especially), the distances, and the velocities of the heavenly bodies; and in the innumerable systems of worlds which he has called into existence. "Let "there be light, and there was light," has been quoted as an instance of sublime writing by almost every critic since the time of Longinus; and its sublimity arises partly from the divine brevity with which it expresses the instantaneous effect of the creative fiat; partly from the religious sentiment which it identifies with our conception of the moment, when the earth was first "visited by the day"spring from on high." Milton appears to have felt it in its full force, from the exordium of his hymn : "Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born." The sublimity of Lucretius will be found to depend chiefly (even in those passages where he denies the interference of the gods in the government of the world) on the lively images which he indirectly presents to his readers, of the Attributes against which he reasons. In these instances, nothing is more remarkable than the skill with which he counteracts the frigid and anti-poctical spirit of his philosophical system;-the sublimest descriptions of Almighty Power sometimes forming a part of his argument against the Divine Omnipotence. In point of logical consistency, indeed, he thus sacrifices everything; but such a sacrifice he knew to be essential to his success as a poet. * Note (D d.) "Nam (proh sancta Deûm tranquilla pectora pace, Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore præsto? "Præterit, exanimatque indignos, inque merenteis ?" The sublime effect of rocks and of cataracts; of huge ridges of mountains; of vast and gloomy forests; of immense and impetuous rivers; of the boundless ocean; and, in general, of everything which forces on the attention the idea of Creative Power, is owing, in part, t to the irresistible tendency which that idea has to raise the thoughts toward Heaven. The influence of some of these spectacles, in awakening religious impressions, is nobly exemplified in Gray's ode, written at the Grande Chartreuse ;-an Alpine scene of the wildest and most awful grandeur, where everything appears fresh from the hand of Omnipotence, inspiring a sense of the more immediate presence of the Divinity. "Præsentiorem et conspicimus Deum "Per invias rupes, fera per juga, "Inter aquas, nemorumque noctem ; Quam si repostus sub trabe citreâ "Fulgeret auro, et Phidiacâ manu.” * Lucret. Lib. 2. 1092. ↑ I say in part, as it will afterwards appear that other circumstances, of a very different sort, conspire to the same end. The same very simple theory appears to me to afford a satisfactory account of the application of the word Sublimity to Eternity, to Immensity, to Omnipresence, to Omniscience;-in a word, to all the various qualities which enter into our conceptions of the Divine Attributes. It is scarcely necessary to remark the marvellous accession of solemnity and of majesty, which the Sacred Writings must have added, all over the Christian World, to these natural combinations. If the effect of mere elevation be weakened in a philosophical mind, by the discoveries of modern science, all the adjuncts, physical and moral, which Revelation teaches us to connect with the name of the "Most High," have gained infinitely as elements of the Religious Sublime. From the associations thus consecrated in Scripture, a plausible explanation might be deduced, of the poetical effect of almost all the qualities which Mr Burke, and other modern critics, have enumerated as constituents of the Sublime; but it is gratifying to the curiosity to push the inquiry farther, by shewing the deep root which the same associations have in the physical and moral nature of the human race; and the tendency which even the superstitious creeds of ancient times had to confirm their authority. In some respects, indeed, these creeds were admirably fitted for the purposes of poetry; in none *Note (E e.) се more than in strengthening that natural association between the ideas of the Sublime and of the Terrible, which Mr Burke has so ingeniously, and I think justly, resolved into the connection between this last idea and that of Power. The region from which Superstition draws all her omens and anticipations of futurity lies over our heads. It is there she observes the aspects of the planets, and the eclipses of the sun and moon; or watches the flight of birds, and the shifting lights about the pole. This, too, is the region of the most awful and alarming meteorological appearances,-" vapours and clouds "and storms;" and (what is a circumstance of peculiar consequence in this argument) of thunder, which has, in all countries, been regarded by the multitude, not only as the immediate effect of supernatural interposition, but as an expression of displeasure from above. It is accordingly from this very phenomenon (as Mr Burke has remarked) that the word astonishment, which expresses the strongest emotion produced by the Sublime, is borrowed. If the former observations be just, instead of considering, with Mr Burke, Terror as the ruling principle of the religious sublime, it would be nearer the truth to say, that the Terrible derives whatever character of Sublimity belongs to it from religious associations. The application of the epithet Sublime to these has, I trust, been already sufficiently accounted for. It may not be improper to add, with respect to the awful phenomenon of thunder, that the intimate 403 combination between its impression on the ear, and those appearances in the heavens which are regarded as its signs or forerunners, must not only co-operate with the circumstances mentioned by Mr Burke, in imparting to Darkness the character of the Terrible, but must strengthen, by a process still more direct, the connection between the ideas of Darkness and of mere Elevation. "Fulmina gigni de crassis, altèque putandum est "Eripiunt subito nubes cœlumque diemque The same direction is naturally given to the fancy, by the Darkness which precedes hurricanes; and also, during an eclipse of the sun, by the disastrous twilight shed on half the nations. Even in common discourse, as well as in poetry, we speak of the fall of night, and of the fall of evening. Ogwger & savoler vug. I "Down rushed the night." In general, fancy refers to the visible heavens the source of Darkness as well as of Light; and, accordingly, both of these (as Mr Burke has remarked) have sometimes an important place assigned to them in sublime descriptions. They both, indeed, * See the rest of this passage, Lucret. Lib. 6. † Æneid. Lib. 1. Odyss. Lib. 5. 294. |