bishop of Gloucester-a remarkable transition for the Newark attorney. gods were dead men deified, preserved in their sacred writings, and confirmed by monumental records inIt would be tedious to detail the other literary scribed to the gods themselves, who were there said to adventures of this arrogant prelate. The only one be interred.' So far was not amiss; but then, in the which falls particularly in our way is his edition of genuine spirit of his class, who never cultivate a truth Pope's works, for the publication of which he had but in order to graft a lie upon it, he pretended 'that obtained a patent right in consequence of the poet's dead mortals were the first gods, and that an imabequest. The annotations of Warburton upon Pope, ginary divinity in these early heroes and conquerors perverting the author's meaning in numberless in- created the idea of a superior power, and introduced stances, and full of malignity against half the learned the practice of religious worship amongst men.' The men of the age, were a disgrace to contemporary learned reader sees below [note in Greek omitted] literature. Yet for many years the works of Pope that our freethinker is true to his cause, and encould not be possessed without this monstrous in- deavours to verify the fundamental principle of his cumbrance. The latter years of Warburton were sect, that fear first made gods, even in that very inspent in a melancholy state of mental weakness, stance where the contrary passion seems to have been partly occasioned by grief for the loss of a son; for, at its height, the time when men made gods of their like the butcher animals, this man, ruthless to all deceased benefactors. A little matter of address hides others, had kind feelings towards his own kindred. the shame of so perverse a piece of malice. He repreTen years after his death, his great work is spoken sents those founders of society and fathers of their of by Gibbon as already a brilliant ruin. It is now country under the idea of destructive conquerors, who rarely referred to, its learning being felt as no at- by mere force and fear had brought men into subjec traction where the solid qualities of truth are want- tion and slavery. On this account it was that indiging. Warburton is indeed as perfect a proof of the nant antiquity concurred in giving Euhemerus the futility of talent without moral direction, as could proper name of atheist, which, however, he would be produced from the meanest walks of literature. hardly have escaped, though he had done no more He gave all to a bad ambition, in which the chief than divulge the secret of the mysteries, and had not object seems to have been to make his fellow crea-poisoned his discovery with this impious and foreign tures wonder at and stand in awe of him. Such addition, so contrary to the true spirit of that secret. feelings as he excited are doomed to be transient. They have passed away; and Warburton, having never conferred any solid benefit on his kind, is already little else than a name. This detection had been long dreaded by the orthodox protectors of pagan worship; and they were provided of a temporary defence in their intricate and properly perplexed system of symbolic adoration. But this would do only to stop a breach for the present, till a better could be provided, and was too [The Grecian Mythology—The Various Lights in which weak to stand alone against so violent an attack. it was regarded.] [From the Divine Legation.'] The philosophers, therefore, now took up the defence of paganism where the priests had left it, and to the others' symbols added their own allegories, for a Here matters rested: and the vulgar faith seems to second cover to the absurdities of the ancient mythohave remained a long time undisturbed. But as the logy; for all the genuine sects of philosophy, as we age grew refined, and the Greeks became inquisitive have observed, were steady patriots, legislation making and learned, the common mythology began to give one essential part of their philosophy; and to legisoffence. The speculative and more delicate were late without the foundation of a national religion, shocked at the absurd and immoral stories of their was, in their opinion, building castles in the air. So gods, and scandalised to find such things make an that we are not to wonder they took the alarm, and authentic part of their story. It may, indeed, be opposed these insulters of the public worship with all thought matter of wonder how such tales, taken up in their vigour. But as they never lost sight of their a barbarous age, came not to sink into oblivion as the proper character, they so contrived that the defence age grew more knowing, from mere abhorrence of their of the national religion should terminate in a recomindecencies and shame of their absurdities. Without mendation of their philosophic speculations. Hence, doubt this had been their fortune, but for an unlucky their support of the public worship, and their evasion circumstance. The great poets of Greece, who had of Euhemerus's charge, turned upon this proposition, most contributed to refine the public taste and man-That the whole ancient mythology was no other ners, and were now grown into a kind of sacred authority, had sanctified these silly legends by their writings, which time had now consigned to immortality. Vulgar paganism, therefore, in such an age as this, lying open to the attacks of curious and inquisitive men, would not, we may well think, be long at rest. It is trae, freethinking then lay under great difficulties and discouragements. To insult the religion of one's country, which is now the mark of learned distinction, was branded in the ancient world with public infamy. Yet freethinkers there were, who, as is their