§ 279. The writer must not only be concise and simple; he must also have a lively impression of his subject. If his own enthusiasm is not awakened, he can not hope to excite emotion in others.

All forced attempts by which a writer endeavors to excite himself and his readers, when his imagination begins to flag, have just the opposite effect from what is intended. A poet gains nothing by labored appeals, invocations of the muses, or general exclamations concerning the greatness, terribleness, or majesty, of what he is about to describe. We find an example of such forced introductions in Addison's description of the Battle of Blenheim :

"But, O my muse! what numbers wilt thou find,

To sing the furious troops in battle joined?

Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound,

The victor's shouts, and dying groans confound;" &c.

§ 280. When, therefore, an awe-inspiring object is presented in nature, a grand creation in art, an exalted feeling in the human mind, or a heroic deed in human action; then, if our own impression is vivid, and we exhibit it in brief, plain, and simple terms, without rhetorical aids, but trusting mainly to the dignity which the thought naturally assumes, we may hope to attain to the sublime.

Sublimity, by its very nature, awakens but a short-lived emotion. By no force of genius can the mind for any considerable time be kept so far raised above its common tone. Neither are the abilities of any human writer sufficient to furnish a long continuation of uninterruptedly sublime ideas. The utmost we can expect is that the fire of imagination should sometimes flash upon us, like lightning from heaven, and then disappear. No author is sublime throughout, in the true sense of the word. Yet there are some, who, by the strength and dignity of their conceptions, and the current of high ideas that runs throughout their compositions, keep their readers' minds in a state of comparative eleva

§ 279. What else must a writer have, to write sublimely? What is said of forced attempts to excite one's self and one's readers? From what does a writer gain nothing? Illustrate this from Addison.

$280. How, then, may we hope to attain to the sublime? What kind of an emotion does sublimity awaken? Why can not the emotion continue for any length of time? What is the utmost we can expect? Can any author hope to be sublime throughout? What is the nearest approach to it? What writers among the ancients, and who among moderns, are distinguished for the elevated tone which runs throughout their compositions?

tion. In this class, Pindar, Demosthenes, and Plato, among the ancients, and Ossian and Milton, among moderns, are worthy of being ranked.

§ 281. An unimproved state of society is peculiarly favorable to the production of sublime compositions. When the mind is unaccustomed to the ornamental, it is more apt to appreciate and admire the grand. In the infancy of nations, men are constantly meeting with objects to them new and striking; the imagination is kept glowing; and the passions are often vehemently excited. They think boldly, and express their thoughts without restraint. Advances towards refinement are conducive to the development of beauty in style, but signally limit the sphere of the sublime.

We find this theory borne out by fact. As a general thing, the sublimest writers have flourished either in the early ages of the world or in the infancy of their respective nations. Thus, the grandest of all passages are found in the earliest of books, the Bible. The style of the inspired writers is characterized by a sublimity commensurate with the majesty and solemnity of their subjects. What can transcend in grandeur the following descriptions of the Almighty? The student is requested to observe how they combine the various elements mentioned above as calculated to elevate the mind and affect the imagination :

"In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was wroth. There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down, and darkness was under His feet. And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His secret place; His pavilion round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies."-PSALM XVIII., 6-11.

"Before Him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at His feet. He stood, and measured the earth: He beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: His ways are everlasting. The mountains saw Thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the waters passed by: the

§ 281. What state of society is favorable to the sublime? Explain the reason. To what are advances towards refinement conducive? At what period do we find that the sublimest writers have flourished? What book contains the grandest of all passages? What descriptions are peculiarly sublime? Repeat the description of the Almighty from Psalm xviii. Repeat that from Habakkuk,

deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high."-HABAKKUK, III., 5, 6, 10.

The same remark holds true in Greek literature. Homer, who was the earliest, is also the most sublime, poet that has written in that language, his ideas being grand and his diction unaffected. We have already seen how magnificently he describes a battle. A similar passage, worthy of special mention, occurs in the 20th book of the Iliad. It represents the gods as taking part in an engagement between the Greeks and Trojans. All heaven and earth are in commotion. Jupiter thunders from on high. Minerva and Mars gird themselves for the terrible conflict. Neptune strikes the earth with his trident; the ships, the cities, and the mountains, shake; the earth trembles to its centre. Pluto starts from his throne, in dread lest the secrets of the infernal regions be laid open to the view of mortals.

