JII. LECT. the terrible, tend greatly to affift the Sublime; fuch as darkness, folitude, and filence. What are the scenes of nature that elevate the mind in the highest degree, and produce the fublime fenfation? Not the gay landscape, the flowery field, or the flourishing city; but the hoary mountain, and the folitary lake; the aged foreft, and the torrent falling over the rock. Hence too, night-fcenes are commonly the moft fublime. The firmament when filled with ftars, scattered in fuch vast numbers, and with fuch magnificent profufion, strikes the imagination with a more awful grandeur, than when we view it enlightened by all the fplendour of the Sun. The deep found of a great bell, or the ftriking of a great clock, are at any time grand; but, when heard amid the filence and ftillness of the night, they become doubly fo. Darkness is very commonly applied for adding fublimity to all our ideas of the Deity. "He maketh darkness his pa "vilion; he dwelleth in the thick cloud." So Milton: How oft, amidst Thick clouds and dark, does Heaven's all-ruling Sire And, with the Majesty of darkness, round BOOK II. 263. Obferve, with how much art Virgil has introduced all thofe ideas of filence, vacuity, and darkness, when he is going to introduce his Hero Hero to the infernal regions, and to difclofe LECT. the fecrets of the great deep. Dii quibus imperium eft animarum, umbræque filentes, Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte filentia latè, These paffages I quote at prefent, not fo much as inftances of Sublime Writing, though in themselves they truly are fo, as to fhew, by the effect of them, that the objects which they prefent to us, belong to the class of fublime ones. OBSCURITY, we are farther to remark, is not unfavourable to the Sublime. Though * Ye fubterranean Gods, whofe awful fway PITT. Obfcure they went; through dreary fhades, that led DRYDEN. it III. III. LEC T. it render the object indistinct, the impreffior, however, may be great; for, as an ingenious Author has well obferved, it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination; and the imagination may be ftrongly affected, and, in fact, often is fo, by objects of which we have no clear conception. Thus we fee, that almost all the descriptions given us of the appearances of fupernatural Beings, carry fome Sublimity, though the conceptions which they afford us be confused and indiftinct. Their Sublimity arifes from the ideas, which they always convey, of fuperior power and might, joined with an awful obfcurity. We may fee this fully exemplified in the following noble paffage of the book of Job. "In thoughts from the "vifions of the night, when deep fleep falleth upon men, fear fear came upon me, and "trembling, which made all my bones to "shake. Then a fpirit paffed before my "face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood "still; but I could not difcern the form "thereof; an image was before mine eyes; "there was filence; and I heard a voice"Shall mortal man be more just than God * ?” (Job, *The picture which Lucretius has drawn of the dominion of fuperftition over mankind, reprefenting it as a portentous spectre showing its head from the clouds, and difmaying the whole human race with its countenance, together with the magnanimity of Epicurus in raifing himself (Job, iv. 15.) No ideas, it is plain, are fo LECT. fublime as thofe taken from the Supreme III. Being; the most unknown, but the greatest of all objects; the infinity of whose nature, and the eternity of whofe duration, joined with the omnipotence of his power, though they furpass our conceptions, yet exalt them to the higheft. In general, all objects that are greatly raised above us, or far removed from us, either in Ipace or in time, are apt to strike us as great. Our viewing them, as through the mift of diftance or antiquity, is favourable to the impreffions of their Sublimity. As obfcurity, fo diforder too, is very compatible with grandeur; nay, frequently heightens it. Few things that are strictly regular, and methodical, appear fublime. We fee the limits on every fide; we feel ourfelves confined; there is no room for the mind's exerting any great effort. Exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into up against it, carries all the grandeur of a fublime, obfcure, Humana ante oculos fœde cum vita jaceret LIB. I. the III. LECT. the beautiful, is much difregarded in the Sublime. A great mass of rocks, thrown together by the hand of nature with wildness and confusion, strike the mind with more grandeur, than if they had been adjusted to one another with the most accurate fymmetry. In the feeble attempts, which human art can make towards producing grand objects (feeble, I mean, in comparifon with the powers of nature), greatnefs of dimensions always constitutes a principal part. No pile of building can convey any idea of Sublimity, unless it be ample and lofty. There is, too, in architecture, what is called Greatness of manner; which feems chiefly to arife, from presenting the object to us in one full point of view; fo that it fhall make its impreffion whole, entire, and undivided, upon the mind, A Gothic cathedral raifes ideas of grandeur in our minds, by its fize, its height, its awful obfcurity, its ftrength, its antiquity, and its durability. THERE ftill remains to be mentioned one clafs of Sublime objects, which may be called the moral, or fentimental Sublime; arifing from certain exertions of the human mind; from certain affections, and actions, of our fellow-creatures. Thefe will be found to be all, or chiefly, of that clafs, which comes un der |