wont, together with the public worship of their country, threw off all reverence for religion in general. Amongst these was Euhemerus, the Messenian, and, by what we can learn, the most distinguished of this tribe. This man, in mere wantonness of heart, began his attacks on religion by divulging the secret of the mysteries. But as it was capital to do this directly and professedly, he contrived to cover his perfidy and malice by the intervention of a kind of Utopian romance. He pretended, that in a certain city, which he came to in his travels, he found this grand secret, that the than the vehicle of physical, moral, and divine knowledge.' And to this it is that the learned Eusebius refers, where he says, 'That a new race of men refined. their old gross theology, and gave it an honester look, and brought it nearer to the truth of things.' However, this proved a troublesome work, and, after all, ineffectual for the security of men's private morals, which the example of the licentious story according to the letter would not fail to influence, how well soever the allegoric interpretation was calculated to cover the public honour of religion; so that the more ethical of the philosophers grew peevish with what gave them so much trouble, and answered so little to the interior of religious practice. This made them break out, from time to time, into hasty resentments against their capital poets; unsuitable, one would think, to the dignity of the authors of such noble recondite truths as they would persuade us to believe were treasured up in their writings. Hence it was that Plato banished Homer from his republic, and that Pythagoras, in one of his extramundane adventures, saw both Homer and Hesiod doing penance in hell, and hung up there for examples, to be bleached and purified from the grossness and pollution of their ideas. The first of these allegorisers, as we learn from Laertius, was Anaxagoras, who, with his friend Metrodorus, turned Homer's mythology into a system of ethics. Next came Hereclides Ponticus, and of the same fables made as good a system of physics; which, to show us with what kind of spirit it was composed, he entitled Antirresis ton kat autou [Homerou] blasphemesanton. And last of all, when the necessity became more pressing, Proclus undertook to show that all Homer's fables were no other than physical, ethical, and moral allegories. DR ROBERT LOWTH-DR C. MIDDLETON-REV. W. LAW -DR ISAAC WATTS-DR RICHARD HURD-DR G. HORNE-DR JOHN JORTIN. DR ROBERT LOWтH, second son of Dr William Lowth, was born at Buriton, in Hampshire, in 1710. He entered the church, and became successively bishop of St David's, Oxford, and London; he died in 1787. The works of Lowth display both genius and learning. They consist of Prelections on Hebrew Poetry, a Life of William of Wykeham, a Short Introduction to English Grammar, and a Translation of Isaiah. The last is the greatest of his productions. The spirit of eastern poetry is rendered with fidelity, elegance, and sublimity; and the work is an inestimable contribution to biblical criticism and learning, as well as to the exalted strains of the divine muse. DR CONYERS MIDDLETON, distinguished for his admirable Life of Cicero, mixed freely and eagerly in the religious controversies of the times. One writer, Dr Matthew Tindal, served as a firebrand to the clergy. Tindal had embraced popery in the reign of James II., but afterwards renounced it. Being thus, as Drummond the poet said of Ben Johnson, ' of either religion, as versed in both,' he set himself to write on theology, and published The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, and Christianity as Old as the Creation. The latter had a decided deistical tendency, and was answered by several divines, as Dr Conybeare, Dr Foster, and Dr Waterland. Middleton now joined in the argument, and wrote remarks on Dr Waterland's manner of vindicating Scripture against Tindal, which only increased the confusion by adding to the elements of discord. He also published A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers of the Church, which was answered by several of the high church clergy. These treatises have now fallen into oblivion. They were perhaps useful in preventing religious truths from stagnating in that lukewarm age; but in adverting to them, we are reminded of the fine saying of Hall-While Protestants attended more to the points on which they differed than those on which they agreed, while more zeal was employed in settling ceremonies and defending subtleties than in enforcing plain revealed truths, the lovely fruits of peace and charity perished under the storms of controversy.' to the former), were both designed to advance the interests of religion, and are well adapted to the purpose. Various theological treatises were also written by Watts. DR RICHARD HURD (1720-1808), a friend and disciple of Warburton, was author of an Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies, being the substance of twelve discourses delivered at Cambridge. Hurd was a man of taste and learning, author of a commentary on Horace, and editor of Cowley's works. He rose to enjoy high church preferment, and died bishop of Worcester, after having declined the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. DR GEORGE HORNE (1730-1792) was another divine whose talents and learning raised him to the bench of bishops. He wrote various works, the most important of which is a Commentary on the Book of Psalms, which appeared in 1776 in two volumes quarto. It is still a text-book with theological students and divines, and unites extensive erudition with fervent piety. DR JOHN JORTIN (1698-1770), a prebendary of St Paul's and archdeacon of London, was an eminent scholar, and an independent theologian. He