sions and illustrations of this proverbial and unsuspected figure of speech. The same considerations appear to me to throw a satisfactory light on that intimate connection between the ideas of Sublimity and of Energy which Mr Knight has fixed on as the fundamental principle of his theory. The direction in which the energies of the human mind are conceived to be exerted will, of course, be in opposition to that of the powers to which it is subjected; of the dangers which hang over it; of the obstacles which it has to surmount in rising to distinction. Hence the metaphorical expressions of an unbending spirit; of bearing up against the pressure of misfortune; of an aspiring or towering ambition, and innumerable others. Hence, too, an additional association, strengthening wonderfully the analogy, already mentioned, between Sublimity and certain Moral qualities; qualities which, on examination, will be found to be chiefly those recommended in the Stoical School; implying a more than ordinary energy of mind, or of what the French call Force of Character. In truth, Energy, as contradistinguished from Power, is but a more particular and modified conception of the same idea; comprehending the cases where its sensible effects do not attract observation; but where its silent operation is measured by the opposition it resists, or by the weight it sustains. The brave man, accordingly, was considered by the Stoics as partaking of the sublimity of that Almighty Being who puts him to the trial; and whom they conceived as witnessing, with pleasure, the erect and undaunted attitude in which he awaits the impending storm, or contemplates the ravages which it has spread around him. "Non video quid habeat in terris Ju"piter pulchrius, quam ut spectet Catonem, jam partibus non semel fractis, stantem nihilominus "inter ruinas publicas rectum." It is this image of mental energy, bearing up against the terrors of overwhelming Power, which gives so strong a poetical effect to the description of Epicurus, in Lucretius; and also to the character of Satan, as conceived by Milton. But in all these cases, the sublimity of Energy, when carefully analyzed, will be found to be merely relative; or, if I may use the expression, to be only a reflection from the sublimity of the Power to which it is opposed. It will readily occur as an objection to some of the foregoing conclusions, that horizontal extent, as well as great altitude, is an element of the Sublime. Upon the slightest reflection, however, it must appear obvious, that this extension of the meaning of Sublimity arises entirely from the natural association between elevated position and a commanding prospect of the earth's surface, in all directions. As the most palpable measure of elevation is the extent of view which it affords, so, on the other hand, an enlarged horizon recals impressions connected with great elevation. The plain of Yorkshire, and perhaps still in a greater degree, Salisbury plain, produces an emotion approaching to sublimity on the mind of a Scotchman, the first time he sees it ;-an emotion, I am persuaded, very different from what would be experienced, on the same occasion, by a Fleming or a Dutchman; and this abstracting altogether from the charm of novelty. The feelings connected with the wide expanse over which his eye was accustomed to wander from the summits of his native mountains, and which, in hilly countries, are to be enjoyed exclusively, during the short intervals of a serene sky, from eminences which, in general, are lost among the clouds,—these feelings are, in some measure, awakened by that enlarged horizon which now everywhere surrounds him; the principle of Association, in this, as in numberless other cases, transferring whatever emotion is necessarily connected with a particular idea, to everything else which is inseparably linked with it in the memory. This natural association between the ideas of Elevation and of Horizontal Extent is confirmed and enlivened by another, arising also from the physical laws of our perceptions. It is a curious, and at the same time a well known fact, that, in proportion as elevation or any other circumstance enlarges our horizon, this enlargement adds to the apparent height of the vault above us. It was long ago remarked by Dr Smith of Cambridge, that "the known distance "of the terrestrial objects which terminate our view, "makes that part of the sky which is towards the "horizon appear more distant than that which is to"wards the zenith; so that the apparent figure of "the sky is not that of a hemisphere, but of a smal"ler segment of a sphere." To this remark a later writer has added, that "when the visible horizon is "terminated by very distant objects, the celestial vault "seems to be enlarged in all its dimensions." "When I view it," he observes, "from a confined "street or lane, it bears some proportion to the "buildings that surround me; but when I view it "from a large plain, terminated on all hands by hills. "which rise one above another, to the distance of "twenty miles from the eye, methinks I see a new "heaven, whose magnificence declares the greatness "of its author, and puts every human edifice out of "countenance; for now, the lofty spires and the 66 gorgeous palaces shrink into nothing before it, and "bear no more proportion to the celestial dome, "than their makers bear to its maker." *-Let the same experiment be tried from the summit of a lofty mountain, commanding an immense prospect all around of land and of sea; and the effect will be found to be magnified on a scale beyond description. To those who have verified this optical phenomenon by their own observation, it will not appear surprising, that the word Sublimity should have been transferred from the vertical line, not only to the horizontal surface, but also to the immense concavity of the visible hemisphere. As these various modifications of space are presented to the eye at the same moment, each heightening the effect of the others, it is easily conceivable, that the same epithet should be insensibly applied to them in common; and that this common epithet should be borrowed from that dimension on which so much of the general result primarily depends. t * Reid's Inquiry, chap. vi. sect. 22. + Note (F f.) D d Another extension of the word Sublimity seems to be in part explicable on the same principle; I mean the application we occasionally make of it to the emotion produced by looking downwards. For this latitude of expression I already endeavoured to account from other considerations; but the solution will appear still more satisfactory, when it is recollected, that, along with that apparent enlargement of the celestial vault, which we enjoy from a high mountain, there is an additional perception, which comes home still more directly to our personal feelings, that of the space by which we are separated from the plain below. With this perception a feeling of Awe (arising partly from the giddy eminence on which we stand, and partly from the solitude and remoteness of our situation) is, in many cases, combined; a feeling which cannot fail to be powerfully instrumental in binding the association between depth, and the other elements which swell the complicated emotion excited by the rare incident of an Alpine prospect. "What dreadful pleasure there to stand sublime, "Now scoop'd in gulfs, in mountains now emboss'd."* With respect to the concavity over our heads (and Accordingly, we find the poets frequently employing words synonymous with Height and Depth, as if they were nearly convertible terms: "Blue Profound :" (Akenside.)-" Rode Sublime, The secrets of th' Abyss to spy:" (Gray)" Cælum "Profundum :" (Virgil.) The phrase Profunda Altitudo is used, even by prose writers. An example of it occurs in Livy; 56 |