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LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 A NEW TRANSLATION, CHIEFLY ACCORDING TO THE 
 IMPROVED EDITION OF 
 
 WEISKE. 
 
 DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF ENGLISH READERS IN GENERAL. 
 
 BY A MASTER OF ARTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD„ 
 
 Thee, great Longiniis ! all the Nine inspire, 
 And fill their Critic with a poet's fire ; 
 An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust. 
 With warmth g-ives sentence, yet is always just j 
 Whose own example strengthens all his laws. 
 And is him self the great sublime he draws. 
 
 Papers Essay on Cnticism, Part III, 
 
 LONDON : 
 S. CORNISH AND CO. 
 
 126, NEWGATE-STREET; 
 ALSO 37, NEW-STREET, BIRMINGHAM ; AND 158, BRIGGATE, 
 LEEDS. 
 
JOHN BLACKBUUNj 
 PRINTER, 
 HATTON GARDEN. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The translation of Longinus on the Sublime^ now 
 offered to the pubhc^ is intended not only for the 
 use of the English reader; but it is hoped^ at the 
 ^ same time^ that it will also serve the purposes of 
 "^the student in Greek literature^ and assist him in 
 ^ mastering the difficulties of the original. Care 
 has therefore been taken, that both the text, and the 
 illustrations, should present no impediments to such 
 ^ as are unacquainted with the learned languages. The 
 examples quoted from the classics will be always found 
 ^ accompanied by corresponding examples from standard 
 5 authors in our own tongue. No apology will perhaps 
 be required for an endeavour to set before the British 
 public faithfully and intelligibly, a treatise which has 
 commanded the admiration of the best judges, and 
 stood the test of the severest criticism in every age of 
 
ii PREFACE. 
 
 the v/orld^ from the period of its publication to the 
 present hour ; and of which it may be safely predicted, 
 that it will continue to form the standard of sound 
 judgment and taste, till sublimity of sentiment, and 
 harmony of language, shall loose their hold upon the 
 human heart. 
 
 The age we live in is peculiarly a reading age ; the 
 desire of oratorical eminence is confined to no class, 
 the materials of study and information accessible to 
 every order of society. In this state of things it must 
 surely be desirable that every possible effort should be 
 made to form the public taste, to inculcate the prin- 
 ciples of correct judgment, and point out those models 
 of fine writing, which may be studied and imitated with 
 advantage. The Sublime of Longinus, fairly rendered, 
 with the examples and illustrations judiciously selected 
 by Dr. Smith from the three richest stores of all that 
 is sublime and beautiful in our own language — the 
 Holy Scriptures, Shakspere and Milton, is, perhaps, 
 the most compendious and instructive manual that a 
 student could adopt. The master-critic has in this 
 treatise, canvassed his subject in a spirit of practical 
 philosophy ; he has not only analysed the true sublime 
 into its primary elements, assigning to nature and art 
 their respective provinces in consummating the character 
 
PREFACE. iii 
 
 of the perfect orator ; but has traced the occasions of 
 failure to their source. Not content with illuminating 
 the path by which alone ^^the heights sublime of 
 eloquence^^ can be surmounted^ he has carefully erected 
 beacons to warn us of the dangers by which it is beset. 
 But it would be superfluous to enter into a minute 
 description of the contents of that which is so brief 
 and comprehensive in itself ; or to say more in com- 
 mendation of a performance^ whose praises are well 
 known to have exhausted the eloquence of the master- 
 spirits of every age. To adduce testimonies from modern 
 authors^ would be to fill a volume with extracts from 
 the works of Dryden^ Pope^ Johnson^ Gibbon^ Blair, &c. 
 All who are able to appreciate the worth of this 
 Golden Treatise/^ for such is the title universally 
 accorded to it, must for ever deplore the uncertainty in 
 which the personal history of its author is enveloped. 
 The more probable and generally received opinion is, 
 that he was an Athenian and a collateral descendant of 
 the eloquent and philosophic Plutarch. After devoting 
 his earlier years to travel, he is said to have settled at 
 
 * The illustrations and examples of Dean Smith have been retained, 
 with very few exceptions and additions ; but it has been found neces- 
 sary, from one cause or other, to alter his translation in almost every 
 line. 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 Athens^ in whose sweet recess^^ he lived deUghted and 
 admired by all^ till the fame of his virtues and his talents 
 commended him to the notice of Zenobia^, queen of 
 Palmyra^ herself a miracle of courage^ chastity^ and 
 beauty. He became the tutor of her sons ; and in the 
 capacity of secretary assisted the counsels of his royal 
 mistress^ and shared her eventful fortunes in either 
 extreme. 
 
 When the Emperor Aurelian invested the city of Pal- 
 myra^ the last retreat of the twice-defeated Queen of 
 the East^ he experienced the most gallant resistance 
 from the Palmyrenians ; and, despairing of success by 
 force of arms, he summoned Zenobia to surrender in 
 the following terms : 
 
 AURELIAN, EMPEROR OF THE ROMAN WORLD, AND 
 RECOVERER OF THE EAST, TO ZENOBIA AND 
 HER ADHERENTS. 
 
 Why am I forced to command what you ought to 
 have done voluntarily. I charge you to smTcnder, and 
 thereby avoid the certain penalty of death, which other- 
 wise attends you. You, Zenobia, shall spend the re- 
 mainder of your life where I, by the advice of the most 
 honorable senate, shall think proper to place you. Your 
 jewels, your silver, your gold, your finest apparel, your 
 horses, and your camels, you shall resign to the disposal 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 of the Romans^ in order to preserve the Palmyrenians 
 from being divested of all their former privileges/^ 
 The spirited reply is from the pen of Longinus. 
 
 ZENOBIA, QUEEN OF THE EAST, TO THE EMPEROR 
 AURELIAN. 
 
 Never was such an unreasonable demand proposed, 
 or such rigorous terms offered, by any but yourself. 
 Remember, Aurelian, that in war, whatever is done, 
 should be done by valour. You imperiously command 
 me to surrender; but can you forget that Cleopatra 
 chose rather to die with the title of Queen, than to live 
 in any inferior dignity ? We expects succour from Per- 
 sia ; the Saracens are arming in our cause ; even the 
 Syrian banditti have already defeated your army. Judge 
 what you are to expect from a conjunction of these forces. 
 You shall be compelled to abate that pride, with which, 
 as if you were absolute lord of the universe, you com- 
 mand me to become your captive.^^ 
 
 Stung with indignation and shame, Aurelian redoubled 
 his efforts, intercepted the succours from Persia, and 
 subdued or seduced the Saracen and Armenian forces, 
 till at length the Palmyrenians, worn out by continual 
 assaults from without and by famine within their walls, 
 opened their gates to receive the victor. Zenobia 
 and Longinus fled, but were overtaken by Aurelian^s 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 horse. The captive queen would not^ or could not 
 conceal the part Longinus had acted, and he fell a 
 sacrifice to the enraged conqueror. The manner in which 
 he met his fate was every way worthy of his life and 
 character. That genuine greatness of soul, so vividly 
 reflected in his works, and which, in his view, formed 
 the foundation of whatsoever is truly sublime in writing, 
 forsook him not in the hour of his last necessity, but 
 sent forth echoes'^ that will resound eternally. With- 
 out a complaint or murmur, he calmly followed the 
 executioner, sorrowing indeed for his unhappy mistress, 
 but consoHng his afilicted friends, and welcoming death 
 as a deliverance from the thraldrom of the body. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME, 
 
 SECTION 1. 
 
 You know, my dear Terentianus, tliat when we perused 
 Cecilius's pamphlet on the Sublime together, we thought 
 it below a subject of that magnitude, that it was entirely 
 defective in its principal branches, and that its advantage 
 to readers, which ought to be the principal aim of every 
 writer, would prove very small. Besides, though in every 
 scientific treatise two points are required ; the first, that 
 the nature of the subject treated of be fully explained ; 
 the second, I mean in order of writing, since in import- 
 ance it is superior, that directions be given, how and by 
 what methods the object sought may be attained : yet 
 Cecilius, who brings ten thousand instances to show what 
 the sublime is, as if his readers were ignorant of the 
 matter, has some how or other omitted, as unnecessary, 
 the discipline that might enable us to raise our natural 
 genius in any degree whatever to this subhme. But, per- 
 haps, this writer is not so much to be blamed for his omis- 
 sions, as commended for the mere conception of the idea, 
 and his earnest endeavours. You indeed have exhorted me 
 also by all means to set down my thoughts on this sublime, 
 on your own account ; let us then consider whether any 
 thing can be drawn from my private studies, for the ser- 
 vice of those who write for the world, or speak in public. 
 
 But you, my friend, will give me your judgment on what- 
 ever I advance, with that exactness, which is due to truth, 
 and that sincerity which is habitual to you. For well 
 did the sage answer the question, In what do we most 
 resemble the gods ?" when he replied, In doing good 
 and speaking truth." But since I write, my friend, to you, • 
 who are thoroughly versed in polite learning, there will be 
 little occasion to use many previous words in proving, that 
 the sublime is a certain excellence and perfection of laft-. 
 guage, and that .the greatest w^^ in verse and 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 prose, have by this alone obtained the prize of glory, and 
 clothed their renown with immortality. For the grand 
 not only persuades, but even transports an audience. And 
 the admirable by its astounding effect is always more effica- 
 cious than that which merely persuades or dehghts. For 
 in most cases, it rests wholly with ourselves either to 
 resist or yield to persuasion. But these, by the application 
 of a sovereign power, and irresistible might, get the ascen- 
 dency over every hearer. Again, dexterity of invention, 
 and good order and economy in composition, are not to be 
 discerned from one or two passages, and sometimes hardly 
 |from the whole texture of a discourse ; but the sjiblime, 
 Iwhen uttered in due season, with the lightning's force 
 jscatters all before it in an instant, and shows at once the 
 Imight of genius in a single stroke. For in these, and 
 ftruths Hke these, experimentally conversant as you are 
 with them, you might, my dearest Terentianus, be the in- 
 structor of others yourself. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 But we ought not to advance, before we clear the point, 
 whether or not there be any art in the sublime, or the 
 pathetic. For some are of opinion, that they are altogether 
 mistaken, who would reduce it to the rules of art. The 
 subHme (say they) is born with us, and is not to be 
 learned by precept. The only art to reach it, is, to have 
 the power from nature. And, as they reason, the produc- 
 tions of nature are deteriorated and altogether enervated 
 by the emaciating effects of artistical rules. 
 
 But I maintain, that the contrary might easily appear, 
 would they only reflect that — though* nature for the most 
 
 * These observations of Longiniis, and the following hnes of Mr. 
 Pope, are a very proper illustration for one another : 
 
 First follow nature, and your judgment frame 
 By her just standard, which is still the same : 
 Unerring nature, still divinely bright, 
 One clear, unchanged, and universal hght, 
 Life, force, and beauty must to all impart, 
 At once the source, and end, and test of art. 
 Art from that fund each just supply provides, 
 Works without show, and without pomp presides : 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 part challenges a sovereign and uncontrollable power in the] 
 pathetic and sublime, yet she is not altogether lawless, butf 
 deUghts in a proper^, regulation. That again — though she 
 is in every case the foundation, and the primary source, 
 and original pattern of production, yet method is able to 
 determine and adjust the measures, and discriminate the 
 season in each thing, and moreover to teach the cultivation 
 and use of them with the greatest degree of certainty. And 
 further, that flights of grandeur are more exposed to 
 danger, when abandoned to themselves, without the aid of 
 science, and having nothing to give them steadiness or 
 equipoise, but left to bhnd impulse alone and untutored 
 daring. For they often indeed want the spur, but they 
 stand as frequently in need of the curb. 
 
 Demosthenes somewhere judiciously observes, " That in 
 common life success is the greatest good ; that the next, 
 and no less iinportant, is conduct, without which the other 
 must be unavoidably of sliort continuance." Now the 
 same may be asserted of composition, where nature sup- 
 plies the place of success, and art the place of conduct. 
 
 But, there is one consideration which deserves particular 
 attention. For the very fact that there is anything in elo- 
 quence, which depends upon nature alone, could not be 
 known without that light which we receive from art. If, 
 therefore, as I said before, he who censures them that 
 pursue such useful literary labours as this in which I am 
 now engaged, would give due attention to these reflections, 
 I beheve he would no longer think an investigation of this 
 nature superfluous or useless. 
 
 In some fair body thus the secret soul 
 
 With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole ; 
 
 Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains, 
 
 Itself unseen, but in th' effect remains. 
 
 There are, whom Heav'n has bless'd with store of wit, 
 
 Yet want as much again to manage it ; 
 
 For wit and judgment ever are at strife, 
 
 Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife. 
 
 'Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed, 
 
 Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed ; 
 
 The winged courser, like a generous horse. 
 
 Shows most true mettle when you check his course. 
 
 Essay on Criticism, 
 
4 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Let them the chimney's flashing flames repel. 
 Could but these eyes one lurking wretch arrest, 
 I'd whirl aloft one streaming curl of flame, 
 And into embers turn his crackling dome. 
 But now a generous song I have not sounded.* 
 
 Streaming curls of flame, spewing against heaven, and 
 making Boreas a piper, f with such-hke expressions, are 
 not tragical, but super-tragical. For the diction is coarse 
 > and turbid, and the images jumbled and tumultuous, and 
 therefore cannot possibly adorn or raise the subject; and 
 whenever carefully examined in the light, their show of 
 being terrible gradually disappears, and they become con- 
 temptible and ridiculous. Tragedy will indeed by its nature 
 admit of some pomp] and grandiloquence, yet even in 
 tragedy it is unpardonable to swell immoderately ; much 
 less allowable must it therefore be in prose-writing, or those 
 works which are founded in truth. Upon this account some 
 expressions of Gorgias the LeontineJ are ridiculed, who 
 
 * Here is a great defect ; but it is evident that the author is treating 
 of those imperfections which are opposite to the true sublime, and 
 among those, of extravagant swelhng or bombast, an example of which 
 he produces from some old tragic poet, none of whose lines, except 
 these here quoted, and some expressions below, remain at present. 
 
 t " Making Boreas a piper." Shakspeare has fallen into the same 
 kind of bombast : 
 
 The southern wind 
 Doth play the trumpet to his purposes. 
 
 First Part of Henry IV, . 
 X Gorgias the Leontine, or of Leontium, was a Sicihan rhetorician, 
 and father of the Sophists. He was in such universal esteem through- 
 out Greece, that a statue w^as erected to his honour in the temple of 
 Apollo at Delphi, of solid gold, though the custom had been only to 
 gild them. His styling Xerxes the Persian Jupiter, it is thought, may 
 be defended from the custom of the Persians to salute their monai'ch 
 by that high title. Calling vultures living sepulchres, has been more 
 severely censured by Hermogenes than Longinus. The authors of such 
 quaint expressions (as he says) deserve themselves to be buried in such 
 tombs. It is certain that writers of great reputation have used allu- 
 sions of the same nature. Dr. Pearce has produced instances from 
 Ovid, and even from Cicero ; and obsers^ed further, that Gregory 
 Nazianzen has styled those wild beasts that devour men, -i^nning sepul- 
 chres. However, at best they are but conceits, with which little wits 
 in all ages will be dehghted, the great may accidentally slip into, and 
 such as men of true judgment may overlook, but will hardly commend. 
 
L.ONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 styles Xerxes the Persian Jupiter, and calls vultures living 
 sepulchres. Some expressions of CaUisthenes"^ deserve the 
 same treatment, for they are not sublime, but inflated. 
 And Clitarchusf comes under this censure still more, who 
 is like a tree all bark, and blows, as Sophocles expresses it, 
 " on small pipes, but without a mouthpiece." 
 
 Amphicrates, J Hegesias,§ and Matris,|| may all be taxed 
 with the same imperfections. For often, when, in their 
 own opinion, they are all divine, what they imagine to be 
 inspiration, proves empty froth. ^ 
 
 Upon the whole bombast seems to be amongst those faults 
 which are most difficult to be avoided. For all who are 
 naturally inclined to aim at grandeur, in shunning the 
 
 * Callistlienes succeeded Aristotle in the tuition of Alexander the 
 Great, and wrote a history of the affairs of Greece. 
 
 t Clitarchus wrote an account of the exploits of Alexander the 
 Great, having attended him in his expeditions. Demetrius Phalereus, 
 in his treatise on Elocution, has censured his sweUing description of a 
 wasp. " It feeds (says he) upon the mountains, and flies into hollow 
 oaks." It seems as if he v>^as speaking of a wild bull, or the boar of 
 Erymanthus, and not of such a pitiful creature as a wasp. And for this 
 reason, says Demetrius, the description is cold and disagreeable. 
 
 X Amphicrates was an Athenian orator. Being banished to Seleucia, 
 and requested to set up a school there, he replied, with arrogance and 
 disdain, that " The dish was not large enough for dolphins." — 
 Br. Pearce, 
 
 § Hegesias was a Magnesian, Cicero, in his Orator, c. 226, says 
 humourously of him, " He is faulty no less in his thoughts than his 
 expressions, so that no one who has any knowledge of him need ever 
 be at a loss for a man to call impertinent.^* One of his frigid expres- 
 sions is still remaining. Alexander was born the same night that the 
 temple of Diana at Ephesus, the finest edifice in the world, was by a 
 terrible fire reduced to ashes. Hegesias, in a panegyrical declamation 
 on Alexander the Great, attempted thus to turn that accident to his 
 honour : " No wonder (said he) that Diana's temple was consumed by 
 so terrible a conflagration : the goddess was so taken up in assisting at 
 Olinthia's delivery of Alexander, that she had no leisure to extinguish 
 the flames which were destroying her temple." " The coldness of this 
 expression (says Plutarch in Alex.) is so excessively great, that it seems 
 suflicient of itself to have extinguished the fire of the temple." 
 
 I wonder Plutarch, who has given so little quarter to Hegesias, has 
 himself escaped censure, till Dr. Pearce took cognizance of him. " Dul- 
 ness (says he) is sometimes infectious ; for while Plutarch is censuring 
 Hegesias, he falls into his very character." 
 
 II Who Matris was, I cannot find, but commentators observe from 
 Athenaeus, that he wrote in prose an encomium upon Hercules. 
 
 ^ Vid. Cic. 1. 4. Rhet. 
 
 B 2 
 
6 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 censure of impotence and phlegm, are some how or other 
 hurried into this fault, being persuaded that 
 
 In great attempts 'tis glorious ev'n to fall. 
 
 But tumours in writing, like those in the human body, are 
 certain disorders. Empty and veiled over with superficial 
 greatness, they only delude, and work effects contrary to 
 those for which they were designed. Nothing," accord- 
 ing to the old saying, is drier than a person distempered 
 with a dropsy." 
 
 Now this swoln and puffed-up style endeavours to go 
 beyond the true sublime, whereas puerilities are directly 
 opposite to it. They are altogether low and grovelhng, 
 meanly and faintly expressed, and in a word are the most 
 ungenerous and unpardonable errors that an author can be 
 guilty of. 
 
 But what do we mean by a puerility ? Why, it is cer- 
 ftainly no more than a school-boy's thought, which, by too 
 i eager a pursuit of elegance, becomes dry and insipid. And 
 ' those persons commonly fail in this particular, who, by an 
 ill-managed zeal for that which is out of the common way, 
 high wrought, and above all, sweet, run into trumpery and 
 affected expressions. 
 
 To these may be added a third sort of imperfection in 
 the pathetic, which Theodorus has named the parenthyrse, 
 or an ill-timed emotion. It is an attempt to work upon 
 the passions, where there is no need of pathos ; or some 
 excess, where moderation is requisite. For some authors, 
 as if from the effects of intoxication, fall into passionate 
 expressions, which bear no relation at all to their subject, 
 but are whims of their own, or borrowed from the schools. 
 The consequence is, as might be expected, that they meet 
 with nothing but contempt and derision from their un- 
 moved audience ; transported themselves, whilst their 
 hearers are calm, and unexcited. But I have reserved the 
 pathetic for another place. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 TiMJLUS abounds very much in the frigid, the other vice 
 I mentioned ; a writer, it is true, sufficiently skilled in other 
 points, and who sometimes reaches the genuine sublime. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 7 
 
 He was also a person of great erudition, and fertility of 
 thought, but extreme to mark the imperfections of others, 
 and utterly blind to his own ; though a fond desire of new 
 thoughts and uncommon turns has often plunged him into 
 shameful pueriHties. The truth of these assertions I shall 
 confirm by one or two instances alone, since Cecilius has 
 anticipated me in most of them. 
 
 When he commends Alexander the Great, he tells us, 
 
 that he conquered all Asia in fewer years than it took 
 Isocrates to compose his panegyiic on the Persian war." 
 A wonderful parallel indeed, between the conqueror of the 
 world, and a professor of rhetoric ! By your method of com- 
 putation Timseus, the Lacedemonians fall vastly short of 
 Isocrates, in prowess ; for they spent thirty years in the 
 siege of Messene, he only ten in writing that panegyric ! 
 
 But how does he inveigh against those Athenians who 
 were made prisoners after the defeat in Sicily ! " Guilty 
 (says he) of sacrilege against Hermes, and having defaced 
 his images, they now suffered a just retribution, and chiefly 
 at the hands of Hermocrates the son of Hermon, who was 
 paternally descended from the injured deity." Really, my 
 Terentianus, I am surprised that he has not written of 
 Dionysius the tyrant; ^"^that, for his heinous impiety 
 towards Jupiter (or Dia) and Hercules (Heraclea,) he was 
 dethroned by Dion and Heraclides." 
 
 Why should I dwell any longer upon Timseus, when even 
 the very heroes of good writing, Xenophon and Plato, 
 though educated in the school of Socrates, sometimes for- 
 get themselves, and transgress through an affectation of 
 such pretty flourishes? The former, in his Polity of the 
 Lacedemonians, speaks thus : They observe an uninter- 
 rupted silence, and keep their eyes as fixed and unmoved, 
 as if they were so many statues of stone or brass. You 
 might with reason think them more modest"^ than the 
 virgins in their eyes."f Amphicrates might, perhaps, be 
 allowed to use the term modest virgins for the pupils of 
 
 * The reading of this passage of Xenophon in the hest editions, 
 particularly that at Paris by H. Stephens, removes the objection of 
 Longinus, and restores a sense worthy of Xenophon : ** You would 
 think them more modest in their whole behaviour, than virgins in the 
 bridal chamber." 
 
 t The word KSprj, signifying both a virgi7i and the pupil of the eye, 
 has gfiven occasion to these cold insipid turns. 
 
8 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 the eyes ; but what an indecency is it in the great Xeno- 
 phon ? And what a strange persuasion, that the pupils of 
 the eyes should be in general the seats of modesty, when 
 impudence is no where more visible than in the eyes of 
 some ? Homer, for instance, says of an impertinent person, 
 
 Drunkard ! thou dog in eye !* 
 
 Timseus, as if he had found a booty, could not pass by 
 even this insipid turn of Xenophon without appropriating it. 
 Accordingly he speaks thus of Agatliocles : He ra^dshed 
 his own cousin, though married to another person, and on 
 the very day when she was first seen by her husband 
 without a veil ;f a crime, of which none but he who had 
 prostitutes, not virgins, in his eyes, could be guilty." 
 Neither is the otherwise divine Plato to be acquitted of this 
 failing, when he says, for instance; After they are 
 written, they deposit in the temples these cypress memo- 
 rials," meaning the tables of the laws. J And in another 
 passage ; " As to the walls, Megillus, I would join in the 
 opinion of Sparta, to let them sleep supine on the earth, 
 and not to rouse them up."§ Neither does an expression 
 of Herodotus fall short of it, when he calls beautiful 
 women, '^the pains of the eye."|| Though this indeed may 
 admit of some excuse, since in his history it is spoken by 
 drunken barbarians. But it is not good to incur the ridi- 
 cule of posterity for a low conception, though uttered by 
 such characters as these. 
 