wrote various dissertations, Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, a Life of Erasmus, &c. The freedom of some of his strictures gave offence to the high church clergy. Of a similar character, but less orthodox in his tenets, was Dr John Jebb, who obtained considerable preferment in the church, which he resigned on imbibing Socinian opinions. On quitting the church, Jebb studied and practised as a physician: he died in 1786, aged fifty. His works on theology and other subjects form three volumes. Of the other theological and devotional productions of the established clergy of this age, there is only room to notice a few of the best. The dissertations of Bishop Newton on various parts of the Bible; the Lectures on the English Church Catechism, by Archbishop Secker; Bishop Law's Considerations on the Theory of Religion, and his Reflections on the Life and Character of Christ, are all works of standard excellence. The labours of Dr Kennicot, in the collection of various manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, are also worthy of being here mentioned as an eminent service to sacred literature. GEORGE WHITEFIELD-JOHN WESLEY. Connected with the English establishment, yet ultimately separating from it, were those two remarkable men, Whitefield and Wesley. Both were highly useful in their day and generation, and they enjoyed a popularity rarely attained by divines. GEORGE WHITEFIELD was born in Gloucester in 1714. He took orders, and preached in London with astonishing success. He made several voyages to America, where he was equally popular. Whitefield adopted the Calvinistic doctrines, and preached them with incessant activity, and an eloquence unparalleled in its effects. As a popular orator he was passionate and vehement, wielding his audiences almost at will, and so fascinating in his style and manner, that Hume the historian said he was worth travelling twenty miles to hear. He died in Newbury, New England, in 1770. His writings are tame and commonplace, and his admirers regretted that he should have injured his fame by resorting to publication. A permanent service was rendered to the cause of Christianity by the writings of the REV. WILLIAM LAW (1686-1761), author of a still popular work, A Serious Call to a Holy Life, which, happening to fall into the hands of Dr Johnson at college, gave that eminent person the first occasion of thinking in earnest of religion after he became capable of rational inquiry.' Law was a Jacobite nonconfor- JOHN WESLEY was more learned, and in all remist: he was tutor to the father of Gibbon the spects better fitted to become the leader and founder historian. of a sect. His father was rector of Epworth, in LinThe two elementary works of DR ISAAC WATTS-colnshire, where John was born in 1703. He was his Logic, or the Right Use of Reason, published in educated at Oxford, where he and his brother Charles, 1724, and his Improvement of the Mind (a supplement and a few other students, lived in a regular system of tice among the dissenting divines, as having obtained wrote A View of the Deistical Writers in England, DR HUGH BLAIR. pious study and discipline, whence they were denominated Methodists. After officiating a short time as curate to his father, the young enthusiast set off as a missionary to Georgia, where he remained about two years. Shortly after his return in 1738, he commenced field-preaching, occasionally travelling through every part of Great Britain and Ireland, where he established congregations of Methodists. Thousands flocked to his standard. The grand doc-gregation of Protestant dissenters in Dublin. He trine of Wesley was universal redemption, as contradistinguished from the Calvinistic doctrine of particular redemption, and his proselytes were, by the act of conversion, made regenerate men. The Methodists also received lay converts as preachers, who, by their itinerant ministrations and unquenchable enthusiasm, contributed materially to the extension of their societies. Wesley continued writing, preaching, and travelling, till he was eightyeight years of age; his apostolic earnestness and venerable appearance procured for him everywhere profound respect. He had preached about forty thousand sermons, and travelled three hundred thousand miles. His highly useful and laborious career was terminated on the 2d of March 1791. His body lay in a kind of state in his chapel at London the day previous to his interment, dressed in his clerical habit, with gown, cassock, and band; the old clerical cap on his head, a Bible in one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other. The funeral service was read by one of his old preachers. When he came to that part of the service, "forasmuch as it hath pleased God to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother," his voice changed, and he substituted the word father; and the feeling with which he did this was such, that the congregation, who were shedding silent tears, burst at once into loud weeping.'