After the magnificent passages quoted from Ossian, it is hardly necessary to say that he is one of the most sublime of writers. He possesses the plain and venerable manner of antiquity. He deals in no superfluous or gaudy ornaments, but throws forth his images with a rapid conciseness which appeals powerfully to the mind. Among poets of more polished times we must look for elaborate graces, exact proportion of parts, and skilfully conducted narratives. In the midst of smiling landscapes, the gay and beautiful have their home; the sublime dwells among the rude scenes of nature and society which Ossian describes; amid rocks and torrents, whirlpools and battles.

LESSON XLII.

THE SUBLIME IN WRITING (CONTINUED).

§ 282. RHYME, which generally forms a feature of English verse, is unfavorable to sublimity in writing, by reason of its constrained elegance, its studied smoothness, and the

Wherein consists the sublimity of these passages? Who is the sublimest of Greek poets? Give the substance of a fine passage in the 20th book of the Iliad. What is said of Ossian? Describe his style. Where must we look for the elaborate graces of writing? Where, for the sublime?

§ 282. What is the effect of rhyme as regards sublimity? How does it pro

superfluous words often brought in to produce a recurrence of the same sound.

Homer's description of the nod of Jupiter has been admired in all ages as a model of elevated thought:-" He spoke, and, bending his sable brows, gave the awful nod; while he shook the celestial locks of his immortal head, all Olympus was shaken." Pope translates this passage into English verse, with a decided loss of sublime effect. It will be seen that he enlarges on the thought and attempts to beautify it; but the result is that he only weakens it. The third line is entirely expletive, being introduced for no other reason than to furnish a rhyme for the preceding one :

"He spoke: and awful bends his sable brows,

Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate, and sanction of a god.

High heaven with trembling the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to its centre shook."

§ 283. The freedom and variety of our blank verse render it a decidedly better medium than rhyme for the expression of sublime ideas. Hence it is much to be preferred for epic poetry. Milton has availed himself of this fact. The images he successively presents in Paradise Lost are unsurpassed for grandeur. Take, for instance, the description of Satan after his fall, at the head of the infernal hosts :—

"He, above the rest,

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined; and the excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun, new risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams; or, from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel."

This passage is justly eulogized by Blair.

Here,"

" he says,

duce this effect? Repeat Homer's description of the nod of Jupiter, as literally translated. Repeat Pope's translation of the same. How does it compare with the literal version? Explain the reason.

§ 283. What kind of verse is preferable to rhyme for the expression of sublime ideas? Hence, for what should it be employed? Who has thus used it with great success? What is said of the images successively presented in Paradise Lost? Repeat Milton's description of Satan after his fall. What does Blair say about this passage?

a variety of sources of the sublime: the principal object eminently great; a high superior nature, fallen indeed, but erecting itself against distress; the grandeur of the principal object heightened, by associating it with so noble an idea as that of the sun suffering an eclipse; this picture, shaded with all those images of change and trouble, of darkness and terror, which coincide so finely with the sublime emotion; and the whole expressed in a style and versification, easy, natural, and simple, but magnificent."

§ 284. Those who aim at the sublime are liable to fall into two faults,-frigidity and bombast.

§ 285. Frigidity consists in degrading an object or sentiment which is sublime in itself, by our mean conception of it, or by a weak; low, and childish description. No fault is more to be avoided.

As a forcible example of frigidity, we quote a passage from a poem of Sir Richard Blackmoor's, descriptive of an eruption of Etna; in which, as humorously observed by Dr. Arbuthnot, he represents the mountain in a fit of colic:

"Etna, and all the burning mountains, find

Their kindled stores with inbred storms of wind
Blown up to rage, and roaring out complain,
As torn with inward gripes, and torturing pain;
Laboring, they cast their dreadful vomit round,

And with their melted bowels spread the ground."

So Ben Jonson, in a battle-scene, rather injudiciously caps the climax of his would-be sublimity by representing the sun in a perspiration:

"The sun stood still, and was, behind the cloud

The battle made, seen sweating to drive up

His frighted horse, whom still the noise drove backward."

Catiline, Act V.

§ 286. Bombast consists in attempting to raise an ordinary or trivial object above its level, and to endow it with a sublimity it does not possess. Such attempts illustrate the old saying that there is but a step from the sublime to

§ 284. Into what faults are those who aim at the sublime liable to fall?

§ 285. In what does frigidity consist? Quote a passage from Blackmoor, illus. trative of this fault. Point out wherein the frigidity lies. What has been hu morously observed respecting these lines? How does Ben Jonson represent the sun in a battle-scene? Of what fault is he therein guilty?

$286. In what does bombast consist? What is the mind prone to do? Into