LECT IV. Interdum fcopulos, avulfaque vifcera montis Here, after feveral magnificent images, the Poet concludes with perfonifying the mountain under this figure, eructans vifcera cum ge"mitu," belching up its bowels with a groan; which, by likening the mountain to a sick, or drunk person, degrades the majesty of the defcription. It is to no purpofe to tell us, that the Poet here alludes to the fable of the giant Enceladus lying under mount Etna; and that he supposes his motions and toffings to have occafioned the fiery eruptions. He intended the description of a Sublime object; and the natural ideas, raised by a burning mountain, are infinitely more lofty, than the belchings of any giant, how huge foever. The debafing effect of the idea which is here presented, The port capacious, and fecure from wind, } DRYDEN. Fed from the fiery fprings that bil below. In this translation of Dryden's, the debafing circumstance to which I object in the original, is, with propriety, omitted. iv. 93 will appear in a stronger light, by feeing what LECT. figure it makes in a poem of Sir Richard Blackmore's, who, through a monstrous perversity of tafte, had chofen this for the capital circumstance in his defcription, and thereby (as Dr. Arbuthnot humorously obferves, in his Treatife on the Art of Sinking) had reprefented the mountain as in a fit of the cholic. Ætna, and all the burning mountains find Their kindled ftores with inbred ftorms of wind Such inftances fhew how much the Sublime If it fhall now be enquired, What are the proper fources of the Sublime? My answer is, That they are to be looked for every where in nature. It is not by hunting after tropes, and figures, and rhetorical affiftances, that we can expect to produce it. No: it ftands clear, for the most part, of thefe laboured refinements. of art. It must come unfought, if it come at all; LECT. all; and be the natural offspring of a strong IV. imagination. Eft Deus in nobis; agitante calefcimus illo. Wherever a great and awful object is prefented in nature, or a very magnanimous and exalted affection of the human mind is difplayed; thence, if you can catch the impreffion ftrongly, and exhibit it warm and glowing, you may draw the Sublime. Thefe are its only proper fources. In judging of any ftriking beauty in compofition, whether it is, or is not, to be referred to this clafs, we must attend to the nature of the emotion which it raifes; and only, if it be of that elevating, folemn, and awful kind, which diftinguishes this feeling, we can pronounce it Sublime. FROM the account which I have given of the nature of the Sublime, it clearly follows, that it is an emotion which can never be long protracted. The mind, by no force of genius, can be kept, for any confiderable time, fo far raifed above its common tone; but will, of course, relax into its ordinary fituation. Neither are the abilities of any human writer fufficient to furnish a long continuation of uninterrupted Sublime ideas. The utmost we can expect is, that this fire of imagination fhould fometimes flash upon us like lightning from. heaven, and then difappear. In Homer and Milton, IV. 95 Milton, this effulgence of genius breaks forth LECT. more frequently, and with greater luftre than in most authors. Shakespeare also rifes often into the true Sublime. But no author whatever is Sublime throughout. Some, indeed, there are, who, by a ftrength and dignity in their conceptions, and a current of high ideas that runs through their whole compofition, preserve the reader's mind always in a tone nearly allied to the Sublime; for which reafon they may, in a limited fenfe, merit the name of continued Sublime writers; and, in this clafs, we may juftly place Demofthenes and Plato. As for what is called the Sublime style, it is, for the most part, a very bad one; and has no relation whatever to the real Sublime. Perfons are apt to imagine, that magnificent words, accumulated epithets, and a certain. fwelling kind of expreffion, by rifing above what is usual or vulgar, contributes to, or even forms, the Sublime. Nothing can be more falfe. In all the instances of Sublime Writing, which I have given, nothing of this kind appears. "God faid, Let there be light, and "there was light." This is ftriking and Sublime. But put it into what is commonly called the Sublime style: "The Sovereign "Arbiter of nature, by the potent energy of "a fingle word, commanded the light to "exist;" LECT. IV. "exift;" and, as Boileau has well observed, the style indeed is raised, but the thought is fallen. In general, in all good writing, the Sublime lies in the thought, not in the words; and when the thought is truly noble, it will, for the most part, clothe itself in a native dignity of language. The Sublime, indeed, rejects mean, low, or trivial expreffions; but it is equally an enemy to fuch as are turgid. The main fecret of being Sublime, is to say great things in few and plain words. It will be found to hold, without exception, that the moft Sublime authors are the fimpleft in their ftyle; and wherever you find a writer, who affects a more than ordinary pomp and parade of words, and is always endeavouring to magnify his fubject by epithets, there you may immediately fufpect, that, feeble in fentiment, he is studying to support himself by mere expreffion. THE fame unfavourable judgment we must pass, on all that laboured apparatus with which fome writers introduce a paffage, or defcription, which they intend fhall be Sublime; calling on their readers to attend, invoking their Mufe, or breaking forth into general, unmeaning exclamations, concerning the greatnefs, terribleness, or majefty of the object, which they are to defcribe. Mr. Addison, in his Campaign, has fallen into an error of this |