* At the time of Wesley's death, the number of Methodists in Europe, America, and the West India islands, was 80,000: they are now above a million-three hundred thousand of which are in Great Britain and Ireland. The writings and journals of Wesley are very voluminous, but he cannot be said to have produced any one valuable work in divinity or general literature. NATHANIEL LARDNER-HUGH FARMER-DR JAMES The English dissenters now began to evince their regard for learning and their ardour in study. DR NATHANIEL LARDNER (1684-1768) produced some treatises of the highest importance to the theological student. His works fill eleven octavo volumes. The chief is his Credibility of the Gospel History, published between 1730 and 1757, in fifteen volumes, and in which proofs are brought from innumerable sources in the religious history and literature of the first five centuries in favour of the truth of Christianity. Another voluminous work, entitled A Large Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion, appeared near the close of the author's life, and completed a design, which, making allowance for the interruptions occasioned by other studies and writings of less importance, occupied his attention for forty-three years. HUGH FARMER (1714-1787), a pupil of Dr Doddridge, was author of several religious treatises, the most important of which is his Dissertation on Miracles, a work of close reasoning and profound thought. This dissertation was published in 1771, and still maintains its place as one of the bulwarks of revealed religion. DR JAMES FOSTER (1697-1752) is worthy of no * Southey's Life of Wesley. The Scottish church at this time also contained some able and accomplished divines. The equality of livings in the northern establishment, and the greater amount of pastoral labour devolved upon its ministers, are unfavourable for studious research or profound erudition. The Edinburgh clergy, however, are generally men of talents and attainments, and the universities occasionally receive some of the best divines as professors. One of the most popular and influential of the Scottish clergy was DR HUGH BLAIR, born in Edinburgh in 1718. He was at first minister of a country church in Fifeshire, but, being celebrated for his pulpit eloquence, he was successively preferred to the Canongate, Lady Yester's, and the High Church in Edinburgh. In 1759 he commenced a course of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, which extended his literary reputation; and in 1763 he published his Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, a production evincing both critical taste and learning. In 1777 appeared the first volume of his Sermons, which was so well received that the author published three other volumes, and a fifth which he had prepared, was printed after his death. A royal pension of £200 per annum further rewarded its author. Blair next published his Rhetorical Lectures, and they also met with a favourable reception. Though somewhat hard and dry in style and manner, this work forms a useful guide to the young student: it is carefully arranged, contains abundance of examples in every department of literary composition, and has also detailed criticisms on ancient and modern authors. The sermons, however, are the most valuable of Blair's works. They are written with taste and elegance, and by inculcating Christian morality without any allusion to controversial topics, are suited to all classes of Christians. Profound thought, or reasoning, or impassioned eloquence, they certainly do not possess, and in this respect they must be considered inferior to the posthumous sermons of Logan the poet, which, if occasionally irregular, or faulty in style, have more of devotional ardour and vivid description. In society Dr Blair was cheerful and polite, the friend of literature as well as of virtue. His predominant weakness seems to have been vanity, which was soon discovered by Burns, in his memorable residence in Edinburgh in 1787. Blair died on the 27th of December 1800. [On the Cultivation of Taste.] [From Blair's Lectures."] Such studies have this peculiar advantage, that they exercise our reason without fatiguing it. They lead to inquiries acute, but not painful; profound, but not dry or abstruse, They strew flowers in the path of science, and while they keep the mind bent in some degree and active, they relieve it at the same time from that more toilsome labour to which it must submit in the acquisition of necessary erudition or the investigation of abstract truth. The cultivation of taste is further recommended by the happy effects which it naturally tends to produce on human life. The most busy man in the most active sphere cannot be always occupied by business. Men of serious professions cannot always be on the stretch of serious thought. Neither can the most gay and flourishing situations of fortune afford any man the power of filling all his hours with pleasure. Life must always languish in the hands of the idle. It will frequently languish even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit. How then shall these vacant spaces, those unemployed intervals, which more or less occur in the life of every one, be filled up? How can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, and the study of polite literature? He who is so happy as to have acquired a relish for these, has always at hand an innocent and irreproachable amusement for his leisure hours, to save him from the danger of many a pernicious passion. He is not in hazard of being a burden to himself. He is not obliged to fly to low company, or to court the riot of loose pleasures, in order to cure the tediousness of existence. Providence seems plainly to have pointed out this useful purpose to which the pleasures of taste may be applied, by interposing them in a middle station between the pleasures of sense and those of pure intellect. We were not designed to grovel always among objects so low as the former; nor are we capable of dwelling constantly in so high a region as the latter. The pleasures of taste refresh the mind after the toils of the intellect and the labours of abstract study; and they gradually raise it above the attachments of sense, and prepare it for the enjoyments of virtue. So consonant is this to experience, that, in the education of youth, no object has in every age appeared more important to wise men than to tincture them early with a relish for the entertainments of taste. The transition is commonly made with ease from these to the discharge of the higher and more important duties of life. Good hopes may be entertained of those whose minds have this liberal and elegant turn. It is favourable to many virtues. Whereas, to be entirely devoid of relish for eloquence, poetry, or any of the fine arts, is justly construed to be an unpromising symptom of youth; and raises suspicions of their being prone to low gratifications, or destined to drudge in the more vulgar and illiberal pursuits of life. There are indeed few good dispositions of any kind with which the improvement of taste is not more or less connected. A cultivated taste increases sensibility to all the tender and humane passions, by giving them frequent exercise; while it tends to weaken the more violent and fierce emotions. Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.* The elevated sentiments and high examples which poetry, eloquence, and history are often bringing under our view, naturally tend to nourish in our minds public spirit, the love of glory, contempt of external fortune, and the admiration of what is truly illustrious and great. I will not go so far as to say that the improvement of taste and of virtue is the same, or that they may *These polished arts have humanised mankind, always be expected to coexist in an equal degree. More powerful correctives than taste can apply are necessary for reforming the corrupt propensities which too frequently prevail among mankind. Elegant speculations are sometimes found to float on the surface of the mind, while bad passions possess the inte rior regions of the heart. At the same time this cannot but be admitted, that the exercise of taste is, in its native tendency, moral and purifying. From reading the most admired productions of genius, whether in poetry or prose, almost every one rises with some good impressions left on his mind; and though these may not always be durable, they are at least to be ranked among the means of disposing the heart to virtue. One thing is certain, that without possessing the virtuous affections in a strong degree, no man can attain eminence in the sublime parts of eloquence. He must feel what a good man feels, if he expects greatly to move or to interest mankind. They are the ardent sentiments of honour, virtue, magnanimity, and public spirit, that only can kindle that fire of genius, and call up into the mind those high ideas, which attract the admiration of ages; and if this spirit be necessary to produce the most distinguished efforts of eloquence, it must be neces sary also to our relishing them with proper taste and feeling. [Difference between Taste and Genius.] [From the same.] Taste and genius are two words frequently joined together, and therefore, by inaccurate thinkers, confounded. They signify, however, two quite different things. The difference between them can be clearly pointed out, and it is of importance to remember it. Taste consists in the power of judging; genius in the power of executing. One may have a considerable degree of taste in poetry, eloquence, or any of the fine arts, who has little or hardly any genius for composition or execution in any of these arts; but genius cannot be found without including taste also. Genius, therefore, deserves to be considered as a higher power of the mind than taste. Genius always imports something inventive or creative, which does not rest in mere sensibility to beauty where it is perceived, but which can, moreover, produce new beauties, and exhibit them in such a manner as strongly to impress the minds of others. Refined taste forms a good critic; but genius is further necessary to form the poet or the orator. It is proper also to observe, that genius is a word which, in common acceptation, extends much further than to the objects of taste. It is used to signify that talent or aptitude which we receive from nature for excelling in any one thing whatever. Thus, we speak of a genius for mathematics, as well as a genius for poetry-of a genius for war, for politics, or for any mechanical employment. This talent or aptitude for excelling in some one particular is, I have said, what we receive from nature. By art and study, no doubt, it may be greatly im proved, but by them alone it cannot be acquired. As genius is a higher faculty than taste, it is ever, according to the usual frugality of nature, more limited in the sphere of its operations. It is not uncommon to meet with persons who have an excellent taste in several of the polite arts, such as music, poetry, painting, and eloquence, all together; but to find one who is an excellent performer in all these arts, is much more rare, or rather, indeed, such a one is not to be looked for. A sort of universal genius, or one who is rent professions and arts, is not likely to excel in any; equally and indifferently turned towards several diffealthough there may be some few exceptions, yet in general it holds, that when the bent of the mind is wholly directed towards some one object, exclusive in a manner of others, there is the fairest prospect of eminence in that, whatever it be. The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow intensely. [On Sublimity.] [From the same.] It is not easy to describe in words the precise impression which great and sublime objects make upon us when we behold them; but every one has a conception of it. It produces a sort of internal elevation and expansion; it raises the mind much above its ordinary state, and fills it with a degree of wonder and astonishment which it cannot well express. The emotion is certainly delightful, but it is altogether of the serious kind; a degree of awfulness and solemnity, even approaching to severity, commonly attends it when at its height, very distinguishable from the more