 * Iliad. 1. 1. V. 225. 
 
 t " The very day when — a veil." All this is implied in the -word 
 ayaKa\vTrT7}pLa>y. It was the custom throughout Greece, and the Gre- 
 cian colonies, for the unmarried women never to appear in puhUc, or 
 to converse with men, without a veil. The second or third day after 
 marriage, it was usual for the bridegroom to make presents to his 
 bride, which were called avatiaKvurripia, for then she immediately 
 unveiled, and liberty was given him to converse freely with her ever 
 after. — See Potter's Antiquities^ v. ii. 
 
 X Plato 5. Legum. § Plato 6. Legum. 
 
 II " WTien he calls — ctf the eye." The critics ai'e strangely di\dded 
 about the justice of this remark. Authorities are urged, and parallel 
 expressions quoted on both sides. Longinus blames it, but afterwards 
 candidly alleges the only plea which can be urged in its favour, that it 
 was said by drunken barbarians. And who, but such sots, would have 
 given the most delightful objects in nature so rude and uncivil an 
 appellation ? I appeal to the ladies for the propriety of this observation. 
 — Herod. Terpsichore, c. 18. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 9 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Now all such instances of the mean and poor in composi- 
 tion take their rise from the same original ; I mean that 
 eager pursuit of uncommon turns of thought, which most 
 infotuates the writers of the present age. For our excel- 
 lences and defects flow from the same common source. So 
 that those elegant, sublime, and sweet expressions, which 
 contribute so much to success in writing, are frequently 
 made the causes and foundations of opposite failures. This 
 is manifest in hyperboles and plurals ; but the danger 
 attending an injudicious use of these figures, I shall exhibit 
 in the sequel of this work. At present it is incumbent 
 upon me to inquire, by what means we may be enabled to 
 avoid those vices, which border so near upon, and are so 
 easily blended with, the true sublime. # 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 And this may be, if we first of all gain a thorough and 
 critical insight into the nature of the true sublime ; which, 
 however, is by no means an easy acquisition. For to pass a 
 right judgment upon composition is the last result of long 
 experience. Not but that, a power of distinguishing in these 
 things, may perhaps be acquired by attending to some 
 such precepts as I am about to deliver. 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 It should be understood, my dearest friend, that as in the 
 affairs of Hfe there is nothing great, which it is magnani- 
 mous to despise ; as, for example, riches, honours, titles, 
 crowns, and whatever is varnished over with an imposing 
 exterior, can never be regarded as worthy of preference in 
 the opinion of a wise man ; since to think lightly of such 
 things is no ordinary excellence ; for certainly the persons 
 who have ability sufficient to acquire, but scorn them, are 
 more admired than those who actually possess them : much 
 in the same way also must we judge in respect of the sub- 
 lime, both in poetry and prose. We must carefully examine 
 whether some things be not tricked out with this seeming 
 
10 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 grandeur, this imposing exterior of varnish thick laid on, and 
 which, when examined, would be found a mere delusion ; 
 meriting the contempt rather than the admiration of a 
 truly great mind. For* some how or other the soul is natu- 
 rally elevated by the true sublime, and, Hfted up j^ith exul- 
 tation, is filled with transport and inward pride, as if what 
 was only heard had been the product of its own invention. 
 
 He therefore who has a competent share of natural and 
 acquired taste, may easily discover the value of any per- 
 formance from often hearing it. If he finds that it trans- 
 ports not his soul, nor exalts his thoughts ; that it leaves 
 not in his mind matter of more enlarged reflection than 
 the mere sounds of the words convey, but that on attentive 
 examination its dignity lessens and dechnes ; he may con- 
 clude, that whatever pierces no deeper than the ears, can 
 never be the true sublime. For thatf is truly grand and 
 
 * It is remarked in the notes to Boileau's translation, that the great 
 Prince of Conde, upon hearing this passage, cried out, Voila le Sublime ! 
 voila son veritable caractere ! 
 
 t " This is a very fine description of the sublime, and finer still, 
 because it is very sublime itself. But it is only a description ; and it 
 does not appear that Longinus intended, any where in this treatise, to 
 give an exact definition of it. The reason is, because he wrote after 
 Cecilius, who, (as he tells us) had employed all his book, in defining 
 and showing what the subhme is. But since this book of Cecihus is 
 lost, I believe it will not be amiss to venture here a definition of it my 
 own way, which may give at least an imperfect idea of it. This is the 
 manner in which I think it may be defined. The sublime is a certain 
 force in discourse, proper to elevate and transport the soul ; and which 
 proceeds either from grandeur of thought and nobleness of sentiment, 
 or from magnificence of words, or an harmonious, hvely, and animated 
 i • turn of expression ; that is to say, from any one of these particulars 
 % regarded separately, or, what makes the perfect sublime, from these 
 ■ three particulars joined together." 
 
 Thus far are Boileau's own words in his twelfth reflection on Lon- 
 ginus, where, to illustrate the preceding definition, he subjoins an ex- 
 ample from Racine's Athalie, or Abner, of these three particular quali- 
 fications of sublimity joined together. One of the principal officers 
 of the court of Judah represents to Jehoiada, the high-priest, the 
 excessive rage of Athaliah against him and all the Levites ; adding, that, 
 in his opinion, the haughty princess would in a short time come and 
 attack God even in his sanctuary. To this the high-priest, not in the 
 least moved, answers : 
 
 Celui qui met un frein a la fureur des flots, 
 
 Salt aussi des medians arreter les complots, 
 
 Soumis avec respect a sa volonte sainte, 
 
 Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte. 
 
I.ONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 11 
 
 lofty, which the more we consider, the greater ideas we 
 i| conceive of it ; whose force is hard, or rather, impossible 
 i to withstand ; which sinks deep, and makes such impres- 
 sions on the mind as cannot be easily worn out or effaced. 
 In a word, you may pronounce that sublime to be com- 
 ! mendable, and genuine, which pleases all sorts of men at 
 all times. For when persons of different pursuits, habits of 
 life, tastes, ages, principles, agree in the same joint appro- 
 bation of any performance ; then this union of assent, this 
 combination of so many different judgments, stamps a high 
 and indisputable value on that performance, which meets 
 with such general applause. 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 Now there are, if I may so egress it, fi3iaj[er^ C(^^ 
 souiie^s of Jthe ^ublpne, if w^e pre-suppose a talent for 
 speaking, as a common foundation for these five sorts ; and 
 indeed without it, any thing whatever will avail but little. 
 
 I. The first and most potent of these is a fehcitous holdr 
 n ess in the thoughts, as I have laid down in my Essay on 
 XenopTiTOT"^^" 
 
 II. The second is a ^^acjty of intense, and enthusiastic 
 passio n ; and t hese two constituents of the sublime, are for 
 me most part iLe inimediate gifts of nature, whereas the 
 remaining sources depend also upon art. 
 
 III. The third consists in a skilful moulding of figures, 
 which are two-fold, of sentiment and language. 
 
 IV. The fourth is a noble and graceful manner of ex- 
 pression, which is, not only to select significant and elegant 
 words, but also to adorn the style, and embellish it by the 
 assistance of Tropes. 
 
 V. The fifth source of the sublime, which embraces all 
 the preceding, is to construct the periods, with all possible 
 dignity and grandeur. (See chap, xxxix.) 
 
 I proceed next to consider what is comprehended in each - 
 of these sources ; but must first observe, that, of the five, I 
 Cecilius, among other defects, has wholly omitted the pa-Y 
 theScT^'T^ow, if he thought that the grand and pathetic,' 
 as one and the same thing, were always found together, 
 and were naturally inseparable, he was under a mistake. 
 
12 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 For some passions are far removed from grandeur, and are 
 in themselves of a lowly character ;* as pity, grief, fear; 
 and on the contrary, there are many things grand and lofty 
 without any passion ;f as, among a thousand instances, we 
 may see, from what the poet has said, with such exceed- 
 ing boldness, of the Aloides : J 
 
 * " Some passions are," &c. The pathetic without grandeur is 
 preferable to that which is great without passion. Whenever both 
 unite, the passage will be excellent ; and there is more of this in the 
 book of Job, than in any other composition in the world. Longinus 
 has here quoted a fine instance of the latter from Homer, but has pro- 
 duced none of the former, or the pathetic without grandeur. 
 
 When a writer applies to the more tender passions of love and pity, 
 when a speaker endeavours to engage our affections, or gain our esteem, 
 he may succeed well, though there be nothing grand in what he says. 
 Nay, grandeur would sometimes be unseasonable in such cases, as it 
 strikes always at the imagination. 
 
 There is a deal of this sort of pathetic in the words of our Saviour 
 to the poor Jews, who were imposed upon and deluded into fatal errors 
 by the Scribes and Pharisees, who had long been guilty of the heaviest 
 oppression on the minds of the people : (Matt. xi. 28 — 30.) Come 
 unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and 
 lowly in heart, and he shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is 
 easy, and my burden is light." 
 
 So again in Matt, xxiii. 37. after taking notice of the cruelties, inhu- 
 manities, and murders, which the Jewish nation had been guilty of 
 towards those who had exhorted them to repentance, or would have 
 recalled them from their blindness and superstition to the practice of 
 real rehgion and virtue, he on a sudden breaks otF with, 
 
 " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
 them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy 
 children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
 Avings, and ye would not !" 
 
 The expression here is \ailgar and common, the allusion to the hen 
 taken from an object which is daily before our eyes, and yet there is as 
 much tenderness and significance in it as can any where be found in the 
 same compass. 
 
 I beg leave to observe farther, that there is a continued strain of this 
 sort of pathetic in St. PauFs farewell speech to the Ephesian elders in 
 Acts XX. What an effect it had upon his audience is plain from ver. 
 36 — 38. It is scarcely possible to read it seriously without tears. 
 
 t The first book of Paradise Lost is a continued instance of sublimity 
 Avithout passion. The descriptions of Satan and the other fallen 
 angels are very grand, but terrible. They do not so much exalt as ter- 
 rify the imagination. See Mr. Addison's observations. Spectator, No. 339. 
 
 X "The poet." Longinus, as well as many other vsriters, fre- 
 quently styles Homer, by way of eminence, the poet, as if none but 
 he had deserved that title. — Odyss. A. v. 314. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 13 
 
 To raise 
 
 ^ Huge Ossa on Olympus' top they strove, 
 
 And place on Ossa Pelion with its grove ; 
 That heaven itself, thus climb'd, might be assail'd.* 
 
 But the sublimity of what he afterwards adds is yet 
 greater : 
 
 Nor would success their bold attempts have fail'd, &c. 
 
 Among the orators also, all panegyrics, and orations com- 
 posed for pomp and show, may be subHme in every way, 
 but yet are for the most part void of passion. Whence those 
 orators, who excel in the pathetic, scarcely ever succeed as 
 panegyrists ; and those whose talents lie chiefly in pane- 
 gyric, are veiy seldom able in affecting the passions. But, on 
 the other hand, if Cecilius was of opinion, that the pathetic 
 did not contribute to the sublime, and on that account 
 judged it not worth mentioning, he is guilty of an unpar- 
 donable error. For I might confidently aver, that nothing 
 so much raises discourse, as a fine pathos seasonably ap- 
 plied. For it is this that causes it to breathe forth an, 
 energy and fire, resembling the intensity of madness and 
 divine instinct, and inspires it in a manner with the pre- 
 sent god. 
 
 PART 1. 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 But though the first and most important of these divisions, 
 I mean, elevation of thought, be rather a natural than an 
 acquired qualification, yet we ought to spare no pains to 
 educate our souls to grandeur, and impregnate them, as it 
 were, with generous and enlarged ideas. 
 
 "But how," it will be asked, "can this be done?" I 
 hinted in another place, that this sublime is an echo of 
 the inward greatness of the soul. Hence it comes to pass. 
 
 * Milton has equalled, if not excelled, these bold lines of Homer in 
 his fight of angels. See Mr. Addison's fine observations upon it, 
 Spectator, No. 333. 
 
 c 
 
14 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 that a bare thouglit without words challenges admiration, 
 for the sake of its grandeur alone. Such is the silence of 
 Ajax* in the Odyssey, bk. xi. v. 565, which is undoubtedly 
 great, and far loftier than anything he could have said. 
 
 * " The silence of Ajax," &c. Dido in Virgil behaves with the 
 same greatness and majesty as Homer's Ajax. He disdains the con- 
 versation of the man, who, to his thinking, had injuriously defrauded 
 him of the arms of Achilles ; and she scorns to hold conference with. 
 him, who, in her own opinion, had basely forsaken her ; and, by her 
 silent retreat, shows her resentment, and reprimands iEneas more than 
 she could have done in a thousand words. 
 
 Ilia solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat, &c. 
 
 Disdainfully she looked ; then turning round, 
 She fix'd her eyes unmoved upon the ground, 
 And what he looks and swears regards no more 
 Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar. 
 But whirl'd away to shun his hateful sight. 
 Hid in the forest and the shades of night. — Bryden, 
 
 The pathetic, as well as the grand, is expressed as strongly by 
 silence, or a bare word, as in a number of periods. There is an admir- 
 able instance of it in Shakspeare's Juhus Caesar, Act iv. Sc. 4. The 
 preceding scene is wrought up in a masterly manner : we see there, 
 in the truest light, the noble and generous resentment of Brutus, and 
 the hasty choler and as hasty repentance of Cassius. After the recon- 
 ciUation, in the beginning of the next scene, Brutus addresses himself 
 to Cassius. 
 
 Bru. 0 Cassius ! I am sick of many griefs. 
 Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use, 
 If you give way to accidental evils. 
 
 Bru. No man bears sorrow better Portia's dead. 
 
 Cas. Ha! Portia F 
 
 Bru. She is dead. 
 
 Cas. How 'scap'd I killing when I cross'd you so ? 
 
 The stroke is heavier, as it comes unexpected. The grief is abrupt, 
 because it is inexpressible. The heart is melted in an instant, and 
 tears will start at once in any audience that has generosity enough to be 
 moved, or is capable of sorrow and pity. 
 
 When words are too weak, or colours too faint, to represent a pathos, 
 as the poet will be silent, so the painter will hide what he cannot show. 
 Timanthes, in his Sacrifice of Iphigenia, gave Calchas a sorrowful look ; 
 he then painted Ulysses more sorrowful; and afterwards her uncle 
 Menelaus, with all the grief and concern in his countenance which 
 his pencil was able to display. By this gradation he had exhausted the 
 passion, and had no art left for the distress of her father Agamemnon, 
 which required the strongest heightening of all. He therefore covered 
 up his head in his garment, and left the spectator to imagine that ex- 
 cess of anguish which colours were unable to express. 
 
LONGINITS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 15 
 
 To arrive at excellence like this, then, we must needs 
 pre-suppose as the primary cause of it, that an orator of the 
 true genius must have no mean and ungenerous way of 
 thinking. For it is impossible for those who have grovell- 
 ing and servile ideas, or are engaged in sordid pursuits all 
 their Ufe, to produce any thing worthy of admiration, and 
 the praise of all posterity. But grand and sublime expres- 
 sions must in reason flow from them alone, whose concep- 
 tions are stored and big with greatness. And thus it is, 
 that grand thoughts are commonly found to have been 
 uttered by men of the loftiest minds. When Parmenio 
 cried, I would accept these proposals, if I were Alexan- 
 der Alexander replied, And so would I, if I were 
 Parmenio his answer showed the greatness of his mind. 
 
 So the space between heaven and earthf marks out the 
 vast reach and capacity of Homer's genius, when he 
 says, J 
 
 While scarce the skies her horrid head can bound, 
 She stalks on earth. § — Pope, 
 
 * " I would accept these proposals," &c. There is a great gap m 
 the original after these words. The sense has been supplied by the 
 editors from the well-known records of history. The proposals here 
 mentioned were made to Alexander by Darius ; and were no less than 
 his own daughter, and half his kingdom, to purchase peace. They 
 would have contented Parmenio, but were quite too small for the ex- 
 tensive views of his master. 
 
 So when Iphicrates appeared to answer an accusation preferred 
 against him by Aristophon, he demanded of him, " Whether he would 
 have betrayed his country for a sum of money V Aristophon replied 
 in the negative. " Have I then done," cried Iphicrates, " what even 
 you would have scorned to do ?" 
 
 There is the same evidence of a generous heart in the Prince of 
 Orange's reply to the Duke of Buckingham, who, to incline him to an 
 inglorious peace with the French, demanded, what he could do in that 
 desperate situation of himself and his country ? Not live to see its 
 ruin, but die in the last dike." 
 
 These short repUes have more force, show a greater soul, and make 
 deeper impressions, than the most laboured discourses. The soul seems 
 to rouse and collect itself, and then darts forth at once in the noblest 
 and most conspicuous point of view. 
 
 t Dr. Pearce has taken notice of a similar thought in the Wisdom of 
 Solomon : " Thy almighty Word leaped down — it touched the heaven, 
 but it stood upon the earth." Chap, xviii. 15, 16. 
 
 % Iliad, iv. V. 443. 
 
 § See the note to this description of Discord, in Mr. Pope's transla- 
 tion. Virgil has copied it verlatim, but applied it to Fame : — 
 
16 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 This description may with no less justice be applied to 
 Homer's genius than to Discord. 
 
 But what disparity, what a fall there is in Hesiod's* des- 
 
 Ingrediturque solo et caput inter nubila condit. 
 
 Soon grows the pigmy to gigantic size, 
 Her feet on earth, her forehead in the skies. 
 Shakspeare, without any imitation of these great masters, has, by 
 the natural strength of his own genius, described the extent of Slander 
 in the greatest pomp of expression, elevation of thought, and fertility 
 of invention : 
 
 Slander, 
 
 Whose head is sharper than the sword, whose tongue 
 Out-venoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath 
 Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie 
 All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states, 
 Maids, matrons, nay the secrets of the grave, 
 This viperous slander enters. — Cymbeline. 
 And Milton's description of Satan, when he prepares for the combat, 
 is (according to Mr. Addison, Spectator, No. 321.) equally subUme 
 with either the description of Discord in Homer, or that of Fame in 
 Yirgil : 
 
 Satan alarmed. 
 Collecting all his might, dilated stood 
 Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd : 
 His stature reach' d the sky, and on his crest 
 Sat horror plum'd. — 
 * The image of Hesiod, here blamed by Longinus, is borrowed from 
 low life, and has something in it exceedingly nasty. It offends the 
 stomach, and of course cannot be approved by the judgment. This 
 brings to my remembrance the conduct of Milton, in his description of 
 Sin and Death, who are set off in the most horrible deformity. In 
 that of Sin, there is indeed something loathsome ; and what ought to 
 be painted in that manner sooner than Sin ? Yet the circumstances are 
 picked out with the nicest skill, and raise a natural abhorrence of such 
 hideous objects. — 
 
 The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair. 
 But ended foul in many a scaly fold. 
 Voluminous and vast ! a serpent arm'd 
 With mortal sting : about her middle round 
 A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd 
 With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 
 A hideous peal : Yet when they list would creep. 
 If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb. 
 And kennel there ; yet there still bark'd, and howl'd 
 Within, unseen. — 
 Of Death he says. 
 
 Black it stood as night, 
 Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, 
 And shook a dreadful dart. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 17 
 
 cription of Melancholy, if, at least, the poem of the Shield 
 may be ascribed to him ! 
 
 A filthy moisture from her nostrils flow'd.* 
 
 He has not represented his image as terrible, but hateful. 
 On the other hand, with what majesty and pomp does 
 Homer exalt his deities ! 
 
 Far as a shepherd from some spot on high 
 O'er the wide main extends his boundless eye, 
 Through such a space of air, with thund'ring sound, 
 At one long leap th' immortal coursers bound. f — Pope, 
 
 But Milton's judiciousness in selecting such circumstances as tend to 
 raise a just and natural aversion, is no where more visible than in his 
 description of a lazar-house, book 11th. An inferior genius might 
 have amused himself, with expatiating on the filthy and nauseous ob- 
 jects abounding in so horrible a scene, and written perhaps like a 
 surgeon rather than a poet. But Milton aims only at the passions, by 
 showing the miseries entailed upon man, in the most atfecting manner, 
 and exciting at once our horror at the woes of the afflicted, and a gener- 
 ous sympathy in all their afflictions. 
 
 Immediately a place 
 Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark, &c. 
 
 It is too long to quote, but the whole is exceedingly poetic ; the 
 latter part of it sublime, solemn, and touching. We startle and groan 
 at this scene of miseries, in which the whole race of mankind is perpe- 
 tually involved, and of some of which we ourselves must one day be 
 victims. 
 
 Sight so deform, what heart of rock could long 
 Dry-ey'd behold ! 
 
 To return to the remark. There is a serious tm-n, an inborn sedate- 
 ness in the mind, which renders images of ten-or grateful and en- 
 gaging. Agreeable sensations are not only produced by bright and 
 lively objects, but sometimes by such as are gloomy and solemn. It is 
 not the blue sky, the cheerful sunshine, or the smiling landscape, that 
 give us all our pleasure, since we are indebted for no little share of it 
 to the silent night, the distant howling wilderness, the melancholy 
 grot, the dark wood, and hanging precipice. What is terrible cannot 
 be described too well ; what is disagreeable should not be described at 
 all, or at least should be strongly shaded. When Apelles drew the 
 portrait of Antigonus, who had lost an eye, he judiciously took his face 
 in profile, that he might hide the blemish. It is the art of the painter 
 to please, and not to offend the sight. It is the poet's to make us 
 sometimes thoughtful and sedate, but never to raise our distaste by foul 
 and nauseous representations. 
 
 * Hesiod. in Scuto Here. v. 267. f Iliad, e. v. 770. 
 
 c 2 
 
18 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 He measures the leap of the horses hy the extent of the 
 world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding 
 greatness of the space, would not with good reason cry out, 
 that if the steeds of the Deity were to take a second leap, 
 the world itself would want room for it 1" 
 
 How grand too are those creations of the imagination in 
 the combat of the gods \^ 
 
 Heaven in loud thunders bids the trumpet sound, 
 And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.f 
 Deep in the dismal regions of the dead 
 Th^ infernal monarch rear'd his horrid head ; 
 
 * Milton's description of the fight of angels is well able to stand a 
 parallel with the combat of the gods in Homer. His Venus and Mars 
 make a ludicrous sort of appearance, after their defeat by Diomede. 
 The engagement between Juno and Latona has a little of the air of 
 burlesque. His commentators indeed labour heartily in his defence, 
 and discover fine allegories under these sallies of his fancy. This may 
 satisfy them, but is by no means a sufficient excuse for the poet. 
 Homer's excellencies are indeed so many and so great, that they easily 
 incline us to grow fond of those few blemishes which are discernible 
 in his poems, and to contend that he is broad awake, when he is actu- 
 ally nodding. But let us return to Milton, and take notice of the fol- 
 lowing lines : 
 
 Now storming fury rose 
 
 And clamour, such as heard in heav'n, till now, 
 
 Was never ; arms on armour clashing bray'd 
 
 Horrible discord, and the madding wheels 
 
 Of brazen chariots rag'd : dire was the noise 
 
 Of conflict ! over head the dismal hiss 
 
 Of fiery darts in flaming volhes flew. 
 
