lines, sufficiently shew what a rank was occupied by this bird in the warm imagination of Grecian idolatry.*— Of the two English poets, just mentioned, it is observable that the former has made no farther reference to Jupiter, than as carrying "the feathered king on his scepter'd "hand;" but in order to compensate for this omission, he has contrived, in his picture of the eagle's sleep, by the magical charm of figurative language, to suggest, indirectly, the very same sublime image with which the description of Pindar commences:

"Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie,

"The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye."t

After these remarks, it will not appear surprising that

† May I be permitted to add, that in Akenside's imitation, as well as in the original, the reader is prepared for the short episode of the Eagle, (which in all the three descriptions is unquestionably the most prominent feature) by the previous allusion to the xɛpavvov avαov TVgos; and to suggest my doubts, whether in Gray, the transition to this picture from Thracia's Hills and the Lord of War, be not a little too violent, even for lyric poetry.-The English reader may judge of this, from the verses of Akenside.

the same language should be transferred from the objects of religious worship, to whatever is calculated to excite the analogous, though comparatively weak sentiments of ad miration and of wonder. The word suspicere (to look up) is only one example out of many which might be men tioned. Cicero has furnished us with instances of its application, both to the religious sentiment, and to the enthu siastic admiration with which we regard some of the objects of taste. "Esse præstantem aliquam æternamque na"turam, et eam suspiciendam admirandamque hominum "generi, .pulchritudo mundi ordoque rerum cœlestium "cogit confiteri."*" Eloquentiam, quam suspicerent "omnes, quam admirarentur," &c.† On the latter occasion, as well as on the former, the words suspicio and admiror are coupled together, in order to convey more forcibly one single idea.

On this particular view of the sublime, considered in connection with religious impressions, I have only to take notice farther, of a remarkable coincidence between their influence and that of the feelings excited by literal Sublimity, in assimilating the poetical effects of the two opposite dimensions of Depth and of Height. In the case of literal Sublimity, I have already endeavoured to account for this assimilation. In that now before us, it seems to be the obvious result of those conceptions, so natural to the human mind, which have universally suggested a separation of the invisible world into two distinct regions; the one situated at an immense distance above the earth's surface; the other at a corresponding distance below;

the one a blissful and glorious abode, to which virtue is taught to aspire as its final reward; the other inhabited by beings in a state of punishment and of degradation. The powers to whom the infliction of this punishment is committed, cannot fail to be invested by the fancy as the ministers and executioners of divine justice, with some of the attributes which are characteristical of the Sublime; and this association it seems to have been a great object of the heathen mythology to strengthen, as much as possible, by the fabulous accounts of the alliances between the celestial and the infernal deities; and by other fictions of a similar tendency. Pluto was the son of Saturn, and the brother of Jupiter; Proserpine, the daughter of Jupiter and of Ceres; and even the river Styx was consecrated into a divinity, held in veneration and dread by all the Gods.

The language of the inspired writings is, on this as on other occasions, beautifully accommodated to the irresistible impressions of nature; availing itself of such popular and familiar words as upwards and downwards, above and below, in condescension to the frailty of the human mind, governed so much by sense and imagination, and so little by the abstractions of philosophy. Hence the expression of fallen Angels, which, by recalling to us the eminence from which they fell, communicates, in a single word, a character of Sublimity to the bottomless abyss: "How art "thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morn"ing!" The Supreme Being is himself represented as filling hell with his presence; while the throne where he manifests his glory is conceived to be placed on high:

"If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I make my "bed in hell, thou art there also."

To these associations, Darkness, Power, Terror, Eternity, and various other adjuncts of Sublimity, lend their aid in a manner too palpable to admit of any comment.

CHAPTER THIRD.

GENERALIZATIONS OF SUBLIMITY IN CONSEQUENCE OF ASSOCIATIONS RESULTING FROM THE PHENOMENA OF GRAVITATION, AND FROM THE OTHER PHYSICAL ARRANGEMENTS WITH WHICH OUR SENSES ARE CONVERSANT.

WHEN we confine our views to the earth's surface, a variety of additional causes conspire, with those already suggested, to strengthen the association between Elevated Position and the ideas of Power, or of the Terrible. I shall only mention the security it affords against a hostile attack, and the advantage it yields in the use of missile weapons; two circumstances which give an expressive propriety to the epithet commanding, as employed in the language of Fortification.

In other cases, elevated objects excite emotions still more closely allied to admiration and to awe, in consequence of our experience of the effect of heavy bodies falling downwards from a great height. Masses of water, in the form of a mountain-torrent, or of a cataract, present to us one of the most impressive images of irresistible impetuosity which terrestrial phenomena afford; and accordingly have an effect, both on the eye and on the ear, of peculiar Sublimity, of which poets and orators have often availed themselves to typify the overwhelming powers of their respective arts.