gay and brisk emotion raised by beautiful objects. For the further illustration of this subject, it is proper to remark, that all ideas of the solemn and awful kind, and even bordering on the terrible, tend greatly to assist the sublime; such as darkness, solitude, and silence. What are the scenes of nature that elevate the mind in the highest degree, and produce the sublime sensation? Not the gay landscape, the flowery field, or the flourishing city; but the hoary mountains, and the solitary lake, the aged forest, and the torrent falling over the rock. Hence, too, night scenes are commonly the most sublime. The firmament, when filled with stars, scattered in such vast numbers, and with such magnificent profusion, strikes the imagination with a more awful grandeur than when we view it enlightened with all the splendour of the sun. The deep sound of a great bell, or the striking of a great clock, are at any time grand, but, when heard amid the silence and stillness of the night, they become doubly so. Darkness is very commonly applied for adding sublimity to all our ideas of the Deity: He maketh darkness his pavilion, he dwelleth in the thick cloud.' So Milton: How oft, amidst Thick clouds and dark, does heaven's all ruling Sire The simplest form of external grandeur appears in the vast and boundless prospects presented to us by nature; such as wide extended plains, to which the eye can see no limits, the firmament of heaven, or the boundless expanse of the ocean. All vastness produces the impression of sublimity. It is to be remarked, however, that space, extended in length, makes not so strong an impression as height or depth. Though a boundless plain be a grand object, yet a Observe with how much art Virgil has introduced high mountain, to which we look up, or an awful pre- all those ideas of silence, vacuity, and darkness, when cipice or tower, whence we look down on the objects he is going to introduce his hero to the infernal rewhich lie below, is still more so. The excessive gran-gions, and to disclose the secrets of the great deep :deur of the firmament arises from its height, joined to its boundless extent; and that of the ocean not from its extent alone, but from the perpetual motion and irresistible force of that mass of waters. Wherever space is concerned, it is clear that amplitude or greatness of extent in one dimension or other is necessary to grandeur. Remove all bounds from any object, and you presently render it sublime. Hence infinite space, endless numbers, and eternal duration, fill the mind with great ideas. From this some have imagined that vastness or amplitude of extent is the foundation of all sublimity. But I cannot be of this opinion, because many objects appear sublime which have no relation to space at all. Such, for instance, is great loudness of sound. The burst of thunder or of cannon, the roaring of winds, the shouting of multitudes, the sound of vast cataracts of water, are all incontestably grand objects. I heard the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, and of mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah.' In general, we may observe that great power and force exerted always raise sublime ideas; and perhaps the most copious source of these is derived from this quarter. Hence the grandeur of earthquakes and burning mountains; of great conflagrations; of the stormy ocean and overflowing waters; of tempests of wind; of thunder and lightning; and of all the uncommon violence of the elements: nothing is more sublime than mighty power and strength. A stream that runs within its banks is a beautiful object, but when it rushes down with the impetuosity and noise of a torrent, it presently becomes a sublime one. From lions, and other animals of strength, are drawn sublime comparisons in poets. A race-horse is looked upon with pleasure; but it is the war-horse, whose neck is clothed with thunder,' that carries grandeur in its idea. The engagement of two great armies, as it is the highest exertion of human might, combines a variety of sources of the sublime, and has accordingly been always considered as one of the most striking and magnificent spectacles that can be either presented to the eye, or exhibited to the imagination in description. Ye subterranean gods, whose awful sway As wander travellers in woods by night, By the moon's doubtful and malignant light.-Dryden. These passages I quote at present, not so much as instances of sublime writing, though in themselves they truly are so, as to show, by the effect of them, that the objects which they present to us belong to the class of sublime ones. Obscurity, we are further to remark, is not unfavourable to the sublime. Though it render the object indistinct, the impression, however, may be great; for, as an ingenious author has well observed, it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination; and the imagination may be strongly affected, and, in fact, often is so, by objects of which we have no clear conception. Thus we see that almost all the descriptions given us of the appearances of supernatural beings, carry some sublimity, though the conceptions which they afford us be confused and indistinct. Their sublimity arises from the ideas, which they always convey, of superior power and might, joined with an awful obscurity. We may see this fully exemplified in the following noble passage of the book of Job: In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood still; but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; there was silence; and I heard a voice-Shall mortal man be more just than God !' (Job iv. 15.) No ideas, it is plain, are so sublime as those taken from the Supreme Being, the most unknown, but the greatest of all objects; the infinity |