 And flying vaulted either host with fire. 
 
 So under fiery cope together rush'd 
 
 Both battles main, with ruinous assault 
 
 And inextinguishable rage : all heav'n 
 
 Resounded ; and had earth been then, all earth 
 
 Had to her centre shook. 
 The thought of "fiery arches being drawn over the armies by the 
 flight of flaming arrows," may give us some idea of Milton's lively ima- 
 gination; as the last thought, which is superlatively great, of the 
 reach of his genius : 
 
 And had earth been then, all earth 
 
 Had to her centre shook. 
 He seems apprehensive, that the mind of his readers was not stocked 
 enough with ideas, to enable them to form a notion of this battle ; and 
 to raise it the more, recals to their remembrance the time, or that part 
 of infinite duration in which it was fought, before time was, when this 
 visible creation existed only in the prescience of God. 
 t Iliad, (p. ver. 338. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 19 
 
 Leap'd from his throne, lest Neptune's arm should lay 
 His dark dominions open to the day, 
 And pour in Ught on Pluto's drear abodes, 
 Abhorr'd by men, and dreadful ev'n to gods.* — Pope, 
 
 What a prospect is here, my friend !f The earth laid 
 open to its centre ; Tartarus itself disclosed to view ; the 
 whole world turned upside down and rent in twain ; all 
 things at once — heaven, hell, things mortal and immortal 
 share alike the toil and danger of that battle ! These are 
 terrific representations, but if not allegorically understood, 
 are inapplicable to deity, and violate the laws of propri- 
 ety. J For Homer, in my opinion, when he relates the 
 wounds, the seditions, the retaliations, imprisonments, and 
 tears of the deities, with those evils of every kind under 
 which they languish, has to the utmost of his power exalted 
 the heroes, who fought at Troy, into gods, and degraded 
 the gods into men. Nay, he makes their condition worse 
 than human ; for when man is overwhelmed with misfor- 
 tunes, he has a reserve in the peaceful haven of death. But 
 he makes the infelicity of the gods as everlasting as their 
 nature. 
 
 But how far does he excel those descriptions of the 
 combats of the gods, when he sets a deity in his true light, 
 and paints him in all his majesty, purity, and perfection ; 
 as in that description of Neptune, which has been handled 
 already by several writers : 
 
 Fierce as he pass'd the lofty mountains nod, 
 The forests shake, earth trembled as he trod, 
 And felt the footsteps of th' immortal god.§ 
 
 * Iliad. V. ver. 61. 
 
 t That magnificent description of the combat of the gods, cannot 
 possibly be expressed or displayed in more concise, more clear, or more 
 sublime terms, than here in Longinus. This is the excellence of a true 
 critic, to be able to discern the excellences of his author, and to dis- 
 play his own in illustrating them. — Dr. Pearce. 
 
 % Plutarch, in his treatise on reading the poets, is of the same opi- 
 nion with Longiuus : " When you read (says he) in Homer, of gods 
 thrown out of heaven by one another, or of gods wounded by quarrel- 
 ling with, and snarling at, one another, you may with reason say, 
 
 Here had thy fancy glow'd with usual heat. 
 Thy gods had shone more uniformly great." 
 
 § The deity is described, in a thousand passages of Scripture, in 
 greater majesty, pomp, and perfection, than that in which Homer 
 arrays his gods. The books of Psalms and Job abound in such 
 
20 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep ; 
 
 Th* enormous monsters, rolling o'er the deep, 
 
 Gambol around him on the watery way, 
 
 And heavy whales in awkward measures play ; 
 
 The sea subsiding spreads a level plain, 
 
 Exults and owns the monarch of the main : 
 
 The parting waves before his coursers fly ; 
 
 The wond'ring waters leave the axle dry.* — Pope. 
 
 So likewise the Jewish legislator, no ordinary person, 
 having conceived a just idea of the power of God, has nobly 
 expressed it in the beginning of his law.f **And God 
 
 divine descriptions. That particularly in Psalm xviii ver. 7. — 10, is 
 inimitably grand : 
 
 " Then the earth shook and trembled, the foundations also of the 
 hills moved, and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up 
 a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured : coals 
 were kindled at it. He bowed the heavens also and came down, and 
 darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly, 
 and came flying upon the wings of the wind." So again. Psalm Ixxvii. 
 15 — 19. « The waters saw thee, 0 God, the waters saw thee, and were 
 afraid : the depths also were troubled. The clouds poured out water, the 
 air thundered, g,nd thine arrows went abroad. The voice of thy thunder 
 was heard round about ; the lightnings shone upon the ground, the 
 earth was moved and shook withal. Thy way is in the sea, and thy 
 paths in great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." 
 
 And in general, wherever there is any description of the works of 
 Omnipotence, or the excellence of the divine Being, the same vein of 
 sublimity is always to be discerned. I beg the reader to peruse in this 
 view the following Psalms, xlvi. Ixviii. Ixxvi. xcvi. xcvii. civ. cxxxix. 
 cxlviii. as also chapter iii. of Habakkuk, and the description of the Son 
 of God in the book of Revelation, chap. xix. 11 — 17. 
 
 Copying such sublime images in the poetical parts of Scripture, and 
 heating his imagination with the combat of the gods in Homer, has 
 made Milton succeed so well in his fight of angels. If Homer deserves 
 such vast encomiums from the critics, for describing Neptune with so 
 much pomp and magnificence, how can we sufficiently admire those 
 divine descriptions which Milton gives of the Messiah ? 
 He on the wings of cherub rode subhme 
 On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd 
 Illustrious far and wide. — 
 Before him pow'r Divine his way prepared ; 
 At his command th' up-rooted hills retir'd 
 Each to his place, they heard his voice and went 
 Obsequious : Heav'n his wonted face renewed, 
 And with fresh flowrets hill and valley smil'd. 
 
 * Ihad. xi. ver. 18—27. 
 
 t This divine passage has furnished a handle for many of those who 
 are willing to be thought critics, to show their pertness and stupidity 
 at once. Though bright as the light of which it speaks, they are Wind 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 21 
 
 said, — What? — Let there be light, and there was light. 
 Let the earth be, and the earth was."* 
 
 I hope my friend will not think me tedious, if I add 
 another quotation from the poet, where he treats of mortal 
 things ; that you may see how he is accustomed to mount 
 along with his heroes to heights of grandeur. A thick 
 cloud and embarrassing darkness as of night, envelopes 
 
 to its lustre, and will not discern its sublimity. Some pretend that 
 Longinus never saw this passage, though he has actually quoted it ; 
 and that he never read Moses, though he has left so candid an acknow- 
 ledgment of his spirit. In such company, some, no doubt, will be 
 surprised to find the names of Huet and Le Clerc. They have examined, 
 taken to jneces, and sifted it as long as they were able, yet still they 
 cannot find it sublime. It is simple, say they, and therefore not grand. 
 They have tried it by a law of Horace, misunderstood, and therefore 
 condemn it. 
 
 Boileau undertook its defence, and has gallantly performed it. He 
 shows them, that simpUcity of expression is so far from being opposed 
 to subUmity, that it is frequently the cause and foundation of it ; (and 
 indeed there is not a page in Scripture which abounds not with in- 
 stances to strengthen this remark.) Horace's law, that a beginning 
 should be unadorned, does not by any means forbid it to be grand, 
 since grandeur consists not in ornament and dress. He then shows at 
 large, that whatever noble and majestic expression, elevation of thought, 
 and importance of event, can contribute to sublimity, may be found 
 united in this passage. Whoever has the curiosity to see the particu- 
 lars of this dispute, may find it in the edition of Boileau's works, in 
 four volumes 12mo. 
 
 It is however remarkable, that though Monsieur Huet will not allow 
 the subhmity of this passage in Moses, yet he extols the following in 
 Psalm xxxiii. : " For he spake, and it was done ; he commanded, and it 
 stood fast." 
 
 There is a particularity in the manner of quoting this passage by 
 Longinus, which I think has hitherto escaped observation. " God said 
 — What / — Let there be light," &c. That interrogation between the 
 narrative part and the words of the Almighty himself, carries with it an 
 air of reverence and veneration. It seems designed to awaken the 
 reader, and raise his awful attention to the voice of the great Creator. 
 
 Instances of this majestic simplicity and unaffected grandeur, are to 
 be met with in great plenty through the sacred writings. Such as St. 
 John xi. 43. Lazarus, come forth." St. Matt. viii. 3. " Lord, if 
 thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." — " I will ; be thou clean." And 
 St. Mark iv. 39. where Christ hushes the tumultuous sea into a calm, 
 with " Peace (or rather, be silent,) be still." The waters (says a critic, 
 Sacred Classics, p. 325.) heard that voice, which commanded universal 
 nature into being. They sank at his command, who has the sole privi- 
 lege of saying to that unruly element, Hitherto shalt thou pass, and 
 no further : here shall thy proud waves be stopped." 
 
 * Gen. i. 3. 
 
22 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 the Grecian army, and suspends the battle. Ajax, perplexed 
 what course to take, prays thus : 
 
 Accept a warrior's prayer, eternal Jove ; 
 This cloud of darkness from the Greeks remove ; 
 Give us but light, and let us see our foes. 
 Well bravely fall, though Jove himself oppose.* 
 
 The feelings of Ajax are here expressed to the life : 
 it is Ajax himself. He begs not for life ; a request like 
 that would be beneath a hero. But because in that ham- 
 pering darkness he could display his valour in no illustrious 
 exploit, and his great heart was unable to brook a sluggish 
 inactivity in the field of action, he prays for instant light, 
 not doubting to crown his fall with some meritorious deed, 
 though Jove himself should oppose his efforts. Here, 
 indeed. Homer, like a brisk and favourable gale, swells 
 the fury of the battle ; he is as warm and impetuous as his 
 heroes, or (as he says of Hector) 
 
 With such a furious rage his steps advance, 
 As w^hen the god of battles shakes his lance, 
 Or baleful flames, on some thick forest cast, 
 Swift marching, lay the wooded mountain waste : 
 Around his mouth a foamy moisture stands.f 
 
 Yet Homer himself shows in the Odyssey (the remark I 
 am going to add is necessary on several accounts,) that 
 when a great genius is in decline, a fondness for the fabu- 
 lous clings fast to age. Many arguments may be brought 
 to prove that this poem was written after the Iliad ; but 
 this especially, that in the Odyssey he has introduced the 
 sequel of those calamities, which began at Troy, as so many 
 episodes of the Trojan war ; and that therein he renders 
 to his heroes the tribute of mourning and lamentations, as 
 that which he had previously resolved to be due to them. 
 For, in reality, the Odyssey is no more than the epilogue of 
 the niad : 
 
 There warlike Ajax, there Achilles lies, 
 Patroclus there, a man di^4nely wise ; 
 There too my dearest son. J 
 
 It proceeds, I suppose, from the same cause, that 
 having written the Iliad in the youth and vigour of his 
 genius, he has furnished it with continued scenes of action 
 and combat ; whereas the greatest part of the Odyssey con- 
 sists of narrative, the characteristic of old age. So that, 
 
 * Iliad. x\ii. ver. 645. t Iliad, xv. ver. 605. J Odyss. iii. ver. 109. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 23 
 
 in the Odyssey, Homer may with justice be Hkened to 
 the setting sun, whose grandeur still remains, without the 
 meridian heat of his beams.* For the style is not so grand 
 
 * Never did any criticism equal, much less exceed, this of Loriginus 
 in sublimity. He gives his opinion, that Homer's Odyssey, being the 
 work of his old age, and wTitten in the decline of his life, and in every 
 respect equal to the Iliad, except in violence and impetuosity, may be 
 resembled to " the setting sun, whose grandeur continues the same, 
 though its rays retain not the same fervent heat." Let us here take a 
 view of Longinus, whilst he points out the beauties of the best writers, 
 and at the same time his own. Equal himself to the most celebrated 
 authors, he gives them the eulogies due to their merit. He not only 
 judges his predecessors by the true laws and standard of good writing, 
 but leaves posterity in himself a model and pattern of genius and judg- 
 ment. — Pearce. 
 
 This comparison of Homer to the sun, is certainly an honour to poet 
 and critic. The resemblance is beautiful, and just. He describes 
 Homer in the same elevation of thought, as Homer himself would have 
 set off his heroes. For genius will show its spirit, and in every age and 
 climate display its natural its inherent vigour. This remark will, I hope, 
 be a proper introduction to the following hues of Milton ; where gran- 
 deur, impaired and in decay, is described by an allusion to the sun in 
 echpse, by which our ideas are wonderfully raised to a conception of 
 what it was in all its glory : 
 
 He, above the rest, 
 In shape and gesture proudly eminent. 
 Stood like a tow'r : his form not yet had lost 
 All her original brightness, nor appeared 
 Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess 
 Of glor}^ obscur'd : as when the sun new-ris'n 
 Looks through the horizontal misty air. 
 Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon, 
 In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
 On half the nations, and with fear of change 
 Perplexes monarchs ; darkened so, yet shone 
 Above them all th' archangel. 
 
 That horrible grandeur in which Milton arrays his devils throughout 
 his poem, is an honourable proof of the stretch of his invention, and 
 the sohdity of his judgment. Tasso, in his 4th canto, has opened a 
 council of devils ; but his description of them is frivolous and puerile, 
 savouring too much of old women's tales, and the fantastic dreams of 
 ignorance. He makes some of them walk upon the feet of beasts, and 
 dresses out their resemblance of a human head vdth twisting serpents 
 instead of hair ; horns sprout upon their foreheads, and after them 
 they drag an immense length of tail. It is true, when he makes his 
 Pluto speak (for he has made use of the old poetical names,) he sup- 
 ports his character with a deal of spirit, and puts such words and senti- 
 ments into his mouth as are properly diabohcal. His devil talks some- 
 what like Milton's, but looks not with half that horrible pomp, that 
 height of obscured glory. 
 
24 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 and majestic as that of the IHad ; the subhmity not kept 
 up in so uniform and sustained a manner throughout ; the 
 tides of passion flow not so copiously, nor in such rapid 
 succession ; there is not the same fertility of invention and 
 oratorical energy ; nor is it adorned with such a throng of 
 images drawn from real life ; but like the ocean when he 
 retires within himself, and forsakes his proper bounds, so 
 the genius of Homer still exhibits the ebbing of a mighty tide 
 even in those fabulous and incredible ramblings of Ulysses. 
 Not that I am forgetful of those storms, which are described 
 in several parts of the Odyssey ; of Ulysses' adventures 
 with the Cyclops, and some other instances of the true 
 sublime. No; I am speaking, indeed, of old age, but it is 
 the old age of Homer. However, it is evident, from the 
 whole series of the Odyssey, that there is far more of fiction 
 in it than of real life. 
 
 I have digressed thus far merely for the sake of showing, 
 as I observed, that, in the decline of their vigour, the 
 greatest geniuses are apt to turn aside into trifles. Those 
 stories of shutting up the winds in a bag : of the men fed 
 by Circe like swine, whom Zoilus"^ calls weeping porkers ; 
 of Jupiter's being nursed by doves like one of their young ; 
 of Ulysses in a wreck, when he took no sustenance for ten 
 days ; and those improbabilities about the slaughter of the 
 suitors — all these are undeniable instances of what I have 
 said. Dreams indeed they are, but such as even Jove might 
 dream, f 
 
 Accept, my friend, in further excuse of this inquiry into 
 t]ie character of the Odyssey, my desire of convincing you, 
 that a decrease of the pathetic in great orators and poets 
 
 * " Zoilus." The most infamous name of a certain author, of Thra- 
 cian extraction, who wrote a treatise against the Iliad and Odyssey of 
 Homer, and entitled it, Homer's Reprimand : which so exasperated 
 the people of that age, that they put the author to death, and sacrificed 
 him as it were to the injured genius of Homer. His enterprise was 
 certainly too daring, his punishment undouhtedly too severe. — Pearce. 
 
 t After Longinus had thus summed up the impeifections of Homer, 
 one might imagine, from the usual bitterness of critics, that a heavy 
 censure would immediately follow. But the true critic knows how to 
 pardon, to excuse, and to extenuate. Such conduct is uncommon, but 
 just. We see by it at once the worth of the author, and the candour 
 of the judge. With persons of so generous a bent, his translator has. 
 fared as well as Homer. Mr. Pope's " faults (in that performance) are 
 the faults of a man, but his beauties are the beauties of an angel." — 
 Essay on the Odyssey. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 25 
 
 often ends in the moral kind of writing.* Thus the Odys- 
 sey, furnishing us with ethical narratives relating to that 
 course of life which the suitors led in the palace of Ulysses, 
 has in some degree the air of a comedy, wherein the various 
 manners of men are described. 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 Let us consider next, whether we cannot find out some 
 other means to infuse sublimity into our style. Now, as 
 there are no subjects which are not attended by certain 
 circumstances, which are always found where they exist, 
 a judicious choice of the most suitable of these adjuncts, and 
 a faculty of accumulating them into one body, as it were, 
 must necessarily produce the sublime. For what by the 
 judgment displayed in the cirum stances selected, and what 
 by the skilful combination of them, they cannot but attract 
 the hearer. 
 
 Sappho is an instance of this ; who, in portraying the 
 
 * The word moral does not fully give the idea of the original word 
 ilQos, but our language will not furnish any other that comes so near 
 it. The meaning of the passage is, that great authors, in the youth 
 and fire of their genius, abound chiefly in such passions as are strong and 
 vehement ; but in their old age and decline, they betake themselves 
 to such as are mild, peaceable, and sedate. At first they endeavour to 
 move, to warm, to transport ; but afterwards to amuse, delight, and 
 persuade. In youth, they strike at the imagination ; in age, they speak 
 more to our reason. For though the passions are the same in their 
 nature, yet, at different ages, they differ in degree. Love, for instance, 
 is a violent, hot, impetuous passion ; esteem is a sedate, and cool, and 
 peaceable affection of the mind. The youthful fits and transports of 
 the former, in progress of time, subside and settle into the latter. So 
 a storm is different from a gale, though both are wind. Hence it is, 
 that bold scenes of action, dreadful alarms, affecting images of terror, 
 and such violent turns of passion, as require a stretch of fancy to 
 express or to conceive, employ the vigour and maturity of youth, in 
 which consists the nature of the pathetic; but amusing narrations, 
 calm descriptions, delightful landscapes, and more even and peaceable 
 affections, are agreeable in the ebb of life, and therefore more fre- 
 quently attempted, and more successfully expressed by a declining 
 genius. This is the moral kind of writing here mentioned, and by 
 these particulars is Homer's Odyssey distinguished from his Iliad. 
 The iraQos and 7]Bos so frequently used, and so important in the Greek 
 critics, are fully explained by Quinctilian, in the sixth book of his 
 Institut. Orat. 
 
 D 
 
20 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 cliaracteristics of intense love, always selects her materials 
 from its attendant circumstances, and from the passion as 
 it really exists in nature. But in what particular has she 
 shown her excellence ? In her ability to select those cir- 
 cumstances which are most striking and effective, and after- 
 wards to connect them together. 
 
 Blest as the immortal gods is lie, 
 The youth who fondly sits by thee, 
 And hears, and sees thee all the while 
 Softly speak, and sweetly smile. 
 
 'Twas this depriv'd my soul of rest, 
 And rais'd such tumults in my breast ; 
 For while I gaz'd, in transport tost, 
 My breath was gone, my voice was lost. 
 
 My bosom glow'd ; the subtile flame 
 Ran quick through all my vital frame ; 
 O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung ; 
 My ears with hollow murmurs rung. 
 
 In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd ; 
 My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd ; 
 My feeble pulse forgot to play, 
 I fainted, sunk, and died' away.* — Philips, 
 
 There is a line at the end of this ode of Sappho in the original, 
 which is taken no notice of in the translation, because the sense is 
 complete without it, and if admitted, it would throw confusion on the 
 whole. 
 
 The title of this ode in Ursinus, in the fragments of Sappho, is. To 
 the beloved Fair ; and it is the right. For Plutarch (to omit the tes- 
 timonies of many others,) in his Eroticon, has these words : " The 
 beautiful Sappho says, that at the sight of her beloved fair, her voice 
 was suppressed," &c. Besides, Strabo and Athenseus tell us, that the 
 name of this fair one was Dorica, and that she was loved by Charaxus, 
 Sappho's brother. Let us then suppose that this Dorica, Sappho's 
 infamous paramour, receives the addresses of Charaxus, and admits him 
 into her company as her lover. This very moment Sappho unexpect- 
 edly enters, and, stricken at what she sees, feels tormenting emotions. 
 In this ode, therefore, she endeavours to express that m'ath, jealousy, 
 and anguish, which distracted her with such variety of torture. This, 
 in my opinion, is the subject of the ode. And whoever joins in my 
 sentiments, cannot but disapprove the following verses in the French 
 translation by Boileau : 
 
 Dans les doux transports ou s'egare mon ame : 
 
 And, 
 
 Je tombe dans des douces langueurs. 
 The word doux will in no wise express the rage and distraction of 
 Sappho's mind. It is always used in a contrary sense. Catullus has 
 translated this ode almost verbally, and Lucretius has imitated it in his 
 third book.— Pear c^. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 27 
 
 Are you hot amazed, my friend, to find how in the same 
 moment she is to seek for her soul, her body, her ears, 
 
 The English translation I have borrowed from the Spectator, No. 
 229. It was done by Mr. Philips, and has been very much applauded, 
 though the following line, 
 
 For while I gaz'd, in transport tost, 
 
 and this, 
 
 My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd, 
 will be liable to the same censure with Boileau's douces langumrs. 
 
 A critique on this ode may be seen in the same Spectator. It has 
 been admired in all ages, and besides the imitation of it by Catullus 
 and Lucretius, a great resemblance of it is easily perceivable in Horace's 
 Ode to Lydia, lib. 1, od. 13, and in Virgil's iEneid, lib. 4. 
 
 Longinus attributes its beauty to the judicious choice and grouping 
 of the circumstances attendant upon love. It is certainly a passion that 
 has more prevalent sensations of pleasure and pain, and affects the 
 mind with a greater diversity of impressions than any other. 
 
 Love is a smoke, rais'd with the fume of sighs ; 
 
 Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes : 
 
 Being vex'd, a sea nom'ish'd with lovers' tears ; 
 
 What is it else ? a madness most discreet, 
 
 A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. — Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 The qualities of love are certainly very proper for the management of 
 a good poet. It is a subject on which many may shine in different 
 lights, yet keep clear of all that whining and rant with which the stage 
 is continually pestered. The ancients have scarcely meddled with it 
 in any of their tragedies. Shakspeare has shown it, in all degrees, by 
 different characters in one or other of his plays. Otway has wTOUght 
 it up finely in the Orphan, to raise our pity. Dryden expresses its 
 thoughtless violence very well, in his All for Love. Mr. Addison has 
 painted it both successful and unfortunate, with the highest judgment, 
 in his Cato. But Adam and Eve, in Milton, are the finest picture of 
 conjugal love that ever was drawn. In them it is true warmth of 
 affection, without the violence or fury of passion ; a sweet and reason- 
 able tenderness, without any cloying or insipid fondness. In its sere- 
 nity and sunshine, it is noble, amiable, endearing, and innocent. When 
 it jars and goes out of tune, as on some occasions it will, there is 
 anger and resentment. He is gloomy, she complains and weeps, yet 
 love has still its force. Eve knows how to submit, and Adam to for- 
 give. We are pleased that they have quarrelled, when we see the 
 agreeable manner in which they were reconciled. They have enjoyed 
 prosperity, and will share adversity, together. And the last scene in 
 which we behold this unfortunate couple, is when 
 
 They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, 
 
 Through Eden take their solitary way. 
 
