Mr. Burke has adopted the description of Longinus, and has stated the fact with still greater clearness and fulness. If he had followed out his ideas a little further, he would probably have perceived more distinctly than he appears to have done, that the key to some of the chief metaphysical difficulties supposed to be connected with this inquiry, is to be found in the principles which regulate the progressive generalizations of the import of words; and in those laws of association, which, while they insensibly transfer the arbitrary signs of thought from one subject to another, seldom fail to impart to the latter a power of exciting, in some degree, the same emotions which are the natural or the necessary effects of the former.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

INFERENCES FROM THE FOREGOING DOCTRINES, WITH SOME AD

DITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

BEFORE I conclude this Essay, it is proper for me to remind my readers, in order to prevent misapprehensions with respect to the foregoing observations, That my aim is not to investigate the principles on which the various elements of Sublimity give pleasure to the mind; but to trace the associations, in consequence of which the common name of Sublimity has been applied to all of them. It is not, for instance, my aim to shew, that the whole effect of Horizontal Amplitude arises from its association with Elevation, or Height; far less, that it is this association alone which delights us in viewing the celestial vault, with all the various wonders it exhibits by day and by night; but merely to explain, from this principle, the transference of the epithet Sublime, from one modifica tion of space to all the others. In like manner, I have abstained altogether from giving any opinion on the very curious question concerning the pleasure arising from certain modifications of Terror; because it did not appear to me to have any immediate connection with the train of my argument. It is sufficient for my purpose, if I have succeeded in accounting for the place which the Terrible, when properly modified, is generally allowed to occupy

among the constituents, or at least among the natural adjuncts of the Sublime.

Although I have attempted to shew, at some length, that there is a specific pleasure connected with the simple idea of Sublimity or Elevation, I am far from thinking, that the impressions produced by such adjuncts as Eternity or Power, or even by the physical adjuncts of Horizontal Extent and of Depth, are wholly resolvable into their association with this common and central conception. I own, however, I am of opinion, that, in most cases, the pleasure attached to the conception of literal sublimity, identified, as it comes to be, with those religious impressions which are inseparable from the human mind, is one of the chief ingredients in the complicated emotion; and that, in every case, it either palpably or latently contributes to the effect.

From this constant or very general connection, too, which these different ingredients have with each other, as well as with the central idea of Elevation, they must necessarily both lend and borrow much accessory influence over the mind. The primary effect of Elevation itself cannot fail to be astonishingly increased by its association with such interesting and awful ideas as Immensity, Eternity, 'Infinite Power, and Infinite Wisdom; blended as they are in our conceptions with that still sublimer attribute of God, which encourages us to look up to him as the Father of All. On the other hand, to all of these attributes, Elevation imparts, in its turn, a common character and a common epithet.

Supposing, therefore, the foregoing conclusions to be admitted as just, a wide field of speculation lies open to

future inquirers. To some of these, I flatter myself, the hints which I have suggested may be useful, if not in conducting them into the right path, at least in diverting them from the vain attempt to detect a common quality in the metaphysical essence of things, which derive their common name only from the tie of Habitual Association.

In confirmation of what I have just stated concerning the primary or central idea of Elevation, it may be farther remarked, that when we are anxious to communicate the highest possible character of Sublimity to any thing we are describing, we generally contrive, somehow or other, either directly, or by means of some strong and obvious association, to introduce the image of the Heavens, or of the Clouds; or, in other words, of Sublimity literally so called. The idea of Eloquence is unquestionably sublime in itself, being a source of the proudest and noblest species of Power which the mind of one man can exercise over those of others: but how wonderfully is its sublimity increased when connected with the image of Thunder; as when we speak of the Thunder of Demosthenes! "Demosthenis non tam vibrarent fulmina, "nisi numeris contorta ferrentur."-Milton has fully availed himself of both these associations, in describing the orators of the Greek republics:

"Resistless eloquence

"Wielded at will the fierce democracy;

"Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece,
"To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne."

In Collins's ode to Fear, the happy use of a single word identifies at once the Physical with the Moral Sublime, and concentrates the effects of their united force.

"Tho' gentle pity claim her mingled part,

"Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine!"

The same word adds not a little to the effect of one of the sublimest descriptions in the book of Job. "Hast "thou given the horse strength; hast thou clothed his "neck with thunder?"*

In the concluding stanza of one of Gray's odes, if the bard, after his apostrophe to Edward, had been represented as falling on his sword, or as drowning himself in a pool at the summit of the rock, the Moral Sublime, so far as it arises from his heroical determination "to conquer and to die," would not have been in the least diminished; but how different from the complicated emotion produced by the images of altitude; of depth; of an impetuous and foaming flood; of darkness; and of eternity; all of which are crowded into the two last lines:

"He spoke and headlong from the mountain's height
"Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night."

Among the Grecian sages, Plato has been always more peculiarly characterized by the epithet Sublime; and indeed, on various accounts, it is strongly and happily descriptive of the feelings inspired by the genius of that author; by the lofty mysticism of his philosophy; and even by the remote origin of the theological fables which are said to have descended to him from Orpheus. The following passage paints the impressions of a German scholar,† when he first met with the Indigitamenta or

*Note (LI).

+ Eschenbach.-I am indebted for this quotation to Dr. Akenside's notes subjoined to his Hymn to the Naiads.