :-A remark, by the way, which affords an additional illustration of the close alliance between the sublime and the awful. "Quand on y étoit "arrivé, on s'arrêtoit avec une espèce d'effroi et de sainte hor reur.- -On regardoit l'infini comme un mystère qu'il falloit "respecter, et qu'il n'étoit pas permis d'approfondir."-Préface des Elem. de la Géom. de l'Infini.

In the farther prosecution of the same subject, I have observed in the text, that," with the exception of the higher parts of ma❝thematics, and one or two others, for which it is easy to ac

count, the epithet universally applied to the more abstruse "branches of knowledge is not sublime but profound." One of the exceptions here alluded to is the application occasionally made of the former of these words to moral speculations, and also to some of those metaphysical researches which are connected with the doctrines of religion; a mode of speaking which is fully accounted for in the preceding part of this Essay.

Agreeably to the same analogy, Milton applies to the metaphysical discussions of the fallen angels the word high in preference to deep. The whole passage is, in this point of view, deserving of attention, as it illustrates strongly the facility with which the thoughts unconsciously pass and repass from the literal to the metaphorical sublime.

"Others apart sat on a hill retired,

"In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
"Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate:
“Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.”

Note (I i.) p. 434.

In the effect of this superiority of stature, there seems to be something specifically different from that produced by an appa. rent superiority of strength. A broad Herculean make would suggest ideas much less nearly allied to sublimity, and would even detract from the respect which the same stature, with a less athletic form, would have commanded. A good deal must here be ascribed to that apprehended analogy between a towering shape and a lofty mind, which has transferred metaphorically so many terms from the former to the latter; and, perhaps, some. thing also to a childish but natural association, grafting a feeling of reverence on that elevation of body to which we are forced to look upwards.

The influence of similar associations may be traced in the uni versal practice of decorating the helmets of warriors with plumes of feathers; in the artificial means employed to give either a real or apparent augmentation of stature to the heroes of the buskin; and in the forms of respectful salutation prevalent in all countries; which forms, however various and arbitrary they may at first sight appear, seem all to agree (according to an ingenious remark of Sir Joshua Reynolds) in the common idea of making the body less, in token of reverence.

Note (K k.) p. 435.

Longinus has expressed this idea very unequivocally, when he tells us: "Azgorns xỳ eğoxN TIS λoyw; eori rà v↓n;" and, if possible,

still more explicitly, his French translator, Boileau; "Le sublime "est en effet ce qui forme l'excellence et la souveraine perfection du "discours." To this version Boileau adds, "Cela s'entend plus

aisément que cela ne se peut rendre en François. Angorns veut “dire summitas, l'extremité en hauteur ; ce qu'il y a de plus élevé dans " ce qui est élevé. Le mot so signifie à peu près la même chose, « c'est à dire, eminentia, ce qui s'élève au-dessus du reste. C'est sur " ces deux termes, dont la signification est superlative, et que Lon"gin prend au figuré, que je me suis fondě pour soutenir que son "dessein est de traiter du genre sublime de l'eloquence dans son plus "haut point de perfection." (Remarques sur la Traduction du Traité du Sublime.)-Oeuvres de Boileau, Tom. V. Amsterdam, 1775.

In defence of Longinus's application of the epithet sublime to Sappho's Ode, Mr Knight maintains, that the Pathetic is always Sublime. "All sympathies," he observes, "excited by just and "appropriate expression of energic passions, whether they be "of the tender or violent kind, are alike sublime, as they all tend "to expand and elevate the mind, and fill it with those enthusias"tic raptures, which Longinus justly states to be the true feelings "of sublimity. Hence that author cites instances of the sublime "from the tenderest odes of love, as well as from the most terrific "images of war, and with equal propriety." In a subsequent part of his work, Mr Knight asserts, that" in all the fictions, either of poetry or imitative art, there can be nothing truly pathetic, un"less it be at the same time in some degree sublime." In this assertion he has certainly lost sight entirely of the meaning in which the words Sublime and Pathetic are commonly understood in our language; a standard of judgment, upon questions of this sort, from which there lies no appeal to the arbitrary definition of any theorist; not even to the authority of Longinus himself. Upon an accurate examination of the subject, it will be found that, like most other authors who have treated of Sublimity, he has proceeded on the supposition of the possibility of bringing under one precise definition, the views of sublimity taken both by the ancients and by the moderns, without making due allowances for the numberless modifications of the idea, which may be expected from their different systems of manners, from their different religious creeds, and from various other causes. Whoever reflects on the meaning of the word Virtus as employed by the earlier Romans, and compares it with the Virtù of their degenerate descendants, will not be surprised at the anomalies he meets with, in attempting to reconcile completely the doctrines of ancient and modern critics concerning the Sublime: and will find reason to be satisfied, when he is able to give a plausible account of some of these anomalies from their different habits of thinking, and their different modes of philosophising upon the principles of criticism,