 Tasso, in his Gierusalemme Liberata, has lost no opportunity of 
 embellishing his poem with some incidents of this passion. He even 
 breaks in upon the rules of Epic, by introducing the episode of Ohndo 
 and Sophronia, in his 2d canto : for they never appear again in the 
 
28 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 her tongue, her eyes, her colour, all of them as much absent 
 from her, as if they had never belonged to her ? And what 
 contrary affections she feels together? How she glows, chills, 
 raves, reasons ; for either she is in tumults of alarm, or 
 she is dying away. The effect of which is, that she seems 
 not to be attacked by one alone, but by a combination of 
 affections. 
 
 All the symptoms of this kind are true effects of love ; 
 but the excellence of this ode, as I observed before, consists 
 in the judicious choice and connexion of the most striking 
 circumstances. And it proceeds from his due application 
 of the most formidable incidents, that the poet excels so 
 much in describing tempests. The author of the poem 
 on the Arimaspians deems these things full of terror :^ 
 
 Ye pow'rs, what madness ! How on ships so frail 
 
 (Tremendous thought !) can thoughtless mortals sail? 
 
 For stormy seas they quit the pleasing plain, 
 
 Plant woods in waves, and dwell amidst the main. 
 
 Far o'er the deep (a trackless path) they go, 
 
 And wander oceans in pursuit of woe. 
 
 No ease their hearts, no rest their eyes can find, 
 
 On heav'n their looks, and on the waves their mind ; 
 
 Sunk are their spirits, while their arms they rear. 
 
 And gods are wearied with their fruitless pray'r. — Pope, 
 
 But every impartial reader will discern that these lines are 
 more florid than terrible. But how does Homer raise a 
 description, to mention only example amongst a thousand ! 
 
 poem, and have no share in the action of it. Two of his great per- 
 sonages are a husband and wife, who fight always side by side, and die 
 together. The power, the allurements, the tyranny of beauty, are amply 
 displayed in the coquettish character of Armida, in the 4th canto. He 
 indeed always shows the effects of the passion in true colours ; but 
 then he does more, he refines and plays upon them with fine-spun 
 conceits. He flourishes like Ovid on every httle incident, and recals 
 our attention from the poem, to take notice of the poet's wit. This 
 might be vrriting in the Italian taste, but it is not nature. Homer was 
 above it, in his fine characters of Hector and Andromache, Ulysses and 
 Penelope. The judicious Virgil has rejected it, in liis natural picture 
 of Dido. Milton has followed and improved upon his great masters, 
 with dignity and judgment. 
 
 * Aristaeus, the Proconnesian, is said to have written a poem, called 
 ^ApifxacTreia ; or, of the affairs of the Arimaspians, a Scythian people, 
 situated far from any sea. The hues here quoted seem to be spoken by 
 an Arimaspian, wondering how men dare trust themselves in ships, 
 and endeavouring to describe the seamen in the extremities of a storm. 
 ^Pearce, 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 29 
 
 He bursts upon them all : 
 Bursts as a wave that from the cloud impends, 
 And sweird with tempests on the ship descends ; 
 "White are the decks with foam ; the winds aloud 
 Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud : 
 Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fears, 
 And instant death on ev'ry wave appears.* — Pope, Iliad xv. 624. 
 
 * There is a description of a tempest in Psalm cvii. which runs in 
 a very high vein of sublimity, and has more spirit in it than the 
 applauded descriptions in the authors of antiquity ; because when the 
 storm is in all its rage, and the danger become extreme, almighty 
 power is introduced to calm at once the roaring main, and give pre- 
 servation to the miserable distressed. It ends in that fervency of devo- 
 tion, which such grand occurrences are fitted to raise in the minds 
 of the thoughtful. 
 
 " He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the 
 waves thereof. They mount up to heaven, they go down again to the 
 depths ; their soul is melted away because of trouble. They reel to and 
 fro hke a drunken man, and are at their wit's-end. Then they cry 
 unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their dis- 
 tresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are 
 still. Then are they glad, because they be quiet ; so he bringeth them 
 unto their desired haven. Oh ! that men would praise the Lord for 
 his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men !" 
 
 Shakspeare has, with inimitable art, made use of a storm in his 
 tragedy of King Lear, and continued it through seven scenes. In read- 
 ing it, one sees the piteous condition of those who are exposed to it in 
 open air ; one almost hears the wind and thunder, and beholds the 
 flashes of hghtning. The anger, fury, and passionate exclamations of 
 Lear himself, seem to rival the storm, which is as outrageous in his 
 breast, inflamed and ulcerated by the barbarities of his daughters, as 
 in the elements themselves. We view him 
 
 Contending with the fretful elements, 
 
 Bid the wind blow the earth into the sea. 
 
 Or swell the curled waters 'hove the main, ' 
 
 That things might change or cease : tear his white hair, 
 
 Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage 
 
 Catch in their fury. 
 
 We afterwards see the distressed old man exposed to all the incle- 
 mencies of the weather ; nature herself in hurry and disorder, but he as 
 violent and boisterous as the storm : 
 
 Rumble thy belly-full, spit fire, spout rain; 
 Nor rain, wdnd, thunder, fire, are my daughters ; 
 I tax not you, ye elements ! 
 
 And immediately after, 
 
 Let the great gods. 
 That keep this dreadful thund'ring o'er our heads. 
 Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch. 
 That hast within thee undivulged crimes 
 
 D 2 
 
30 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 Aratus has attempted a refinement upon the last thought, 
 and turned it thus, 
 
 A slender plank preserves them from their fate.* 
 But instead of exciting terror, he only lessens and refines 
 it away ; and besides, he sets a bound to the impending 
 danger, by saying, a plank preserves them," and thus 
 removes it. But the poet does not once for all Hmit the 
 danger, but paints them as all but swallowed up ever and 
 anon by each successive wave. Nay more, by forcing into 
 unnatural composition propositions which ought not to be 
 compounded, and clashing them one against another, as in 
 v7T€K Oavaroio, he has made the verse exhibit signs of agony, 
 corresponding with the calamity it represents ; has mo- 
 delled a striking image of it by the jarring of the words ; 
 
 Unwhipt of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand, 
 Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue, 
 That art incestuous : caitiff, shake to pieces, 
 That under covert and convenient seeming 
 Hast practised on man's life. Close pent-up guilts, 
 Rive your concealing continents, and ask 
 These dreadful summoners grace. 
 The storm still continues, and the poor old man is forced along the 
 open heath, to take shelter in a wretched hovel. There the poet has 
 laid nev^ incidents, to stamp fresh terror on the imagination, by lodging 
 Edgar in it before them. The passions of the old king are so turbulent, 
 that he will not be persuaded to take any refuge. When honest Kent 
 entreats him to go in, he cries. 
 
 Prithee go in thyself, seek thy own ease ; 
 This tempest will not give me leave to ponder 
 On things would hurt me more-^ 
 Nay, get thee in ! I'll pray, and then I'll sleep — 
 Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are. 
 That 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm ! 
 How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides. 
 Your loop'd and wdndow'd raggedness, defend you 
 From seasons such as these ? — Oh ! I have ta'en 
 Too little care of this ! Take physic, pomp, 
 Expose thyself to feel what wTetches feel. 
 That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, 
 And show the heav'ns more just. — 
 
 The miseries and disorders of Lear and Edgar are then painted with 
 such judicious horror, that every imagination must be strongly affected 
 by such tempests in reason and nature. I have quoted those passages 
 which have the moral reflections in them, since they add solemnity to 
 the terror, and alarm at once a variety of passions. 
 
 * Arati Phaenomen. ver. 299. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 31 
 
 and has all but stamped the peculiar character of the 
 danger upon his diction.* So Archilochus in describing a 
 wreck, and Demosthenes, where he relates the confusion at 
 Athens, upon the arrival of ill news. It was (says he) in 
 the evening," &c.t So to speak, they reviewed their forces, 
 and culling out the flower of them, combined them into 
 one body, from which everything trumpery, or undignified, 
 or puerile, was excluded. For such expressions, like un- 
 sightly bits of matter, or fissures, entirely mar the beauty 
 of those parts which, when fitly framed together and built 
 up coherently, constitute the subHme. 
 
 SECTION XL 
 
 There is another excellence in close connexion with the 
 former, which they call ampHfication ; when (for the 
 matters and causes on which we write or debate, admit of 
 many beginnings, and pauses in the several divisions of the 
 work) sublime ideas, introduced one after another, are 
 
 * The beauty Longinus here commends in Homer, of making the 
 words correspond with the sense, is one of the most excellent that can 
 be found in composition. The many and refined observations of this 
 nature in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, are an evidence how exceedingly 
 fond the ancients were of it. There should be a style of sound as well 
 as of words, but such a style depends on a great command of language, 
 and a musical ear. We see a great deal of it in Milton, but in Mr. 
 Pope it appears to perfection. It would be folly to quote examples, 
 since they can possibly escape none who can read and hear. 
 
 t The whole passage in Demosthenes' oration runs thus : ^* It was 
 evening when a courier brought the news to the magistrates of the 
 surprisal of Elatea. Immediately they arose, though in the midst 
 of their repast. Some of them hurried away to the Forum, and 
 driving the tradesmen out, set fire to their shops. Others fled to 
 advertise the commanders of the army of the news, and to summon the 
 public herald. The whole city was full of tumult. On the morrow, 
 by break of day, the magistrates convene the senate. You, gentlemen, 
 obeyed the summons. Before the pubhc council proceeded to debate, 
 the people took their seats above. When the senate were come in, the 
 magistrates laid open the reasons of their meeting, and produced the 
 courier. He confirmed their report. The herald demanded aloud, 
 Who would harangue? Nobody rose up. The herald repeated the 
 question several times. In vain : nobody rose up : nobody harangued ; 
 though aU the commanders of the army were there, though the orators 
 were present, though the common voice of our country joined in the 
 petition, and demanded an oration for the public safety." 
 
32 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 made to ascend by a continued gradation.* Now tliis may 
 be done in handling a common place, in aggravating or 
 increasing the strength of facts or arguments, or in con- 
 structing a climax of actions or passions, for there are ten 
 thousand kinds of amplifications. But the orator must 
 never forget this maxim, that there cannot be perfec- 
 tion, in things however amplified, without a sentiment 
 which is truly sublime, unless when we move compassion, 
 or make things appear trifling and contemptible. But in 
 all other methods of amplification, if you take away the 
 sublime meaning, you separate, as it were, the soul from the 
 body. For no sooner are they deprived of this necessary 
 support, but they grow dull and languid, and lose all their 
 vigour and nerve. 
 
 Wherein what I have said now differs from what went 
 immediately before ; for my design was then to show how 
 much a judicious choice and an artful connexion of striking 
 ideas heighten a subject ; and generally in what respect 
 sublimity differs from amplification, must be briefly defined, 
 were it only for the sake of perspicuity. 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 Now I can by no means approve of the definition which 
 writers of rhetoric give of amplification. ^'Amplification 
 (say they) is a form of words aggrandizing the subject." 
 For evidently this definition may equally serve for the sub- 
 lime, the pathetic, and the application of tropes ; for these 
 
 * There is a very beautiful amplification in Archbishop Tillotson's 
 12th sermon: — 
 
 " 'Tis pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many 
 others : 'Tis pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves : 
 Nay, 'tis pleasant even to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is 
 victory : 'Tis pleasant to command om' appetites and passions, and to 
 keep them in due order, within the bounds of reason and religion, 
 because this is empire." 
 
 But no author amplifies in so noble a manner as St. Paul. He rises 
 gradually from earth to heaven ; from mortal man to God himself. 
 
 For all things are yours, whether Paul, or ApoUos, or Cephas, or the 
 world, or life, or death, or tilings present, or things to come: all are 
 vours ; and ve are Christ's ; and Christ is God's." — 1 Cor. iii. 21 — 23. 
 See also Rom. vdi, 29, 30. 38, 39. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 33 
 
 also invest discourse with a kind of greatness. In my 
 opinion, they differ from one another in that subhmity 
 consists in loftiness, but amplification in number also ; for 
 which cause the former is often visible in one single 
 thought ; the other can only subsist in conjunction with a 
 certain quantity and exuberance. 
 
 Amplification, therefore, to give an outline of it, is a 
 full and complete assemblage of the particulars and argu- 
 ments appertaining to subjects, giving additional strength 
 to and heightening a point that has been already made 
 out ; and difiering from proof in this, that proof demon- 
 strates the matter in debate 
 
 .... (There is a chasm in the original here ;) his eloquence, 
 superlatively rich and exuberant, is spread, like a sea, into 
 expansive greatness every way. It is for this cause, I think, 
 that the orator, (probably Demosthenes) as being more 
 impassioned, exhibits, as might be expected, so much of 
 fire, such bursts of flaming indignation : but the other, 
 (probably, Plato) naturally stately, magnificent, and lofty, 
 is not chargeable, indeed, with a want of fervour, but yet 
 has not the condensed and concentrated force of the other. 
 And it is in no other respect, my dearest Terentianus, if, 
 at least, .we Greeks may be permitted to pronounce a 
 judgment, that Cicero and Demosthenes differ in their 
 sublimity. For the sublime of Demosthenes is, for the 
 most part, sudden and concise : that of Cicero, diffuse and 
 consecutive. Again, our countryman, by reason of the 
 force, nay the rapidity, strength, and impetuosity, with 
 which he, in a manner, burns and bears down at once all 
 before him, may be likened to a tornado, or a thunderbolt : 
 but Cicero, to my thinking, like some wide-spreading con- 
 flagration, rolls on devouring on all sides, with fires exhaust- 
 less, incessant, and abiding, dealt out, now here, now there, 
 from their own central stores, and drawing fresh vigour 
 from successive advances. But of these matters you can 
 better judge than I can. Now the proper season for applying 
 a sublime so intense as that of Demosthenes, is when things 
 are to be portrayed in the deepest colours ; where vehement 
 passion is to be expressed ; and where it is expedient to 
 strike the hearer with astonishment all at once : but the 
 season for employing the diffuse kind is when it is required 
 to pour a shower of gentler influences upon the hearer. For 
 the latter is adapted to the discussion of common places, 
 
34 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 the generality of perorations, digressions, all narratives and 
 panegyrical orations, histories, physiological dissertations, 
 and no few other kinds. 
 
 SECTION XIII. 
 
 That Plato, indeed, for I will return to him, though his 
 eloquence is as the noiseless lapse of a mighty river, is 
 nevertheless sublime, you cannot be ignorant, when you 
 have read the following specimen in his Republic : They, 
 says he, that are unprincipled in the lore of wisdom and 
 virtue, and give themselves wholly to feasting and the Hke, 
 are urged, as it seems, by a downward impulse, and thus 
 pass their whole life under a delusion. For they have never 
 lifted up their eyes to look on truth, nor been moved by any 
 aspirations after her, nor have experienced the taste of durable 
 and unpolluted pleasure ; but, like the beasts, with eyes for 
 ever downward bent, stooping towards the earth and bend- 
 ing over tables, they feed their appetites and lusts ; and to 
 obtain a larger share of these things, so insatiable are their 
 desires, they kick, and gore, and slay each other with horns 
 and hoofs of iron." And this man instructs us, if we would 
 but listen to him, that there is also some other way, besides 
 those already mentioned, which leads to things sublime. 
 And what way is this, and what is its nature ? It is to 
 imitate and emulate the great historians and poets of former 
 days. And be this, my dearest friend, our lixed and sted- 
 fast aim. For many are they that are moved to a divine 
 enthusiasm by another's spirit, in the same manner as fame 
 records, that when the Pythoness, draws nigh the sacred 
 tripod, (where, as they say, the cleft earth breathes an 
 inspiring exhalation) she is thereby impregnated with the 
 divine influence and forthwith breaks out in strains of pro- 
 phecy, according as the Deity inspires her. Thus it is that 
 from the sublime geniuses of the ancients certain effluvia are 
 wafted to the souls of those that emulate them, as from the 
 sacred caverns ; by whose inspiration, even such as are not 
 over-gifted of Phoebus, catch enthusiasm from the sublimi- 
 ties of others. Was Herodotus the only devoted imitator 
 of Homer ? Stesichorus was so before him ; and so was 
 Archilochus ; but more than all of them, Plato, who, from 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 35 
 
 f 
 
 the famed Homeric fountain, has drawn water by ten thou- 
 sand by-streams to irrigate his own genius. And, perhaps, it 
 were needful for me to point out instances, had not Ammo- 
 nius and his disciples given a classified list of them. Nor 
 is this plagiarism ; but to take a hint from models of poetic 
 fiction or works of art is as defensible as to copy good manners. 
 Neither do I think that Plato would have displayed so much 
 vigour in delivering his philosophical doctrines, and so often 
 have soared to the matter and diction of ]f)oetry, had he not 
 strenuously entered the lists, even with Homer, and disputed 
 the palm with him, like some undistinguished champion 
 that matches himself with one who has already engrossed 
 the admiration of the world. The attack was perhaps too 
 rash, the opposition perhaps had too much the air of enmity, 
 but yet it could not fail of some advantage ; for, as Hesiod 
 says. 
 
 Such brave contention works the good of men.* 
 And, assuredly, glorious are the efibrts, worthy our 
 highest ambition, the crown in this contest for pre-eminence 
 of fame, wherein even to be worsted by the heroes of former 
 days, is unattended with dishonour. 
 
 SECTION XIV. 
 
 Wherefore whenever we too are engaged in a work which 
 requires grandeur of style and exalted sentiments, it 
 were good to raise in ourselves such reflections as these ? 
 —How in this matter would Homer, as the case may be, 
 or Plato, or Demosthenes, have raised their thoughts ? 
 Or if it be historical — how would Thucydides ? For these 
 persons, being set before us, and appearing, as it were, in 
 bright array, as patterns for our imitation, will in some 
 degree raise our souls to the standard we have pictured to 
 our imaginations. It will be yet of greater use, if to the 
 preceding reflections we add these — What would Homer or 
 Demosthenes have thought of this piece ? or how would 
 they have been aflected by it ? For of a truth it is no light 
 contest we engage in, when we set before us such a tribunal 
 and such an auditory, to adjudicate upon our own perform- 
 
 * Hesiod. in operibus et diebus, v. 24. 
 
36 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 ances ; and are possessed with the idea, though but in ima- 
 gination, that we are submitting our writings to the scrutiny 
 of such distinguished characters, who are at once both our 
 judges and witnesses. There is yet another motive which 
 may yield still more powerful incitements, if we ask our- 
 selves — ^What would all posterity think of me, if they heard 
 these writings of mine recited ? But if any one, in the 
 moments of composing, should apprehend that his perform- 
 ance may not be able to survive him and endure, the con- 
 ceptions of a soul so affected must needs be crude and 
 imperfect, hke things born out of due season, so that they 
 can never attain to the praise of future ages. 
 
 SECTION XV. 
 
 Visions, moreover, which by some are called images, con- 
 tribute very much, dear youth, to the weight, magnificence, 
 and effect of compositions. The name of image is given in 
 common to any idea, howsoever presented to the mind, which 
 is communicable to others by discourse ; but a more particular 
 sense of it has now prevailed : When the imagination is 
 so warmed and affected, that you seem to behold yourself 
 the very things you are describing, and to display them to 
 the life before the eyes of an audience, it is called an 
 image.'' 
 
 You cannot be ignorant that rhetorical and poetical 
 images have a different intent. That the design of a poeti- 
 cal image is to set the subject palpably before the eyes ; of 
 a rhetorical to strike the imagination. However, both 
 require that the mind should be powerfully moved to pro- 
 duce them. 
 
 Pity thy offspring, mother, nor provoke 
 Those vengeful furies to torment thy son.* 
 
 * Virgil refers to this passage in his fom-th ^neid, v. 470. 
 
 Aut Agamemnonius scenis agitatus Orestes, 
 Armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris 
 Cum fugit, ultricesque sedent in hmine Dirae. 
 
 Or mad Orestes when his mother's ghost 
 
 Full in his face infernal torches toss'd, 
 
 And shook her snaky locks : he shuns the sight. 
 
 Flies o'er the stage,, surprised with mortal fright, 
 
 The furies guard the door and intercept the flight. — Dryden. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 37 
 
 What horrid sights ! how glare their bloody eyes ! 
 How twisting snakes curl round their venom'd heads ! 
 In deadly wrath the hissing monsters rise, 
 Forward they spring, dart out, and leap around me. — 
 
 Euripid, Orestes, ver. 255. 
 
 And again : 
 
 Alas ! — she'll kill me ! — whither shall I fly ? — 
 
 Id, Iphigen. Taur. ver, 408. 
 
 " There is not (says Mr. Addison, Spectator, No. 421,) a sight 
 in nature so horrifying as that of a distracted person, when his 
 imagination is troubled, and his whole soul disordered and confused : 
 Babylon in ruins is not so melancholy a spectacle." 
 
 The distraction of Orestes, after the murder of his mother, is a fine 
 representation in Euripides, because it is natural. The consciousness 
 of what he has done is uppermost in his thoughts, disorders his fancy, 
 and confounds his reason. He is strongly apprehensive of Divine ven- 
 geance, and the violence of his fears places the avenging fmies before 
 his eyes. Whenever the mind is harassed by the stings of conscience, 
 or the horrors of guilt, the senses are liable to infinite delusions, 
 and startle at hideous imaginary monsters. The poet, who can touch 
 such incidents v^th happy dexterity, and paint such images of con- 
 sternation, will infalhbly work on the minds of others. This is what 
 Longinus commends in Euripides ; and here it must be added, that no 
 poet in this branch of writing can enter into a parallel with Shakspeare. 
 
 When Macbeth is preparing for the mxurder of Duncan, his imagina- 
 tion is big with the attempt, and is quite upon the rack. Within, his 
 soul is dismayed with the horror of so black an enterprise ; and every 
 thing without looks dismal and affrighting. His eyes rebel against 
 his reason, and make him start at images that have no reality. — 
 
 Is this a dagger which I see before me. 
 
 The handle tow'rd my hand ? come, let me clutch thee ! 
 
 I have thee not — and yet I see thee still. 
 
 He then endeavours to summon his reason to his aid, and convince 
 himself that it is a mei^ chimera ; but in vain, the terror stamped on 
 his imagination will not be shaken off : 
 
 I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
 As this which now I draw. 
 
 Here he makes a new attempt to reason himself out of the delusion, 
 but it is quite too strong : — 
 
 I see thee still, 
 And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, 
 Which was not so before. There's no such thing. 
 
 The delusion is described in so skilful a manner, that the audience 
 cannot but share the consternation, and start at the visionary dagger. 
 
 The genius of the poet v^ll appear more surprising, if we consider 
 how the horror is continually worked up, by the method in which the 
 perpetration of the murder is represented. The contrast between 
 
 E 
 
38 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 Here the poet himself saw the furies, and has well nigh 
 compelled his audience to see what his imagination pre- 
 sented to him. Euripides indeed has laboured very much 
 to give full effect to the two passions of madness and love, 
 and has succeeded much better in these, I think, than 
 in any other; not that he wants confidence to attempt 
 images of a different kind. For though his genius was not 
 naturally great, yet in many instances he even forced it up 
 to the true spirit of tragedy ; and that he may always rise 
 where his subject demands it, (to borrow an allusion from 
 the poet.) — Iliad, xx.ver. 170. 
 
 Lash'd by liis tail his heaving sides incite 
 His courage, and provoke himself for fight. 
 
 The foregoing assertion is evident from that passage, 
 where Sol delivers the reins of his chariot to Phaeton : 
 
 Drive on, but cautious shun the Lybian air ; 
 That hot unmoisten'd region of the sky 
 "Will drop thy chariot.* — Eurip. Fragment, 
 
 Macbeth and his wife is justly characterized, by the hard-hearted 
 villany of the one, and the qualms of remorse in the other. The least 
 noise, the verv sound of their own voices, is shocking and frightful to 
 both : 
 
 Hark ! peace ! 
 It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bell-man, 
 Which gives the stern' st good-night — he is about it. — 
 And again, immediately after. 
 
 Alack ! I am afraid they have awak'd. 
 And 'tis not done : th' attempt, and not the deed. 
 Confounds us. — Hark ! — I laid their daggers ready, 
 He could not miss them. 
 
 The best way to commend it, as it deserves, would be to quote 
 the whole scene. The fact is represented in the same affecting horror 
 as would rise in the mind at sight of the actual commission. Every 
 single image seems reality, and alarms the soul. They seize the whole 
 attention, stiffen and benumb the sense, the very blood curdles and 
 runs cold, through the strongest abhorrence and detestation of the 
 crime. 
 
 * This passage, in all probability, is taken from a tragedy of Euripides, 
 named Phaeton, which is entirely lost. Ovid had certainly an eye to 
 it in his Met. 1 . ii. when he puts these lines into the mouth of Phoebus, 
 resigning the chariot of the sun to Phaeton : — 
 
 Zonarumque trium contentus fine, polumque 
 Effugit australem, junctamque aquilonibus arcton : 
 Hac sit iter : manifesta rotae vestigia cernes. 
 Utque ferant aequos et coelum et teiTa calores. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 39 
 
 And a little after. 
 
 Thence let the Pleiads point thy wary course. 
 Thus spake the god. Th' impatient youth with haste 
 Snatches the reigns, and vaults into the seat. 
 He starts ; the coursers, whom the lashing whip 
 Excites, outstrip the winds, and whirl the car 
 High through the airy void. Behind, the sire, 
 Borne on his planetary steed, pursues 
 With eye intent, and warns him with his voice. 
 Drive there ! — now here ! — here ! turn the chariot here ! — 
 
 Id, Fray^ 
 
 Now, would you not say, that the soul of the poet mounts 
 the chariot along with the rider, and that, borne on wings 
 as well as the steeds, it shared the danger of the enterprise ? 
 For, had it not been hurried on with the same rapidity as 
 those creatures of heaven, it could never have conceived so 
 grand an image of it. There are some parallel images in 
 his Cassandra 
 
 Ye martial Trojans, &c. 
 ^schylus has made bold attempts in noble and truly 
 heroic images ; as, in one of his tragedies, the seven com- 
 
 Nec preme, nec summum moiire per aethera currura, 
 Altius egressus, coelestia tecta cremabis; 
 Inferius terras : medio tutissimus ibis. 
 
 Drive 'em not on directly through the skies, 
 
 But where the Zodiac's winding circle lies, 
 
 Along the midmost zone ; but sally forth. 
 
 Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north, 
 
 The horses' hoofs a beaten track will show : 
 
 But neither mount too high, nor sink too low ; 
 
 That no new fires or heav'n or earth infest ; 
 
 Keep the mid-way, the middle way is best. — Addison, 
 
 The sublimity which Ovid here borrowed from Euripides he has 
 diminished, almost vitiated, by flourishes. A sublimer image caii 
 no where be found than in the song of Deborah, after Sisera's defeat, 
 (Judges, V. 28,) where the vain-glorious boasts of Sisera's mother, 
 when expecting his return, and, as she was confident, his victorious 
 return, are described : 
 
 " The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through 
 the lattice. Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the 
 wheels of his chariots ? Her wise ladies answered her ; yea, she 
 returned answer to herself: Have they not sped ? have they not divided 
 the prey ? to every man a damsel or two ; to Sisera a prey of divers 
 colours, a prey of divers colours of needle-work, of divers coloiu-s 
 or needle- work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the 
 spoil ?" — Pearce. 
 
 * The Cassandra of Euripides is now entirely lost. 
 
40 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 manders against Thebes, without betraying the least sign 
 of pity or regret, bind themselves by oath not to survive 
 Eteocles : — 
 
 The seven, a warlike leader each in chief, 
 Stood round ; and o'er the brazen shield they slew 
 A sullen bull; then plunging deep their hands 
 Into the foaming gore, with oaths invok'd 
 Mars, and Enyo, and blood-thirsting terror.* 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, the thoughts of this author are unpo- 
 lished and like a fleece undressed and rough, and yet Euri- 
 pides, from the impulse of emulation, ventures even on the 
 same perilous extremes. In iEschylus, the palace of Lycur- 
 gus is represented as being afiected by the sudden appear- 
 ance of Bacchus in a strange and startHng manner : 
 
 The frantic dome and roaring roofs convulsed. 
 Reel to and fro, instinct with rage divine. 
 
 Euripides has expressed the same idea dificrently, soften- 
 ing down its asperity : 
 
 * The following image in Milton is great and dreadful. The fallen 
 angels, fired by the speech of their leader, are too violent to yield to his 
 proposal in words, but assent in a manner that at once displays the 
 art of the poet, gives the reader a terrible idea of the fallen angels, and 
 imprints a dread and horror on the mind : 
 
 He spake ; and to confirm his words, out flew 
 Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs 
 Of mighty cherubim : the sudden blaze 
 Far round ilium in'd hell ; highly they rag'd 
 Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms 
 Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war, 
 HurHng defiance tow'rd the vault of heav'n. 
 
 How vehemently does the fury of Northumberland exert itself in 
 Shakspeare, when he hears of the death of his son Hotspur. The rage 
 and distraction of the surviving father shows how important the son 
 was in his opinion. Nothing must be, now he is not : nature itself 
 must fall with Percy. His grief renders him frantic, his anger desperate : 
 
 Let heav'n kiss earth ! now let not nature's hand 
 Keep the wild flood confin'd : let order die. 
 And let this world no longer be a stage 
 To feed contention in a ling'ring act : 
 But let one spirit of the first-born Cain 
 Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set 
 On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, 
 And darkness be the burier of the dead. 
 
LONGINTJS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 41 
 
 The vocal mount in agitation shakes, 
 
 And echoes back the Bacchanalian cries.* — Eurip. Baccha^ v. 725. 
 Sophocles has succeeded nobly in his images, where he 
 describes his (Edipus dying, and burying himself in the 
 midst of a portentous tempest ; and in the departure of the 
 Grecian fleet, and on the ghost of Achilles appearing upon 
 his tomb when the Greeks were setting sail.f But I know 
 not whether any one has embodied that apparition more 
 
 * Tollius is of opinion, that Longinus blames neither the thought of 
 Euripides nor iEschylus, but only the word jSa/cxeuei, which, he says, 
 has not so much sweetness, nor raises so nice an idea, as the word 
 (Tvfi^aKx^vei. Dr. Pearce thinks iEschylus is censured for making the 
 palace instinct with Bacchanalian fury, to which Euripides has given 
 a softer and sweeter turn, by making the mountain only reflect the cries 
 of the Bacchanals. 
 
 There is a daring image, with an expression of a harsh sound, on 
 account of its antiquity, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, which may parallel 
 that of iEschylus : 
 
 She foul blasphemous speeches forth did cast, 
 
 And bitter curses horrible to tell ; 
 
 That ev'n the temple wherein she was plac'd. 
 
 Did quake to hear, and nigh asunder brast. 
 
 Milton shows a greater boldness of fiction than either Euripides or 
 ^schylus, and tempers it with the utmost propriety, when, at Adam's 
 eating the forbidden fruit. 
 
 Earth trembled from her entrails, as again 
 
 In pangs, and nature gave a second groan ; 
 
 Sky lower'd, and mutt'ring thunder some sad drops 
 
 Wept, at completing of the mortal sin. 
 
 t The tragedy of Sophocles, where this apparition is described, is 
 entirely lost. Dr. Pearce observes, that there is an unhappy imitation 
 of it in the beginning of Seneca's Troades ; and another in Ovid. Metam. 
 lib. xiii. 441, neat without spirit, and elegant without grandeur. 
 
 Ghosts are very frequent in English tragedies ; but ghosts, as well 
 as fairies, seem to be the peculiar province of Shakspeare. In such 
 circles none but he could move with dignity. That in Hamlet is intro- 
 duced with the utmost solemnity, awful throughout, and majestic. At 
 the appearance of Banquo in Macbeth (Act iii. Sc. 5,) the images are 
 set off in the strongest expression, and strike the imagination vrith high 
 degrees of horror, which is supported with surprising art through the 
 whole scene. 
 
 There is a fine touch of this nature in Job iv. 13, " In thoughts from 
 the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on 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 — before mine 
 eyes — silence — and I heard a voice, — Shall mortal man be more just 
 than God ?" &c. &c. 
 
 E 2 
 
42 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 vividly than Simonides. To quote all these instances at 
 large would be endless. 
 
 But images in poetry are pushed to a fabulous excess, as I 
 said, and passing the bounds of probability : whereas in 
 oratory, the most beautiful are such as are most forcible 
 and truthful. It is also a grave offence, and an absurd 
 departure from propriety, when the fictions of oratory are 
 of a poetical and fabulous character, and run into absolute 
 impossibilities. Even as in this our day, the most accom- 
 plished orators see furies, as if they were tragic poets, and 
 with all their genius never discover, that when Orestes 
 exclaims — {Orestes v. 264,) 
 
 Loose me, thou fury, let me go, tormentress : 
 Close you embrace, to plunge me headlong down 
 Into th' abyss of Tartarus — 
 he fancies these things, because he is mad. 
 
 What, then, is the true use of images in oratory ? They 
 |are, perhaps, capable, in many ways, of adding both nerve 
 land passion to our speeches, but also, if the images be 
 I skilfully blended with the proofs and descriptions, they not 
 only persuade, but subdue an audience. If any one (says 
 Demosthenes) should hear a sudden outcry before the 
 tribunal, whilst another brings the news that the prison is 
 burst open and the captives escaped, no man, either young 
 or old, would be of so abject a spirit as to refuse his utmost 
 assistance. But if another should stand forth and say, this 
 man is the author of these disorders, the accused would be 
 condemned without even a hearing." 
 
 So Hyperides, when he was accused of passing an illegal 
 decree, for giving liberty to slaves, after the defeat of 
 Chseronea ; "It was not an orator," said he, "that made 
 this decree, but the battle of Chseronea." For at the same time 
 that he argues the point in a matter of fact way, he inter- 
 mixes an image of the battle, and, by that stroke of art, has 
 passed the bounds of mere persuasion. Now it is natural 
 to us, on all subjects of this sort, to hearken to that which 
 is the more forcible ; whence it is, that we are drawn 
 off from the proof to the astounding effect of the image, in 
 the brightness of whose rays the argumentative portion 
 is obscured. And that our minds arc thus affected is not to 
 be wondered at, since, when two things are placed together, 
 the stronger attracts to itself the virtue and efficacy of the 
 weaker. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 43 
 
 These observations will, I fancy, be sufficient, concerning 
 that sublime which belongs to the sense, and takes its rise 
 either from elevation of thought, imitation, or images. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The Pathetic, which the author, sect. viii. laid down for 
 the second source of the sublime, is omitted here, because 
 it was reserved for a distinct treatise. — See sect. xliv. with 
 the note. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 SECTION XVI. 
 
 The topic that comes next in order, is that of figures ; for 
 these, when judiciously used, as I said, form no trivial part 
 of greatness. But since it would be tedious, or rather 
 infinite labour, exactly to describe all the species of them, 
 I will carefully consider a few of those which contribute 
 most to elevation of style, with the view of establishing my 
 proposition. 
 
 Demosthenes is producing proofs of his upright be- 
 haviour as a public servant. Now, what was the most 
 natural method of doing this? ''You were not in the 
 wrong, Athenians, when you courageously ventured your 
 lives in fighting for the liberty and safety of Greece ; and of 
 this you have domestic examples. For neither were they in 
 the wrong who fought at Marathon, who fought at Salamis, 
 who fought at Platsese." But when, filled, as it were, with 
 sudden inspiration of the Deity, and Hke one possessed, he 
 thunders out that oath, by the champions of Greece ; ''You 
 were not in the wrong, no, jow could not be, I swear, by 
 them that jeoparded their lives for their country in the field 
 of Marathon," he seems, by this one figure of swearings 
 which, in this case, I call an apostrophe, to have enrolled 
 their ancestors among the gods ; while suggesting to them, 
 that they ought to swear by persons, who fell so gloriously, 
 as by so many gods ; to have inspired his judges with the 
 generous sentiments of those devoted patriots ; to have 
 changed what was naturally a proof, into an appeal tran- 
 
44 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 sceiidantly sublime and affecting, aided by the powerful 
 evidence of oaths of a novel and most sublime character 
 and, at the same time, to have instilled a balm into their 
 minds, which heals every painful reflection, and assuages 
 the smart of misfortune ; so that, inspirited by his encomiums, 
 they begin to think with no less pride of the engagement 
 with Philip, than of the trophies earned at Marathon 
 and Salamis. In short, by the application of this figure, he 
 was thus in various ways enabled to carry his hearers along 
 with him, whether they would or not. 
 
 And yet some insinuate, that the seeds of this oath are to 
 be found in these lines of Eupolis :f — 
 
 No ! by my laurels earned at Marathon, 
 They shall not glory in my discontent. 
 
 But the grandeur depends not on the bare application of 
 an oath, but applying it in the proper place, in a pertinent 
 manner, at a right juncture, and for sufficient cause. J Yet in 
 Eupohs there is nothing but an oath, and that addressed to 
 the Athenians, when they were flushed with conquest, and 
 did not require consolation. Besides, the poet did not 
 swear by heroes, having first deified them to make his 
 audience deem worthily of such virtue ; but passed over 
 those illustrious souls, who ventured their lives for their 
 country, to swear by an inanimate object, the battle. In 
 Demosthenes, the oath is addressed to the vanquished, to 
 the end that the defeat of Cheeronea may be no longer 
 regarded by the Athenians as a misfortune. The same 
 thing is at once a demonstration that they had done their 
 duty, an illustrious example, an oath for confirmation, 
 an encomium, and an exhortation. And whereas this 
 
 * The observations on this oath are judicious and solid. But there is 
 one infinitely more solemn and awful in Jeremiah xxii. 5. 
 
 " But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the 
 Lord, that this house shall become a desolation." — See Genesis xxii. 16. 
 and Hebrews vi. 13. 
 
 t Eupolis was an Athenian writer of comedy, of whom notliing 
 remains at present, but the renown of his name. — Pearce. 
 
 X This judgment is admirable, and Longinus alone says more than all 
 the writers on rhetoric that ever examined this passage of Demo- 
 sthenes. Quintilian, indeed, was very sensible of the ridiculousness of 
 using oaths, if they were not applied as happily as the orator has 
 applied them ; but he has not at the same time laid open the defects, 
 which Longinus evidently discovers, in a bare examination of this oath 
 in Eupolis. — Dacier. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 45 
 
 objection occurred to the orator : You speak of a defeat 
 that took place under your administration, and then you 
 swear by those celebrated victories;" he, therefore, regulates 
 all he says by the strictest rules of art, and is scrupulously 
 guarded also in the terms he employs ; thus leaving an 
 example to posterity, that sobriety must be observed even 
 in the transports of enthusiasm. He says, Those of your 
 ancestors, who bravely exposed themselves in the plains of 
 Marathon, those who were in the naval engagements near 
 Salamis and Artemisium, and those who faced the foe 
 at Plataese." Nowhere has he said, Those that conquered," 
 but has, in all cases, industriously suppressed the men- 
 tion of the events of those battles, because they were 
 successful, and opposite to that of Chseronea. For which 
 cause, also, he anticipates the objections of the hearer, 
 by immediately subjoining, ^'all of whom, ^Eschines, the 
 city honoured with a public funeral, and not those only who 
 were victorious." 
 
 SECTION XVII. 
 
 There is one result of my speculations, my friend, which 
 I ought not to omit here ; I will state it with all brevity : 
 figures naturally impart assistance to, and, on the other 
 hand, receive wonderful aid from subhme sentiments. And 
 I will now show where, and in what manner, this is done. 
 
 A too elaborate and studied application of figures, is 
 peculiarly calculated to awaken suspicion, and induce an 
 opinion of sinister design, fraud, and sophistry, especially 
 when, in pleading, we speak before a judge, from whose 
 sentence there lies no appeal ; and much more, if before a 
 tyrant, a monarch, or any one in high authority. For he grows 
 angry immediately, if he thinks he is being cajoled by the 
 artifices of a rhetorician, as if he had no more sense than a 
 child ; and regarding the attempt to impose upon him as an 
 afiront to his understanding, sometimes he becomes alto- 
 gether infuriated ; and though perhaps he may suppress his 
 wrath, and stifle his resentment for the present, yet he 
 is averse, nay even deaf, to the most plausible and per- 
 suasive arguments that can be alleged. Wherefore, a figure 
 then seems most dexterously applied, when it cannot be 
 discerned that it is a figure. 
 
46 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 Therefore, sublimity and passion form an admirable 
 antidote and remedy for the suspicion that attends on the 
 use of figures ; and if perchance the aid of art is called 
 in for deceptive purposes, still it merges itself in the sub- 
 limity and pathos that accompany it. I cannot produce a 
 better example to confirm this assertion, than the preceding 
 from Demosthenes : I swear by those heroic souls,'^ &c. 
 For in what has the orator here concealed the figure ? 
 Plainly, in nothing but the light he has poured around 
 it. For it were no inapt comparison if I were to say, that 
 as the lesser lights of heaven are paled in the surrounding 
 effulgence of the sun, so the artifices of rhetoric become 
 invisible amidst the splendour of sublime thoughts. And 
 something not unlike this takes place in painting : for when 
 several colours of light and shade are laid side by side upon 
 the same surface, those of light seem to meet the eyes first, 
 and not only to stand out above the rest, but to be much 
 nearer. And thus it is that the sublime and pathetic, in 
 language, since they are brought nearer to our souls 
 by reason both of an affinity, founded in the principles of 
 our nature, and their own superlative lustre, always out- 
 shine figures, throw into the shade their artificial cha- 
 racter, and keep them in a kind of concealment. 
 
 SECTION XVITI. 
 
 What shall I say of questions, which are answered by a 
 simple affirmation or negation, and interrogations ? Is 
 not discourse which requires a lengthened reply rendered 
 far more nervous, impressive, and pointed, by the very 
 character of the figures employed?* ''Tell me," says 
 
 * Deborah's words, in the person of Sisera's mother, instanced above 
 on another occasion, are also a noble example of the use of interro- 
 gations. Nor can I in this place pass by a passage in holy Scripture ; 
 I mean the words of Christ, in this figure of self-inteiTOgation and 
 answer : What w^ent ye out in the wilderness to see ? a reed shaken 
 with the wind ? But what went ye out for to see ? a man clothed in 
 soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king's 
 houses. But what went ye out for to see ? a prophet ? yea, I say unto 
 you, and more than a prophet." Matt. xi. 7, 9. — Pearce. 
 
 That the sense receives strength, as well as beauty, from this figure, 
 is no where so visible as in the poetical and prophetical parts of Scrip- 
 ture. Numberless instances might be easily adduced; and we are 
 puzzled how to pitch on any in particular, amidst so fine a variety, lest 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 47 
 
 Demosthenes/ would you go about the city, and demand 
 what news ? What greater news can there be, than that a 
 Macedonian enslaves the Athenians, and lords it over 
 Greece? Is Phihp dead? No : but he is sick. Now what 
 difference does it make to you ? for if any thing should 
 happen to this man, you yourselves will soon raise up 
 another Philip?"* And again, he says, '^Let us sail 
 for Macedonia. Aye, but where shall we land, asked some 
 one ?f The war itself will discover what is rotten in the 
 state of Philip. This, uttered simply, and without interro- 
 gation, would have been altogether beneath the subject. 
 But as it is, the spirited and rapid alternation of question 
 and answer, and the anticipatory replies to his own demands, 
 as if they were another's, not only render his oration more 
 subhme and lofty by this figurative form of speech, but more 
 convincing. For the pathetic then works most powerfully 
 
 tbe choice might give room to call our judgment in question, for taking 
 no notice of others, that perhai)s are more remarkable. 
 
 Any reader will observe, that there is a poetical air in the predictions 
 of Balaam in the 23rd chapter of Numbers, and that there is particularly 
 an uncommon grandeur in ver. 19. 
 
 " God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man, that 
 he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it ? or, hath 
 he spoken, and shall he not make it good ? " 
 
 What is the cause of this grandeur will immediately be seen, if the 
 sense be preserved, and the words thrown out of interrogation : 
 
 " God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man, that 
 he should repent. What he has said, he will do; and what he 
 has spoken, he will make good." 
 
 The difference is so visible, that it is needless to enlarge upon it. 
 
 How artfully does St. Paul, in Acts xxvi. transfer his discourse from 
 Festus to Agrippa. In ver. 26, he speaks of him in the third person. 
 " The king (says he) knoweth of these things, before whom I also 
 
 speak freely " Then, in the following, he turns short upon him : — 
 
 " King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets ?" and immediately after 
 answers his own questions, I know that thou believest." The 
 smoothest eloquence, the most insinuating complaisance, could never 
 have made such impression on Agrippa, as this unexpected and pathetic 
 address. 
 
 To these instances may be added the whole 38th chap, of Job ; where 
 we behold the Almighty Creator expostulating with his creature, 
 in terms which express at once the majesty and perfection of the one, 
 the meanness and frailty of the other. There we see how vastly useful 
 the figure of interrogation is, in giving us a lofty idea of the Deity, 
 whilst every question ime& us into silence, and inspires a sense of our 
 insufiiciency. 
 
 * Demosth. Philip. 1. f Ibid. 
 
48 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 upon us, when it appears not to be the effect of the speaker's 
 art, but to flow naturally out of the occasion. And this 
 questioning and answering one's self seems to indicate the 
 moments of passion. For when people are questioned by 
 others they are excited, and on the spur of the moment 
 answer the demands put to them with earnestness and 
 the sincerity of truth. Much in the same way this figure 
 of question and answer imposes upon the hearer, by leading 
 him to a belief, that those things, which are in fact 
 premeditated, have been called forth, and are uttered on the 
 impulse of the occasion. — [What follows here is the begin- 
 ning of a sentence now maimed and imperfect, but it is 
 evident, from the few words yet remaining, that the author 
 was going to add another instance of the use of this figure 
 in a passage from Herodotus, which, he says, was con- 
 sidered transcendently sublime.] * * * * 
 
 SECTION XIX. 
 
 ****** [The beginning of this section is 
 lost, but the sense is easily supplied from what immediately 
 foUows.] Another great help in attaining grandeur, is 
 banishing the copulatives at a proper season. For sentences, 
 artfully divested of conjunctions, drop smoothly down, and 
 the periods are, as it were, poured along in such a manner, 
 that they well nigh outstrip the very speaker. ^^Then 
 (says Xenophon) closing their shields together, they were 
 pushed, they fought, they slew, they were slain."* So 
 Eurylochus in Homer : — Od, xi. ver. 251. 
 
 We went, Ulysses ! (such was tliy command) 
 Through the lone thicket, and the desert land ; 
 A palace in a woody vale we found, 
 
 Brown with dark forests, and with shades around, &c. — Pope. 
 
 * " The want of connexion draws things into a lesser compass, and 
 adds greater spirit and emotion. — For the more rays are collected in a 
 point, the more vigorous is the flame. Hence there is yet greater 
 emphasis, when the rout of an army is shown in the same contracted 
 manner, as in the 24th of the Odyssey, 1. 610, which has some resem- 
 blance to Sallust's description of the same thing with his usual concise- 
 ness, in these four words only, sequi, fugere^ occidu capV — Essay on 
 the Odyssey, p. 2d, 113. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 49 
 
 For the words thus dissevered from one another, and yet 
 equally hurried along, give a lively representation of the 
 mental agony which at once restrains and accelerates his 
 words. Such effects Homer has produced by rejecting the 
 conjunctions. 
 
 SECTION XX. 
 
 But the most sublimely moving effect is produced by 
 bringing together a number of figures when two or three 
 of them, as if mutually associated in a class, render to each 
 other contributions of strength, persuasiveness, and orna- 
 ment ; as in that passage of Demosthenes' oration against 
 Midias, where the conjunctions are removed at the same time 
 that there are repetitions and vivid descriptions interwoven. 
 *^ There are several things in the gesture, look, voice, of 
 him who strikes another, which it is impossible for the 
 
 Voltaire has endeavoured to show the hurry and confusion of a 
 battle, in the same manner, in the Henriade. Chant, 6. 
 
 Fran9ois, Anglois, Lorrains, qu la fureur assemble, 
 Avan9oient, combattoient, frappoient, mouroient ensemble. 
 
 The hurry and distraction of Dido's spirits, at ^neas's departure, is 
 visible from the abrupt and precipitate manner in which she commands 
 her servants to endeavour to stop him : 
 
 Ite, 
 
 Ferte citi flammas, date vela, impellite remos. — ^neid. ii. 
 
 Haste, haul my galleys out ; pursue the foe ; 
 
 Bring flaming brands, set sail, and quickly row. — Dryden. 
 
 Hellenic. Lib. iv. and Orat. de Agesil. 
 
 * Amongst the various and beautiful instances of an assemblage of 
 figures, which may be produced, and which so frequently occur in the 
 best vn*itings, one, I believe, has hitherto not been taken notice of ; I 
 mean the four last verses of the 24th Psalm. 
 
 " Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting 
 doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glory ? 
 The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battles. Lift up your 
 heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King 
 of glory shall come in. Who is the King of glorj^ ? The Lord of hosts : 
 he is the King of glory !" 
 
 There are innumerable instances of this kind in the poetical parts of 
 Scripture, particularly in the Song of Deborah (Judges, chap, v.) and 
 the Lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan, (2 Samuel, chap, i.) 
 There is scarce one thought in them, which is not figured ; nor one 
 figure which is not beautiful. 
 
 F 
 
50 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 sufferer to convey." And then, that his oration might not 
 keep going on in the same uniform manner, (for order 
 indicates a mind unmoved, but passion is irregular and 
 tumultuous, since it is a violent motion and agitation of 
 the soul,) he passes immediately to new asyndetons and 
 
 repetitions in the gesture, in the look, in the voice — 
 
 when like a ruffian, when like an enemy, when with his 
 knuckles, when on the face." By these means, the orator 
 deals with the judges, just as the assailant did with his 
 victim °. he attacks their understandings with reiterated 
 violence. Then, again, he charges them afresh with the 
 force of a hurricane : When with his fist, when on the 
 face." — These things affect, these things madden men 
 unused to indignities. No man, in giving a recital of these 
 things, can convey an adequate idea of their heinousness." 
 He preserves, then, throughout the character of the figures, 
 namely, that which omits the conjunctions, and that of 
 repetition, though interchanging them continually. And 
 thus, with him, even order wears the semblance of confusion, 
 and;, conversely, disorder is investedwith a certain regularity. 
 
 SECTION XXI. 
 
 To illustrate the foregoing observation, let us, if you will, 
 imitate the school of Isocrates, and insert the copulatives in 
 this passage ; which will then stand thus : Nor indeed 
 should it be omitted, that he who commits violence on 
 another, may do many things, &c. — -Jirst in gesture, and then 
 in countenance, and thirdly in his very voice, which," &c. 
 And if you proceed thus in changing the form of the 
 language,* you will find, that, by smoothing the passage 
 by means of copulatives, what was before overpoweringly, 
 impetuously pathetic, falls tamely upon the ear, and at 
 once loses all its fire. To couple the limbs of racers, is to 
 
 * No writer ever made a less use of copulatives than St. Paul. His 
 thoughts poured in so fast upon him, that he had no leisure to knit 
 them together, by the help of particles ; but he has by that means 
 given them weight, spirit, energy, and strong significance. An instance 
 of it may be seen in 2 Corinth, chap. vi. From ver. 4, to 10, is but 
 one sentence, of near thirty different members, which are all detached 
 from one another ; and if the copulatives be inserted after the Isocra- 
 tean manner, the strength will be quite impaired, and the sedate 
 grandeur of the whole grow flat and heav>'. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 51 
 
 deprive them of motion. In like manner, the pathetic 
 scorns to be fettered by copulatives, and other additions ; 
 for they prevent its having free course, and flying to the 
 mark like a missile discharged from some engine. 
 
 Hyperbatons, also, are to be ranked in the same class. 
 An hyperbaton* is a transposing of words or thoughts out 
 of their natural and grammatical order, and is, as it were, an 
 express image and infallible token of vehement passion. f 
 For as when men are really impelled by anger, or fear, 
 or indignation, or jealousy, or any other passion, for they 
 are numberless, and cannot be reckoned up, they are for 
 ever getting wrong, and when they have proposed one thing, 
 continually running off" into another, absurdly obtruding 
 some intermediate matter ; and then again, coming round 
 to their original subject, are ever and anon pulled back 
 suddenly from conflicting feelings, now this way, now that, 
 as if the sport of a shifting wind ; incessantly chopping and 
 changing their expressions, their ideas, and the order of 
 
 * Virgii is very happy in his application of this figure. 
 
 Moriamur, et in media arma ruamus. — JEneid. ii. v. 348. 
 And again, 
 
 Me, me, adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum. — Id. ix. v. 427. 
 
 In both these instances, the words are removed out of their right 
 order into an irregular disposition, which is a natural consequence of 
 perturbation in the mind. — Pearce. 
 
 There is a fine hyperbaton in the 5th book of Paradise Lost. 
 
 Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, 
 With charm of earhest birds : pleasant the sun, 
 When first on this dehghtful land he spreads 
 His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow'r, 
 Glist'ring with dew : fragrant the fertile earth 
 After soft show'rs : and sweet the coming on 
 Of grateful evening mild : &c. 
 t Longinus here, in explaining the nature of the hyperbaton, and 
 again in the close of the section, has made use of an hyperbaton, or 
 (to speak more truly) of a certain confused and more extensive compass 
 of a sentence. Whether he did this by accident, or design, I cannot 
 determine ; though Le Fevre thinks it a piece of art in the author, in 
 order to adapt the diction to the subject. — Pearce. 
 
 SECTION XXIL 
 
 ^. OF iLt^ Lib. 
 
52 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 their natural connexion, in all sorts of ways, to suit their 
 ever-varying purpose : so the best vn-iters endeavour to imi- 
 tate the truth of nature's doings, by means of transposi- 
 tions.* For art is then perfect, when she passes for nature ; 
 but nature, on the other hand, succeeds in her object, when 
 the art that regulates her movements is kept out of sight. 
 
 In Herodotus, (vi. 11.) the speech of Dionysius, the 
 Phocean, is an example of this transposition : For our 
 affairs, says he, are balanced on a razor's edge, men of 
 Ionia, now is the crisis of our fate, whether to be free or 
 slaves, yea, runaway slaves, the most abject aad degraded. 
 Now, then, if you make up your minds to endure hardness, 
 you will indeed have to encounter toil for the present, but 
 you will be able to vanquish the enemy." The natural 
 order was this : '^0 lonians, now is the time to submit to 
 toil and labour, for our affairs are balanced on a razor's 
 
 * This fine remark may be illustrated by a celebrated passage in 
 Shakspeare's Hamlet, where the poet's art has hit off the strongest and 
 most exact resemblance of nature. The behaviour of his mother makes ♦ 
 such impression on the young prince, that his mind is big with abhor- 
 rence of it, but expressions fail him. He begins abruptly; but as 
 reflections crowd thick upon him, he runs off into commendations of 
 his father. Some time after, his thoughts turn again on that action of 
 his mother, which had raised his resentments, but he only touches it, 
 and flies off again. In short, he takes up nineteen hues in teUing us, 
 that his mother married again in less than two months after her 
 husband's death : — 
 
 But two months dead ! nay, not so much, not two — 
 
 So excellent a king, that was to this 
 
 Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother, 
 
 That he permitted not the winds of heav'n 
 
 Visit her face too roughly ! Heav'n and earth ! 
 
 Must I remember ? — why, she would hang on him, 
 
 As if increase of appetite had grown 
 
 By what it fed on : yet within a month — 
 
 Let me not think — Frailty, thy name is w^oman ! — 
 
 A little month — or ere those shoes were old. 
 
 With which she foUow'd my poor father's body, 
 
 Like Niobe, all tears — why she, ev'n she — 
 
 Oh Heav'n ! a beast that wants discourse of reason, 
 
 Would have mourn'd longer — married with mine uncle, 
 
 My father's brother ; but no more like my father, 
 
 Than I to Hercules ! Within a month ! 
 
 Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tfcu-s 
 
 Had left the flushing of her galled eyes, 
 
 She mairied ! Oh most wicked speed ! . 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 53 
 
 edge/^ &c. But he has transposed the salutation, men 
 of Ionia;" for he has commenced with giving utterance 
 to his fears, as if he could not command himself to accost 
 his hearers first, for his sense of the imminent danger. In 
 the next place, he has distorted the order of the thoughts ; 
 for before he said, they must exert themselves," (for this 
 it is that he exhorts them to,) he first assigns the reason 
 why they should do so, saying, Our afiairs are balanced 
 on a razor's edge," — so that his words seem not to be 
 premeditated, but forced from him. 
 
 Thucydides is still more of a perfect master in transposing 
 and inverting the order of those things, which are alto- 
 gether naturally united and inseparable. But Demosthenes, 
 though less hardy than Thucydides, is yet more abundant 
 in this kind of figure than any other writer ; exhibiting an 
 appearance of much earnestness, nay, of uttering every thing 
 on the spur of the moment, by means of transpositions ; 
 and, moreover, haUng his hearers along with him into a 
 perilous maze of things seemingly unconnected.* For 
 frequently, suspending the thought with which he set out, 
 and abruptly interposing, by waj of parenthesis, a mass 
 of matter apparently quite irrelevant, and thrust in incon- 
 gruously and strangely, he puts the hearer in fear that he 
 has sulfered his subject to drop through altogether, and 
 
 * The eloquence of St. Paul bears a very great resemblance to that 
 of Demosthenes, as described in this section by Longinus. Some 
 important point being always uppermost in his view, he often leaves 
 his subject, and Hies from it with brave irregularity, and as unex- 
 pectedly again returns to his subject, w^hen one would imagine that he 
 had entirely lost sight of it. For instance, in his defence before King 
 Agrippa, Acts, xxvi. when, in order to wipe off the aspersioHs 
 thrown upon him by the Jews, that ^' he was a turbulent and seditious 
 person," he sets out with clearing his character, proving the integrity 
 of his morals, and his inoffensive unblameable behaviour, as one who 
 hoped, by those means, to attain that happiness of another life, for 
 which the twelve tribes served God continually in the temple on a 
 sudden he drops the continuation of his defence, and cries out, " Why 
 should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise 
 the dead?" It might be reasonably expected, that this would be the 
 end of his argument ; but by flying to it, in so quick and unexpected a 
 transition, he catches his audience before they are aware, and strikes 
 dumb his enemies, though they ^vill not be convinced. And this point 
 being once carried, he comes about again, as unexpectedly, by, 1 verily 
 thought," &c. and goes on wdth his defence, till it brings him again to 
 the same point of the resurrection, in ver. 23. 
 
 F 2 
 
54 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 compels him, from earnest feeling, to share the dangers of 
 the speaker : then, at length, towards the close, after a 
 long interval, he very pertinently, but unexpectedly, adds 
 the long-sought link of connexion, and raises surprise and 
 admiration still higher, by the mere daring and imminent 
 hazards of his transpositions. I shall forbear adducing 
 examples, because of the multitude to be found in that 
 writer. 
 
 SECTION XXIIL 
 
 Moreover, the figures called polyptotes,* accumulations, f 
 startling turns, J and gradations, § are (as you know) very 
 effective ; contributing to the ornament of style, and aiding 
 every thing that is subhme and impassioned. And to what 
 
 * " Polyptotes." Longiniis gives no instance of this figure : but one 
 may be produced from Cicero's oration for Cselius, where he says, " We 
 will contend with arguments, we wiU refute accusations by evidences 
 brighter than light itself : fact shall engage with fact, cause with cause, 
 reason with reason/' To which may be added that of Virgil, ^n. x. 
 361. 
 
 Hseret pede pes, densusque viro vir. — Pearce. 
 
 t " Accumulations." The orator makes use of this figure, when, 
 instead of the whole of a thing, he numbers up all its particulars : of 
 which we have an instance in Cicero's oration for Marcellus : " The 
 centurion has no share in this honour, the lieutenant none, the cohort 
 none, the troop none." If Cicero had said, " The soldiers have no 
 share in this honour," this would have declared his meaning, but not 
 the force of the speaker. See also QuinctiUan, Instit. Orat. 1. viii. c. 2, 
 De congerie verborum ac sententiarum idem significantium. — Pearce. 
 
 X " startling turns." Quinctilian gives an instance of this figm-e, 
 Instit. Orat. 1. ix. c. 3, from Cicero's oration for Sex. Roscius : " For 
 though he is master of so much art, as to seem the only person aUve 
 who is fit to appear upon the stage ; yet he is possessed of such noble 
 qualities, that he seems to be the only man alive who should never 
 be seen there." — Pearce. 
 
 § " Gradations." There is an instance of this figure in Rom. v. It is 
 continued throughout the chapter, but the branches of the latter part 
 appear not plainly, because of the transpositions. It begins ver. 1, 
 Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into 
 this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 
 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribu- 
 lation worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; and experience, 
 hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed ; because," &c. &c. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 55 
 
 an amazing degree do changes, either of time, case, person, 
 number, or gender, diversify and enliven language !* 
 
 As to numbers, I assert, not only that words which, being 
 singular in form, are found on reflection to have a plural 
 force, are ornamental ; as, for example : 
 
 Along the shores an endless crowd appear, 
 
 Whose noise, and din, and shouts, confound the ear ;t 
 
 but, and this is more worthy of attentive observation, that 
 sometimes plurals impart additional grandeur to the style, 
 and give it an air of pomp and splendour by the mere force 
 of thronged numbers. So the words of (Edipus in Sopho- 
 cles ; 
 
 Oh ! nuptials, nuptials ! 
 You first produced, and since our fatal birth 
 Have mix'd our blood, and all our race confounded. 
 Blended in horrid and incestuous bonds ! 
 See ! fathers, brothers, sons, a dire alliance ! 
 See ! sisters, wives, and mothers ! all the names 
 That e^er from lust or incest could arise. J 
 
 For all these terms denote on the one side (Edipus only, 
 and on the other Jocasta ; but, notwithstanding, the number 
 spread out into jplurah has, at the same time, given increased 
 effect to their misfortunes also. Another poet has made 
 use of the same method of increase. 
 
 Then Hectors and Sarpedons issued forth. 
 
 Of the same kind is that expression of Plato concerning 
 the Athenians, quoted by me elsewhere also. For no 
 Pelopses, nor Cadmuses, nor ^gyptuses, nor Danauses, 
 dwell here with us, nor any of the many others of barbar- 
 ous descent ; but pure Grecians undebased by foreign 
 mixture,'^ &c.§ For when names are thus made to signify 
 collected numbers, the ideas they convey accord with the 
 imposing effect with which they strike upon the ear. Yet 
 recourse is not to be had to this figure on all occasions, but 
 
 * Changes of case and gender fall not under the district of the Eng- 
 lish tongue. On those of time, person, and number, Longinus enlarges 
 in the sequel. 
 
 t The beauty of this figure will, I fear, be lost in the translation. 
 But it must be observed, that the word crowd, is of the singular, and 
 appear, of the plural number. Allowance must be made in such cases ; 
 for when the genius of another language will not retain it, the original 
 beauty must unavoidably fly off. 
 
 X CEdip. Tyran. ver. 1417. § Plato in Menexeno, vol. v. 297. 
 
56 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 tlien only when the subject admits of enlargement, or multi- 
 plication, or hyperbole, or pathos, either some one or 
 more of these. For to have bells hung every where surely 
 savours too much of the sophist.* 
 
 SECTION XXIV. 
 
 And doubtless, contrariwise also, plurals reduced and con- 
 tracted into singulars y have sometimes the sublimest effect. 
 *^Then all Peloponnesusf stood divided," says Demos- 
 thenes. J And, '^At the representation of Phrynicus's tra- 
 gedy, called. The Capture of Miletus, the whole theatre § 
 was moved to tears." 1| For thus to condense a number 
 into unity, instead of expressing the distinct particulars, 
 
 * This metaphor is borrowed from a custom among the ancients, 
 who, at public games and concourses, were used to hang little bells 
 {Kw^oivas) on the bridles and trappings of their horses, that their conti- 
 nual chiming might add pomp to the solemnity. 
 
 The robe or ephod of the high-priest, in the Mosaic dispensation, 
 had this ornament of bells, though another reason, besides the pomp 
 and dignity of the sound, is alleged for it in Exodus xxviii. 33. 
 
 t " All Peloponnesus." Instead of, " all the inhabitants of Pelo- 
 ponnesus at that time took their stand on diiferent sides. 
 
 St. Paul makes use of this figure, jointly with a change of person, 
 on several occasions, and with different views. In Rom. vii., to avoid 
 the direct charge of disobedience on the whole body of the Jews, he 
 transfers the discourse into the first person, and so charges the insuf- 
 ficiency and frailty of all his countrymen on himself, to guard against 
 the invidiousness which an open accusation might have drawn upon 
 him. See ver. 9 — 25. 
 
 X Demosth. Orat. de Corona, p. 17. ed. Oxon. 
 
 § " The whole theatre." Instead of, " all the people in the theatre." 
 Miletus was a city of Ionia, which the Persians besieged and took. 
 Phrynicus, a tragic poet, brought a play on the stage about the demo- 
 lition of this city. But the Athenians (as Herodotus informs us) fined 
 him a thousand drachmae, for ripping open afresh their domestic sores ; 
 and pubhshed an edict, that no one should ever after wTite on that 
 subj ect. — Pearce, 
 
 Shakspeare makes a noble use of this figure, in the following lines 
 from his Antony and Cleopatra, though in the close there is a very 
 strong dash of the Hyperbole : 
 
 The city cast 
 Her people out upon her, and Antony 
 Enthron'd i'th' market-place, did sit alone 
 Whistling to th' air ; which, but for vacancy, 
 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 
 And made a gap in nature. 
 11 Herod, 1. 6. c. 21. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 57 
 
 seems to give more of substance and body to the idea. But 
 the beauty, in each of these figures, arises, methinks, from 
 the same cause. For when the terms are singular, to depart 
 from the ordinary custom and multiply them, is the act of 
 one that is moved by earnest feeUng ; and where they are 
 plural, to concentrate many things in one harmonious whole 
 excites surprise, by reason of the complete transformation 
 of things. 
 
 SECTION XXV. 
 
 Moreover, when you introduce things past as actually 
 present^ and doing, you will no longer relate, but display 
 the very action before the eyes of your readers. " A sol- 
 dier," says Xenophon, (Xenophon de Cyri Institut. 1. 7,) 
 '*fell down under Cyrus's horse, and being trampled under 
 foot, wounds him in the belly with his sword. The horse 
 floundering, unseats Cyrus, and he falls."* Thucydides 
 makes very frequent use of this figure. 
 
 SECTION XXVI. 
 
 In like manner, change of persons is powerfully effective, 
 and oftentimes makes the hearer think himself actually 
 present, and concerned in the dangers described : 
 
 Thou hadst deemed them of a kind 
 By toil untameable, so fierce they strove. — Cowpe7\ 
 
 And so Aratus, (Phsenom. v. 287,) 
 
 O put not thou to sea in that sad month If 
 
 * So Virga, ^n. 1. xi. ver. 637. 
 
 Orsilochus Romuh, quando ipsum horrebat adire, 
 Hastam intorsit equo, ferrumque sub aure reUquit. 
 Quo sonipes ictu furit arduus, altaque jactat 
 Vulneris impatiens, adrecto pectore, crura. 
 Volvitur ille excussus humi. 
 By using the present tense, Virgil makes the reader see, almost with 
 his eyes, the wound of the horse, and the fall of the wanior. — Pearce. 
 
 t Virgil supplies another instance of the efficacy of this figure, in 
 JEn, 1. viii. ver. 689. 
 
 Una omnes mere, ac totum spumare reductis 
 Convolsum remis rostrisque tridentibus aequor. 
 Alta petunt : pelago credas innare revolsas 
 Cycladas, aut montes concurrere montibus altos. 
 
58 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 Much in the same way, Herodotus also, (1. ii. c. 29,) ''You 
 will sail upwards from the city Elephantina, and then you 
 will arrive at a level coast. And when you have travelled over 
 this tract of land, you will go on board another ship, and 
 sail two days, and then you will arrive at a great city, called 
 Meroe." Do you see, my friend, how he carries your ima- 
 gination along with him in his excursion ! how he conducts 
 you through the different scenes, converting hearing into 
 sight. And all such passages, by appealing to the hearers 
 personally, make them fancy themselves present in the actual 
 transactions. And when you address your discourse, not 
 as to all in general, but to one in particular, as here. 
 
 You could not see, so fierce Tydides rag'd, 
 Whether for Greece or Ilion he engag'd.* — 
 
 Iliad, v. ver. 85. — Pojye. 
 
 Awakened by these addresses to himself, you will at once 
 strike more forcibly upon his passions, make him more 
 attentive, and fill him with hveliest interest in what is 
 going on. 
 
 SECTION XXVII. 
 
 But further, it sometimes happens, when a writer is saying 
 any thing of a person, that, by a sudden transition, he 
 quits his own, and speaks as that very person ; a form 
 of speech which indicates an outburst of passion. 
 
 The allusions in the last two lines prodigiously heighten and exalt 
 the suhject. So Tasso describes the horror of a battle very pompously, 
 in his Gierusalemme Liberata. Canto 9no. 
 
 L'horror, la crudelta, la tema, il lutto 
 
 Van d'intorno scorrendo : et in varia imago 
 
 Vincitrice la morte errar per tutto 
 
 Vedresti, et andeggiar di sangue un lago. 
 
 * Solomon's words, in Prov. viii. 3-4, bear some resemblance, in the 
 transition, to this instance from Homer : She crieth at the gates, at 
 the entry of the city, at the coming in of the doors — Unto you, 0 men, 
 I call, and my voice is to the sons of men.'' — Pearce, 
 
 There is also an example of it in St. Luke, v. 14. " And he com- 
 * manded him to tell no man, but — Go, show thyself to the j)riest." 
 
 And another more remarkable, in Psalm cxxviii. 1-2. " Blessed are 
 all they that fear the Lord, and walk in his ways — For thou shalt eat 
 the labour of thy hands, Oh ! well is thee, and happy shalt thou be !" 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 59 
 
 On rushed bold Hector, gloomy as the night ; 
 Forbids to plunder, animates the fight, 
 Points to the fleet : for by the gods, who flies, 
 Who dares but linger, by this hand he dies.* — 
 
 Ihad XV. 346. — Pope. 
 
 Now the narrative, as being suitable to him, the poet 
 has assumed to himself ; but, without any previous note of 
 transition, he has at once put this abrupt menace into the 
 mouth of the enraged hero ; for it would have sounded 
 flat, had he stopped to insert. Hector spake thus, or thus. 
 But, as it stands, the transfer of the speech outstrips any 
 transition the poet could have expressed. 
 
 Upon which account this figure is then most seasonably 
 applied, when the pressing exigency of time will not admit 
 of any stop or delay, but even enforces a transition from 
 persons to persons, as in this passage of Hecatseus :f Now 
 Ceyx, troubled at these proceedings, immediately com- 
 manded the Heraclidse to depart his territories — For I am 
 unable to assist you. Therefore that you may not perish 
 yourselves, nor inflict a wound upon me, go seek a retreat 
 with some other people." For Demosthenes has made 
 use of this variety of persons in a different manner, and 
 with much passion and volubility, in his oration (the 
 first) against Aristogiton : J And shall there not be found 
 one among you that burns with indignation and wrath 
 
 * There is a celebrated and masterly transition of this kind, in 
 Milton's Paradise Lost, book iv. 
 
 Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood. 
 Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd 
 The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n. 
 Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, 
 And starry pole — Thou also mad'st the night. 
 Maker omnipotent, and thou the day. 
 
 t " Hecataeus." He means Hecataeus the Milesian, the first of the 
 historians, according to Suidas, who wrote in prose. — Langbaine. — See 
 also Luke v. 14. 
 
 X This figure is very artfully used by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the 
 Romans. His drift is to show, that the Jews were not the people of 
 God, exclusive of the Gentiles, and had no more reason than they, to 
 form such high pretensions, since they had been equally guilty of 
 violating the moral law of God, which was antecedent to the Mosaic, 
 and of eternal obligation. Yet, not to exasperate the Jews at setting 
 out, and so render them averse to all the arguments he might after- 
 
60 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 on account of the outrageous acts of this abominable and 
 
 shameless wretch, who Thou most polluted of all men ! 
 
 when precluded liberty of speaking, not by bars or doors, 
 for these indeed some one might have burst." — Suddenly 
 leaving the thought unfinished, he almost tears one word 
 in twain, to address it at once to different persons, from 
 the vehemence of his passion. ''Who — thou most polluted 
 of all men !" Then, having diverted his discourse to Aris- 
 togiton, and seemingly left the judges, yet by the pathos 
 introduced he has made its effect upon them much more 
 powerful and direct. So Penelope in Homer. — Odtss. 
 iv. 681. 
 
 The lordly suitors send ! But why must you 
 Bring baneful mandates from that odious crew ? 
 What ! must the faithful servants of my lord 
 Forego their tasks for them to crown the hoard ? 
 J scorn their love, and I detest their sight ; 
 And may they share their last of feasts to-night ! 
 Why thus, ungen'rous men, devour my son ? 
 Why riot thus, till he be quite undone ? 
 Heedless of him, yet timely hence retire, 
 And fear the vengeance of his awful sire. 
 Did not your fathers oft his might commend ? 
 And children you the wondrous tale attend ? 
 That injur'd hero you return'd may see ; 
 Think what he was, and dread what he may be.* 
 
 wards produce, he begins with the Gentiles, and gives a black catalogue 
 of all their vices, which in reality were, as well as appeared, excessively 
 heinous in the eyes of the Jews, till, in the beginning of the second 
 chapter, he unexpectedly turns upon them with, " Therefore thou art 
 inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest," ver. 1 ; and 
 again, ver. 3, " And thinkest thou this, 0 man, that judgest them 
 ^Yhich do such things, and dost the same, that thou shalt escape the 
 judgment of God ?" &c. &c. If the whole be read with attention, the 
 apostle's art will be found surprising, his eloquence will appear grand, 
 his strokes cutting, the attacks he makes on the Jews successive, and 
 rising in their strength. 
 
 * In these verses Penelope, after she had spoken of the suitors in the 
 third person, seems on a sudden exasperated at their proceedings, and 
 addresses her discourse to them as if they were present : 
 
 W"hy thus, ungen'rous men, devour my son ? &c. 
 To which passage in Homer, one in Virgil bears great resemblance, 
 JEn. iii. ver. 708. 
 
 Hie pelagi tot tempestatibus actus, 
 Heu ! genitorem, omnis curae casusque levamen, 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 61 
 
 SECTION XXVIII. 
 
 And, certainly, no one, I think, can doubt that a peri- 
 phrasis (circumlocution) is a cause of sublimity. For, as 
 in music, the principal tone is rendered sweeter by th^ 
 grace notes introduced, so a periphrasis frequently aids 
 the effect of the simple expression, and imparts a harmony 
 to it, which is highly ornamental, especially if it be not 
 tumid and inelegant, but agreeably tempered. This may 
 be established beyond dispute from a passage of Plato, in 
 the beginning of his Funeral Oration: "We have now 
 rendered to them, in a substantial form, the things that are 
 due to them, and, these obtained, they go the fated way, 
 having been escorted pubhcly by the state, and privately 
 by their respective connexions."* He calls death, then, 
 the fated way,'' and their obtaining the appointed rites, 
 
 Amitto Anchisen ; hie me, pater optime, fessum 
 Deseris, heu ! tantis nequicquam erepte periclis. 
 
 As does a passage also in the poetical book of Job, chap. xvi. ver. 7, 
 where, after he had said of God, " But now he hath made me weary," 
 by a sudden transition, he addresses his speech to God in these words 
 immediately following, " Thou hast made desolate all my company." — 
 Pearce. 
 
 * Archbishop Tillotson will afford us an instance of the use of this 
 figure, on the same thought almost as that quoted by Longinus from 
 Plaio. 
 
 " "When we consider that we have but a little while to be here, that 
 we are upon our journey travelling towards our heavenly country, where 
 we shaU meet with aU the deUghts we can desire, it ought not to trou- 
 ble us much to endure storms and foul ways, and to want many of 
 those accommodations we might expect at home. This is the common 
 fate of travellers, and we must take things as we find them, and not 
 look to have every thing just to our mind. These difficulties and incon- 
 veniences will shortly be over, and after a few days wiU be quite 
 forgotten, and be to us as though they had never been. And when we 
 are safely landed in our own country, with what pleasure shall we look 
 back on these rough and boisterous seas we have escaped !" — Vol. i. 
 p. 98. 
 
 In each passage, death is the principal thought to which aU the 
 circumstances of the circumlocutions chiefly refer ; but the Archbishop 
 has wound it up to a greater height, and tempered it with more agree- 
 able and more extensive sweetness. Plato inters his heroes, and then 
 bids them adieu ; but the Christian orator conducts them to a better 
 world, from whence he gives them a retrospect of that through which 
 they have passed, to enlarge the comforts, and give them a higher 
 enjoyment of the future. 
 
 G 
 
62 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 a public escorting of them by their country. Now, 
 by this means, has he not given becoming elevation to 
 the thought, which he found bare and unadorned, but 
 which he has graced by melodious diction, pouring 
 around it the sweetness arising out of a well-tempered 
 periphrasis, hke a kind of harmony. So Xenophon, 
 (Cyropsed. lib. 1,) ''You look upon toil as the guide to 
 a happy hfe. You have laid up in your sotds an acqui- 
 sition passing glorious and soldier-like, for nothing pro- 
 duces in you such sensible emotions of joy as commen- 
 dation." By expressing wilKngness to endure toil in this 
 circumlocution, '' You look upon labour as the guide to a 
 happy life and by expanding the other ideas after the 
 same manner, he has embraced in his encomium a reflection 
 of a lofty character. So, that inimitable passage of Herodotus, 
 (i. 105,) ''The goddess afilicted those of the Scythians 
 who had pillaged her temple with the female disease."* 
 
 SECTION XXIX. 
 
 But circumlocution is more dangerous than any other kind 
 of figure, unless one use it with due regard to proportion ; 
 for it must obviously be feeble in its effect, if it savour of 
 verbiage and dulness.f For this reason, Plato (for he makes 
 frequent, and, in some places, unreasonable use of this 
 figure) is ridiculed very much for the following expression 
 in his Treatise of Laws: (de Legibus, 1. 5,) " It is not right 
 to suffer riches, of either gold or silver, to be set up and 
 dwell in a city." For they say, had he forbidden the pos- 
 
 * Commentators have laboured hard to discover what this disease 
 was, and abundance of remarks, learned and curious to be sure, have 
 been made upon it. The best way will be to imitate the decorum of 
 Herodotus, and leave it still a mystery. 
 
 t " Circumlocution is more," &c. Shakspeare, in King Richard 
 the Second, has made sick John of Gaunt pour out such a multitude to 
 express England, as never was, nor ever will be met with again. Some 
 of them indeed sound very finely, at least, in the eai's of an Enghshman : 
 for instance. 
 
 This royal throne of kings, this seat of Mars, 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise. 
 This fortress built by nature for herself 
 Against infection in the hand of war ; 
 This happy breed of men, this little world, 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 63 
 
 session of cattle, it is manifest he would have said riches 
 of mutton and beef. 
 
 But I will say no more, for it is enough for me, my dear 
 Terentianus, to have discoursed thus far, in passing, upon 
 the use of figures in producing the subhme. For all I have 
 mentioned render compositions more pathetic and affecting. 
 And the pathetic partakes of the sublime, in the same 
 manner as the ethical style of writing partakes of the 
 agreeable. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 SECTION XXX. 
 
 But since the thoughts and the language of compositions 
 generally throw light upon each other, let us, in the next 
 place, consider, what it is that remains to be said of that 
 part which concerns the diction alone. Now, that a judi- 
 cious choice of apt and magnificent terms has a wonderful 
 effect to move and fascinate an audience, that it is this 
 which all orators and writers exert their utmost endeavours 
 to attain, as being that which of itself makes their works 
 to bloom with all the charms of grandeur, beauty, antique 
 richness, solemnity, strength, energy, and every other 
 excellence whatsoever, even such as we behold in the goodliest 
 statues ; and which inspires things inanimate with a living 
 tongue, as it were ; it would, it is to be apprehended, be 
 superfluous to state at length to one well acquainted with 
 the fact. For, in very truth, ornamental words are the 
 peculiar light of our thoughts. But then it is not meet that 
 they should every where exhibit an air of pomp. For to 
 clothe trifling subjects in majestic and solemn expressions, 
 would make the same ridiculous appearance, as if one 
 should put a large tragic mask upon a child. But in 
 poetry * * * -1^ * * [The remainder of this section 
 is lost.] * * * * 
 
64 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 SECTION XXXI. 
 
 ***** [The beginning of this section is lost.J 
 * * * In this verse of Anacreon, the term is not select, 
 yet it pleases, because it is natural : 
 
 My heart's not tow'rd the Thracian girl.* 
 
 So, that admirable expression of Theopompus seems to 
 me, at least, most significant, by reason of the just analogy, 
 though Cecilius, I know not why, finds fault with it — 
 
 Philip (says he) swallows affronts, in compHance with 
 the exigencies of his affairs." 
 
 A vulgarism, then, is sometimes much more significant 
 than an ornamental term ; for it is recognized at once, 
 because it is taken from common life ; and what is familiar 
 to us, is, for that very cause, more convincing.f Therefore, 
 
 * There never was a line of higher grandeur, or more honourable to 
 human nature, expressed, at the same time, in a greater plainness and 
 simplicity of terms, than the following, in the Essay on Man — 
 
 An honest man's the noblest work of God. 
 
 t Images drawn from common life, or famiUar objects, stand in need 
 of a deal of judgment to support and keep them from sinking, but have 
 a much better effect, and are far more expressive, when managed by a 
 skilful hand, than those of a higher nature : the truth of this remark 
 is visible from these hues in Shakspeare's Romeo and Juliet : — 
 
 I would have thee gone ; 
 And yet no further than a wanton's bird, 
 That lets it hop a little from her hand, 
 Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, 
 And with a silk thread pulls it back again, 
 So loving jealous of its liberty. 
 
 Mr. Addison has made use of an image of a lower nature in his Cato, 
 where the lover cannot part with his mistress without the highest 
 regret ; as the lady could not with her lover in the former instance 
 from Shakspeare. He has touched it with equal delicacy and grace : 
 
 Thus o'er the dying lamp, th' unsteady flame 
 Hangs quiv'ring to a point ; leaps off by fits, 
 And falls again, as loath to quit its hold. 
 
 I have ventured to give these instances of the beauty and strength 
 of images taken from low and common objects, because, what the critic 
 says of terms, holds equally in regard to images. An expression is not 
 the worse for being obvious and familiar, for a judicious appUcation 
 gives it new dignity and strong significance. All images and words are 
 dangerous to such as want genius and spirit. By their management, 
 grand words and images, improperly thrown together, sink into 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 65 
 
 when a person, to promote his ambitious designs, bears ill 
 treatment and reproaches with patience, and seeming plea- 
 sure, to say that he swallows affrontSy is as vividly expressive 
 a phrase as could be resorted to. The following passage 
 from Herodotus (1. vi. c. 75,) is of a somewhat similar 
 kind: '^Cleomenes (says he) being seized with madness, 
 with a little knife that he had cut his own flesh into small 
 pieces, till, having reduced his body to shreds, he expired/' 
 And again, (vii. c. 181,) ^^Pythes, remaining still in the 
 ship, fought till he w^as cut to pieces." For these expres- 
 sions approach near to vulgarity, but are not vulgar since 
 they are emphatically significant. 
 
 SECTION XXXIL 
 
 As to number of Metaphors, CeciUus seems to join their 
 opinion, who have laid it down, that two or three, at most, 
 be employed in expressing the same object. But in this, 
 also, Demosthenes is our rule and guide ; and the proper 
 time to apply them is, when the passions are hurried on 
 like a torrent, and draw into their vortex a whole crowd of 
 
 burlesque and sounding nonsense, and the easy and familiar are tortured 
 into insipid fustian. A true genius will steer securely in either course, 
 and with such boldness on particular occasions, that he will almost 
 touch upon rocks, yet never receive any damage. This remark, in that 
 part of it which regards the terms, may be illustrated by the following 
 lines of Shakspeare, spoken by Apemantus to Timon, when he had 
 abjured all human society, and vowed to pass the remainder of his days 
 in a desert : 
 
 What ! think'st thou 
 That the bleak air, thy boist'rous chamberlain, 
 Will put thy shirt on warm ? wiU these moist trees, 
 That have out-liv'd the eagle, page thy heels. 
 And skip when thou point'st out ? "uill the cold brook 
 Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste 
 To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit ? Call the creatures, 
 Whose naked natures live in all the spite 
 Of wreakful heav'n, whose bare unhoused trunks, 
 To the conflicting elements expos'd. 
 Answer mere nature ; bid them flatter thee ; 
 Oh ! thou shalt find — 
 
 The whole is carried on with so much spirit, and supported by such 
 an air of solemnity, that it is noble and affecting. Yet the same expres- 
 sions and allusions, in inferior hands, might have retained theu' original 
 baseness, and been quite ridiculous. 
 
 G 2 
 
G6 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 metapliors, as if they were demanded by the occasion. 
 
 Those polluted men, says he, those fiends, those cringing 
 traitors, that have cruelly maimed and mangled their 
 respective countries, having drunk up their Uberty, and 
 given the cup to Philip once, and since to Alexander, who 
 measure happiness by their belly and the vilest consider- 
 ations ; but as for the spirit of independence, and the reso- 
 lution never to endure a master, which the Greeks of old 
 regarded as the consummation and standard of all felicity, 
 these they have utterly subverted.'^* In this passage, the 
 orator's indignation at the traitors throws the crowd of 
 metaphors into the back ground. It is for this cause, 
 Aristotle and Theophrastus say, that bold metaphors ought 
 to be introduced with some such palliatives as, so to speak ; 
 and, as it were, and, if I may speak with so much boldness. 
 For this self-condemnation, say they, qualifies the adven- 
 turousness of the expressions. 
 
 And I admit this doctrine also : yet still I maintain 
 what I advanced before in regard to figures, that bursts of 
 passion, opportunely introduced, and strokes of geimine 
 sublimity, are the proper antidotes to the effects of bold 
 and acccumulated metaphors ; for it is the nature of the 
 former to draw all the other things into their impetuous 
 current, and drive them onward ; nay, to demand expres- 
 sions of surpassing boldness, as absolutely necessary ; and 
 they do not allow the hearer leisure to criticise on the 
 
 * Demosthenes, in this instance, hursts not out upon the traitorous 
 creatures of Phihp, with such bitterness and severity ; strikes them not 
 dumb, with such a continuation of vehement and cutting metaphors ; 
 as St. Jude some profligate wretches, in his Epistle, ver. 12, 13 : 
 
 " These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast vnth you, 
 feeding themselves without fear : clouds they are without water, carried 
 about of winds : trees, whose fruit withereth, without fruit, plucked up 
 by the roots : raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame : 
 w^andering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for 
 ever." 
 
 By how much the bold defence of Christianity, against the lewd 
 practices, insatiable lusts, and impious blasphemies of wicked abandoned 
 men, is more glorious than the defence of a petty state, against the 
 intrigues of a foreign tyrant ; or, by how much more honourable and 
 praiseworthy it is, to contend for the gloiy of God and rehgion, than 
 the reputation of one repubUc ; by so much does this passage of the 
 apostle exceed that of Demosthenes, commended by Longinus, in force 
 of expression, liveliness of allusion, and height of sublimity. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 67 
 
 number of tlie metaphors, from the contagion of the 
 speaker's enthusiasm.* 
 
 But further even in discussing common places and in 
 descriptions, there is nothing so significantly expressive as 
 continued and successive tropes. By these has Xenophon 
 (Mem, i. c. 4) described so magnificently the anatomy of 
 the human structure. By these has Plato (Timseus) given 
 a still more lifelike portraiture of the same, in a strain of 
 divine eloquence. The head of man he calls the citadel ;t 
 
 * This remark shows the penetration of the judgment of Longinus, 
 and proves the propriety of the strong metaphors in Scripture ; as, 
 when arrows are said to be " drunk with blood/' and a " sword to 
 devour flesh." (Deut. xxxii. 42.) It illustrates the eloquence of St. 
 Paul, who uses stronger, more expressive, and more accumulated meta- 
 phors, than any other writer ; as when, for instance, he styles his con- 
 verts. His joy, his crown, his hope, his glory, his crown of rejoicing." 
 (Phil, iii. 9.) When he exhorts them to put on Christ." (Rom. xiii. 
 14.) When he speaks against the heathens, " who had changed the 
 truth of God into a lie." (Rom. i. 25.) When against wicked men, 
 " whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory 
 is their shame." (Phil. iii. 19.) See a chain of strong ones, Rom. iii. 
 13—18. 
 
 t The Allegory or chain of metaphors that occurs in Psalm Ixxx. 8, 
 is no way inferior to this of Plato. The royal author speaks thus of the 
 people of Israel, under the metaphor of a vine : " Thou hast brought a 
 vine out of Egypt : thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it. 
 Thou madest room for it, and when it had taken root, it filled the 
 land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs 
 thereof were like the goodly cedar-trees. She stretched out her 
 branches unto the sea, and her boughs unto the river." — Pearce. 
 
 Paul has nobly described, in a continuation of metaphors, the Chris- 
 tian armour, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. vi. 13, &c. The 
 sublime description of the horse in Job xxxix. 19 — 25, has been 
 highly applauded by several writers. The reader may see some just 
 observations on it in the Guardian, No. 86. But the 29th chapter of 
 the same book will afford as line instances of the beauty and energy of 
 this figure as can any where be met with : Oh that I were as in 
 months past, as in the days when God preserved me! — when the 
 Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me : when I 
 washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil ! 
 — When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye saw 
 me, it gave witness to me. — The blessing of him that was ready to 
 perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. 
 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me ; judgment was as a robe 
 and a diadem. I was eyes to the bUnd, and feet was I to the lame. I 
 was a father to the poor." There is another beautiful use of this figure 
 in the latter part of the 65th Psalm. The description is lively, and 
 what the French call riante^ or laughing. It has indeed been frequently 
 
68 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 the neck an ishthmus, placed midway between the head 
 and the breast, and supported by the vertebrae, which are, as 
 it were, pivots, on which it turns ; pleasure the bait, which 
 allures men to evil, and the tongue the informer of tastes ; 
 the heart, which is the nucleus of the veins, and the foun- 
 tain of the blood, that circulates rapidly through all the 
 members, is posted in a commanding position ; and the 
 ramifications of the vessels he calls narrow ways. And 
 because the heart is subject to palpitations, either from 
 fear of some impending evil, or under excitement of anger, 
 since it is of a fiery nature, the gods, says he, providing a 
 remedy for these, planted in the body the lungs, a pecuhar 
 substance, soft, bloodless, and cellular, as it were a fender, 
 that, whenever choler inflames the heart, it might sustain 
 no injury by impinging upon a yielding material. The seat 
 of the concupiscible passions, he has named a kind of 
 women's apartment; and the seat of the irascible, a sort of 
 men's apartment; but the spleen he calls the sponge or 
 towel of the viscera, whence, when saturated with their 
 offscourings, it becomes enlarged and turgid. Then, says he, 
 the gods covered all those parts with flesh, opposing it 
 against whatever might assail them from without, as it 
 were woolpacks. The blood he calls the food of the flesh ; 
 and adds, that, for the sake of conveying nourishment, they 
 formed ducts throughout the body, as though they were 
 making water-courses in gardens, that the fluids conveyed 
 by the veins might flow, as it were, from some perennial 
 fountain through the numerous sluices of the body. And 
 at the approach of death, the moorings of the soul, he says, 
 are loosed, as of a ship, and she herself let go without 
 restraint. These, and infinite other turns of the same 
 nature, occur in the sequel ; but those akeady indicated 
 suffice to show, that tropes are naturally endued with an 
 air of grandeur, that metaphors contribute to sublimity, 
 and that they are appropriately employed in descriptive, for 
 the most part, and pathetic passages. 
 
 Now, that the use of tropes, as well as of all other things 
 which are ornamental in discourse, is at all times very 
 
 observed, that the Eastern writings abound very much in strong meta- 
 phors ; but in Scripture they are always supported by a ground- work 
 of mascuhne and nervous strength, without which they are apt to swell 
 into ridiculous bombast. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 69 
 
 liable to excess, is obvious, without any remark from me. 
 Hence it comes to pass, that many severely censure Plato, 
 because oftentimes, as if his language were dictated by a 
 kind of frenzy, he suffers himself to be hurried into extra- 
 vagant and harsh metaphors, and ostentatious allegory. 
 " For, says he, is it not easy to conceive, that a city ought to 
 resemble a goblet replenished with a well-tempered mixture ; 
 where, when wine of furious potency is poured in, it fumes 
 and sparkles ; but when chastened by another more sober 
 divinity, by virtue of this goodly association, it makes a 
 wholesome and convenient beverage.'' (De Legg. 1. vi.) 
 For, say they, to call water a sober divinity, and the mixture 
 a chastening, is the expression of a poet who is certainly 
 not sober himself. 
 
 Cecihus, who censured these, which, after aU, are but 
 trifling defects, nevertheless had the rashness, in his Essay 
 on Lysias,* for this very cause, to declare him in all respects 
 preferable to Plato; moved thereto by two overbearing 
 passions. For though he loved Lysias with more than self- 
 love, yet he hated Plato more intensely, on every account, 
 than he loved Lysias. Besides, he was hurried on by so 
 much heat and prejudice, as to presume on the concession 
 of certain points which never wiU be granted. For Plato 
 being oftentimes faulty, he maintains that he is inferior to 
 Lysias, as being a faultless and perfect writer ; but this is 
 certainly not a true assumption, nor near the truth. 
 
 SECTION XXXIIL 
 
 But let us for once admit, that there is such a thing as a 
 perfect and unexceptionable writer ; wiU. it not then be 
 worth while to consider generally this very question : 
 Whether, in poetry or prose, what is truly grand, with an 
 admixture of some faults, be not preferable to that which 
 has nothing extraordinary in its best parts, but which is 
 correct throughout, and faultless ? Nay, further, whether 
 the palm would be rightly adjudged to those compositions 
 which exhibit the more numerous excellencies, or the higher 
 
 * Lysias was one of the ten celebrated orators of Athens. He was a 
 neat, elegant, correct, and ^dtty writer, but not sublime. Cicero calls 
 him prope perfectum, almost perfect. Quinctilian says he was more 
 like a clear fountain than a great river. 
 
70 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 degrees of sublimity. For these questions are germane to a dis- 
 cussion on the sublime, andimperiously demand adjudication. 
 
 I readily allow, that writers of a lofty and towering 
 genius are by no means faultlessly correct ; for whatever is 
 neat and accurate throughout, is very liable to be flat, 
 while in things that are subhme, as in great affluence of 
 fortune, some matters must needs be overlooked ; but 
 perhaps it is also a necessary consequence, that geniuses of 
 a humble and mediocre kind, because they never make 
 hazardous attempts, nor aim at the highest things, com- 
 monly preserve an uniform faultlessness and comparative 
 exemption from failure, but that things great and sublime 
 are Hable to fall, merely because they are great and lofty. 
 Nor am I ignorant of another thing, that, in forming an 
 estimate of all human works, their imperfections naturally 
 come into prominent notice, and the remembrance of faults 
 is indelibly impressed upon the mind, whereas that of 
 excellencies is rapidly effaced.* For my own part, I have 
 taken notice of no inconsiderable number of faults in Homer, 
 and some other of the greatest authors, and cannot by any 
 means be bhnd or partial to them ; though I judge them 
 not to be voluntary faults, so much as oversights, unguard- 
 edly, inadvertently, and undesignedly made, and which 
 have crept insensibly into their works, from the inattention 
 to minutiae natural to a great genius :f but, notwithstanding, 
 I hold, that the palm should be adjudged to those that can 
 plead the higher excellencies, although they do not preserve 
 an uniform faultlessness in all things, if for no other consi- 
 deration, for the greatness of their genius alone. J 
 
 * So Horace, Ep. 1. ii. Ep. i. 262. 
 
 Discit enim citius meminitque libentius illud, 
 Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur. 
 
 t So Horace, Ars Poet. 351. 
 
 Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis 
 Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, 
 Aut humana parum cavit natura. 
 
 :J So Pope, in t^e spirit of Longinus : 
 
 Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend. 
 And rise to faults true critics dare not mend ; 
 From ^^gar bounds with brave disorder part, 
 And snatch a grace beyond the rules of art ; 
 Which, without passing through the judgment gains 
 The heart, and all its end at once attains. — 
 
 Essay on Criticism. 
 
U LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 71 
 
 i^For assuredly, thougli ApoLlonius, author of the Argo- 
 nautics, was a writer without a blemish and no one ever 
 succeeded better in pastorals than Theocritus, except in some 
 pieces where he has quitted his own province, yet, would you 
 choose to be ApoUonius or Theocritus, rather than Homer? 
 Is Erastosthenes,f whose little poem of Erigone is fault- 
 less throughout, to be deemed superior to Archilochus, who 
 mingles with his sublimities many things also which ill 
 assort with them, and that, from the impetuosity of a 
 divine inspiration, that will not brook control ? In lyrics, 
 would you sooner be Bacchylides J than Pindar, or lo the 
 Chian,§ than even Sophocles? For certainly, Bacchylides 
 and lo are faultless writers, and have attained to perfection 
 in the smooth and polished style ; but Pindar and Sopho- 
 cles at times bear down all before them in their career of 
 fire, as it were ; but frequently their fire is suffered to go 
 out throught inadvertence, and they fall most infelicitously. 
 But yet, no man of sound judgment, I am certain, would 
 scruple to prefer the single OEdipus of Sophocles, before 
 aU that lo ever composed. || 
 
 * ApoUonius was born at Alexandria, but called a Rhodian, because 
 he resided at Rhodes. He was the scholar of Callimachus, and 
 succeeded Eratosthenes as keeper of Ptolemy^s library : he wrote the 
 Argonautics, which are still extant. Of this poet Quinctilian has thus 
 given his judgment, Instit. Orat, 1. x. c. 1. " He pubhshed a perform- 
 ance, which was not despicable, but had a certain even mediocrity 
 throughout. — Pearce. 
 
 t Eratosthenes the Cyrenean, scholar of Callimachus the poet. 
 Among other pieces of poetry, he wrote the Erigone. He was prede- 
 cessor to ApoUonius in Ptolemy's Ubrary at Alexandria. — Pearce. 
 
 t Bacchylides, a Greek poet, famous for lyric verse ; bom at lulis, a 
 town in the Isle of Ceos. He wrote the Apodemics, or the travels of a 
 deity. The Emperor Julian was so pleased with his verses, that he is 
 said to have drawn from thence rules for the conduct of Ufe. And 
 Hiero the Syracusan thought them preferable even to Pindar's, by a 
 judgment quite contrary to what is given here by Longinus. — Pearce. 
 
 § lo the Chian, a dithyrambic poet, who, besides Odes, is said to 
 have composed forty fables. He is called by Aristophanes, The Eastern 
 Star, because he died whUst he w^as writing an ode that began with 
 those words. — Pearce. 
 
 11 The (Edipus Tyrannus, the most celebrated tragedy of Sophocles, 
 which (as Pearce observes) poets of almost all nations have endeavoured 
 to imitate, though, in my opinion, very little to their credit. 
 
72 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 SECTION XXXIV. 
 
 If the perfections of writings are to be estimated by num- 
 ber, and not intrinsic worth, then even Hyperides wiU 
 prove far superior to Demosthenes ; for he has more variety 
 and harmony, and a greater number of beauties, and in 
 almost every perfection is next to excellent. He resembles a 
 champion, practised in the five exercises, who, in each of 
 them severally must yield the superiority to other athletes, 
 but is superior to all unprofessional practitioners. For 
 Hyperides, besides that he has, in every point, except the 
 structure of his words, imitated the excellencies of Demos- 
 thenes, has over and above embraced the graces and beauties 
 of Lysias.* For when his subject demands simplicity, he 
 relaxes the energy of his style ; nor does he utter every thing 
 in one unaltered strain of vehemence, hke Demosthenes ; and 
 in his description of manners, there is a charming sweetness. 
 There is an exhaustless fund of wit about him, a vein of 
 elegant satire, a natural grace, a skilfulness of irony, jests 
 not clumsy or loose, after the manner of those old Attic 
 writers, but natural and easy ; a ready talent at ridicule ; 
 a deal of comic point, conveyed in a style of well-managed 
 pleasantry ; and, in all these respects, a winning graceful- 
 ness, that is almost inimitable. Gifted with extraordinary 
 power to excite commiseration, he is also fertile in stories 
 and famihar chat, returning to his subject after digressions 
 without any distress or difiiculty. Like as also, it is plain, 
 that he has composed his discourse of Latona, in a style 
 more Hke poetry than prose ; and his funeral oration, with 
 a pomp of diction, as far as I know, unequalled. 
 
 * " The graces — of Lysias." For the clearer understanding of this 
 passage, we must observe, that there are two sorts of graces ; the one 
 majestic and grave, and proper for the poets, the other simple, and like 
 railleries in comedy. Those of the last sort enter into the composition 
 of the polished style, called by the rhetoricians y\a<pvpop Koyov ; and of 
 this kind were the graces of Lysias, who, in the judgment of Dionysius 
 of Halicarnassus, excelled in the polished style ; and for this reason, 
 Cicero calls liim venustissimum oratorem. We have one instance of 
 the graces of this petty orator : Speaking one day against ^Eschines, 
 who was in love with an old woman, " He is enamoured (cried he) 
 of a lady, whose teeth may be counted easier than her fingers." 
 Upon this account, Demetrius has ranked the graces of Lysias in the 
 same class with those of Sophron, a farce writer. — Dacier. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 73 
 
 Demosthenes, on the other hand, was not studious to 
 portray the humours and characters of men ; he was not 
 diffusive in his eloquence ; far from flexible and pliant, 
 and void of pomp and parade ; and, in a word, for the 
 most part, deficient in all the qualities ascribed to Hyperides. 
 Where he constrains himself to be merry or facetious, if he 
 makes people laugh, it is at himself. And the more he 
 endeavours to be elegant, the farther he is from it. Had he 
 ever attempted an oration for a Phryne or an Athenogenes, 
 he would have only served still more as a foil to Hyperides.* 
 
 But since, to my thinking, the beauties of Hyperides, 
 though numerous, have no inherent greatness ; are the 
 productions of a sedate and sober genius, but without force 
 to move an audience ; for certainly no one is affected by 
 fear in reading him; while Demosthenes is gifted, on the 
 one hand, with a genius intensely sublime, and a capacity 
 of lofty diction carried to a pitch of transcendent excellence, 
 passions that Hve and breathe, an exhaustless copiousness. 
 
 * Hyperides, of whom mention has been made already, and whom 
 the author in this section compares with Demosthenes, was one of the 
 ten famous orators of Athens. He was Plato's scholar, and thought 
 by some to have shared with Lycurgus in the public administration. 
 His orations for Phryne and Athenogenes were very much esteemed, 
 though his defence of the former owed its success to a very remarkable 
 incident, mentioned by Plutarch. — Life of the ten orators, in Hyperides. 
 
 Phr\iie was the most famous courtezan of that age; her form so 
 beautiful, that it was taken as a model for all the statues of Venus 
 carved at that time throughout Greece : yet an intrigue between her 
 and Hyperides grew so scandalous, that an accusation was preferred 
 against her in the court of Athens. Hyperides defended her with all 
 the art and rhetoric which experience and love could teach him, and 
 his oration for her was as pretty and beautiful as his subject. But as 
 what is spoken to the ears makes not so deep an impression as what is 
 shown to the eyes, Hyperides found his eloquence unavailing, and 
 effectually to soften the judges, uncovered the lady's bosom. Its snowy 
 whiteness was an argument in her favour not to be resisted, and there- 
 fore she was immediately acquitted. 
 
 Longinus's remark is a compliment to Hyperides, but does a secret 
 honour to Demosthenes. Hyperides was a graceful, genteel speaker, 
 one that could say pretty things, divert his audience, and, when a lady 
 was the topic, quite outshine Demosthenes ; whose eloquence was too 
 grand to appear for any thing but honour and liberty. Then he could 
 warm, transport, and triumph ; could revive in his degenerate country- 
 men a love of their country and a zeal for freedom ; could make them 
 cry out in rage and furv, " Let us arm, let us away, let us march against 
 Philip." 
 
 H 
 
74 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 shrewdness, rapidity ; and, on the other hand, a vehemence 
 and power which none could ever approach ; since, I say, 
 Demosthenes has embraced and monopohzed all these, as it 
 were, heaven-sent gifts, for it were a sin to call them human, 
 he invariably surpasses all in the excellencies that are his own ; 
 and, in place of those he has not, strikes down the orators 
 of every age as with the force of thunder, and throws them 
 into the shade as with the glare of lightning ; and sooner 
 might a man look with stedfast gaze on the descending 
 thunderbolt, than eye undismayed his reiterated flashes of 
 passion. 
 
 SECTION XXXV. 
 
 Now, in the case of Plato, there is a certain difference of 
 another sort. For Lysias, falling short of him, not only 
 in the sublimity, but the number also of his beauties, 
 exceeds him more in the number of his faults, than he falls 
 short of him in the number of his excellencies. 
 
 What, then, can we suppose that those god-like writers 
 had in view, who laboured so earnestly to raise their compo- 
 sitions to the highest pitch of the subhme, and looked 
 down with contempt upon punctilious correctness ? It was, 
 in addition to many other things, that nature never designed 
 man to be a grovelling and ungenerous animal, but that, 
 bringing him into Hfe, and placing him in the midst of 
 this universe, as in some crowded theatre, that we might 
 be spectators, and jealous imitators of her in all her mighty 
 works, she implanted in our souls, from the first, an irresist- 
 ible, an insatiable love of every thing that is grand, and 
 that strikes us as exhibiting superior tokens of divine power. 
 Hence it is, that even the whole world is not large enough 
 for the speculations and reasonings of man's aspiring intel- 
 lect ; but often his thoughts pass even the bounds that 
 circumscribe the material universe. Let any one make a 
 survey of the whole compass of this Hfe, and see how 
 universally the vast and grand is more deemed of than the 
 correct and elegant, and he will soon discern what nature 
 designed us for. Thus it is, I ween, that the impulse of 
 our nature incHnes us to admire, not little streams, trans- 
 parent and useful though they be, but the Nile, and Ister, 
 or the Ehine, or, much more still, the Ocean. Neither do 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 75 
 
 we gaze with wonder at this little flame, which we ourselves 
 have kindled, for the pure and spotless light it keeps up, 
 but on the fires of heaven, though ofttimes veiled in dark- 
 ness, nor count it a worthier object of admiration than the 
 craters of ^Etna, whose eruptions throw up rocks and 
 whole hiUs from out their deep recesses, and sometimes 
 pour forth rivers of those materials liquified, as well as 
 pure unmingled fire.* But of all such things we may 
 pronounce, that what is useful, or certainly necessary, for 
 man, claims his regards as being of easy acquisition, but 
 still it is the strange and wonderful that invariably com- 
 mands his admiration. 
 
 SECTION XXXVI. 
 
 With regard, therefore, to sublimities in eloquence, which 
 should never overshoot the mark of utility and advantage, 
 we must consider, at the same time, that all the authors of 
 these, though far removed from faultlessness, yet soar 
 above the level of mortahty ; and that while all other things 
 
 * We have a noble description of the volcano of iEtna in Virgil, 
 Mn, 1. iii. v. 571, which will illustrate this passage in Longinus : 
 
 Horrificis juxta tonat ^tna minis, 
 Interdumque atram prorumpit ad aethera nubem, 
 Turbine fumantem piceo et candente favilla, 
 Attolhtque globos flammarum, et sidera lambit : 
 Interdum scopulos, avolsaque viscera montis 
 Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras 
 Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque exaestuat imo. 
 
 The coast where ^tna lies, 
 Horrid and waste, its entrails fraught with fire ; 
 That now casts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds, 
 Vast show'rs of ashes hov'ring in the smoke ; 
 Tsow belches molten stones, and ruddy flames 
 Incens'd, or tears up mountains by the roots, 
 Or slings a broken rock aloft in air. 
 The bottom works with smother'd fire, involved 
 In pestilential vapours, stench, and smoke. — Addison, 
 
 Longinus's short description has the same spirit and grandeur with 
 Virgil's. The sidera lambity in the fourth line, has the swell in it, 
 which Longinus, Sect. iii. calls super- tragical. This is the remark of 
 Dr. Pearce ; and it is observable, that Mr. Addison has taken no notice 
 of those words in his translation. 
 
76 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 carry with them evidence that they proceed from men, yet 
 the subUme indicates an approximation to the loftiness of 
 divine inteUigence ; and that v^hile the correct and faultless 
 does hut escape censure, the great and grand enforces 
 admiration also."^ 
 
 Why need I yet further observe, that each of those noble 
 writers frequently redeems all his failures by one single 
 stroke of the sublime, one happy effort ; and it is worthy of 
 especial remark, that if any one should pick out the slips 
 of H^^mer, Demosthenes, Plato, and the other consummate 
 authors, and put them together, the instances in which 
 those heroes of fine writing have attained to absolute per- 
 fection would be found to bear a very small, nay, an 
 indefinitely small, proportion to them. It is on account of 
 these that all posterity, in every age, exempt from the 
 blinding prejudices created by envy, have freely awarded 
 them the laurels they have earned, and, to this day, suffer 
 them not to be torn from their brows, but will, as it 
 seems, continue to guard them, 
 
 As long as streams in silver mazes rove, 
 
 Or spring with annual green renews the grove. 
 
 Homer or Cleobulus — Fenton, 
 
 Now, in answer to the writer, who objects that the 
 Colossus, f with all its faults, is not superior to the Guards- 
 man of Polycletus, it is obvious to reply, among many 
 other things, that, in works of art, it is exact proportion 
 that wins our admiration ; but in those of nature, grandeur 
 and magnificence. J Now, speech is a gift bestowed upon us 
 
 * Longinus, in the preceding section, had said, that men " \dew wdth 
 amaze the celestial fires, (such as the sun and moon) though they are 
 frequently obscured;'^ the case is the same with the burning mountain 
 /Etna, though it casts up pernicious fire from its abyss : but here, when 
 he returns to the sublime authors, he intimates, that the sublime is the 
 more to be admired, because, far from being useless or amusing 
 merely, it is of great service to its authors, as well as to the public. — 
 Pearce. 
 
 t The Colossus was a most famous statue of Apollo, erected at 
 Rhodes by Jalysus, of a size so vast, that the sea ran, and ships of the 
 greatest burden sailed, between its legs. — Pearce. 
 
 X The Dorj^horus, a small statue by Polycletus, a celebrated 
 statuary. The proportions were so finely observed in it, that Lysippus 
 professed he had learned all his art from the study and imitation of it. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 77 
 
 by nature. As, therefore, resemblance and proportion to 
 the originals is required in statues, so, in the noble faculty 
 ' of discourse, there should be something, as I have said, 
 more than humanly great. 
 
 But still, (for after a long excursion I come round to the 
 precept I delivered in the commencement of the treatise,) 
 since it is the perfection of art to avoid, in the main, defect 
 and blemish, while the nature of a subHme genius is to 
 exhibit superlative greatness in its productions, but not 
 uniformly sustained, it is meet that art should, in all cases, 
 be resorted to as an auxiliary to nature. For, from such 
 union and mutual alliance, perfection would seem to 
 result. 
 
 Thus much, I have been under a necessity of delivering 
 in decision of the questions in debate ; but let every man 
 enjoy his own opinion. 
 
 SECTION XXXVII. 
 
 To return. Similes and comparisons * bear a close affinity 
 to metaphors, differing from them only in one particular 
 :i< * ;ic * j-rpj^g remainder of this section is lost.] 
 
 ijc ^ '{^ 
 
 * The manner in which similes or comparisons differ from metaphors, 
 we cannot know from Longinus, because of the gap which follows 
 in the original ; but they differ only in the expression. To say that fine 
 eyes are the eyes of a dove, or that cheeks are a bed of spices, 
 are metaphors ; which become comparisons, if expressed thus — are as 
 the eyes of a dove, or as a bed of spices. These two comparisons are 
 taken from the description of the beloved, in the Song of Solomon, 
 (ver. 10 — 16.) in which there are more, of great strength and propriety, 
 and an uncommon sweetness : 
 
 " My beloved is sweet and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand. 
 His head is as the most fine gold ; his locks are bushy, and black as a 
 raven. His eyes are as the eyes of a dove, by the rivers of water, 
 washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as 
 sweet flowers ; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. His 
 hands are as gold-rings, set with the beryl: his belly is as bright 
 as ivory, overlaid with sapphire. His legs are as pillars of marble, set 
 upon sockets of fine gold. His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent 
 as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether lovely." 
 
 H 2 
 
78 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 SECTION XXXVIII. 
 * * « * beginning of this section on hyperboles , 
 
 is lost] ******** As this hyperbole, 
 for instance, is exceeding bad : "If you carry not your 
 brains in your heels, and tread upon them." (Demosthenes 
 or Hegesippus, Oration on Halonesus.) It is, therefore, 
 needful to know, how far, in each case, the thought can 
 properly be carried. For overshoooting the mark often 
 neutralizes the hyperbole ; and expressions of this nature, 
 when overstrained, lose their tone, nay, sometimes pro- 
 duce effects contrary to those for which they are designed. 
 Thus, Isocrates has played the child, from an ambition that 
 is unwilling to utter any thing without amplification. For 
 the end and design of his Panegyric* is to prove that the 
 Athenians had done greater service to the Greeks than the 
 Lacedemonians ; but this is the language he uses in the 
 very outset : Besides, the power of eloquence is so great, 
 as to be able to render great things contemptible, to clothe 
 trifling subjects with the attributes of greatness, to impart 
 an air of novelty to things old, and to discourse of recent 
 transactions, so as to give them the appearance of antiquity. 
 
 And is it thus, then, Isocrates, a man might ask, that you 
 are going to change the character of the acts of the Athe- 
 nians and Lacedaemonians ? For this encomium of eloquence 
 is as much as a notice and hint, thrown out to his hearers, 
 to disbelieve what he says. 
 
 Those hyperboles, then,f would seem to be the best (as I 
 have before observed of figures) which have not the appearance 
 
 * " Panegyric." This is the most celebrated oration of Isocrates, 
 which, after ten, or, as some say, fifteen years' labour spent upon 
 it, begins in so indiscreet a manner. Longinus, sect, iii., has censured 
 Timaeus, for a frigid parallel between the expedition of Alexander and 
 Isocrates ; yet Gabriel de Petra, an editor of Longinus, is guilty of the 
 same fault, in making even an elephant more expeditious than Isocrates, 
 because they breed faster than he wrote. 
 
 f The whole of this remark is curious and refined. It is the 
 importance of a passion which qualifies the hyperbole, and makes that 
 commendable, when uttered in warmth and vehemence, which, in cool- 
 ness and sedateness, would be insupportable. So Cassius speaks 
 invidiously of Caesar, in order to raise the indignation of Brutus : — 
 
 Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world 
 
 Like a Colossus, and we petty men 
 
 Walk under his huge legs, and peep about 
 
 To find ourselves dishonourable graves. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 79 
 
 of being hyperboles at all. And this is the case with those, 
 which are uttered under feelings excited by some circum- 
 stance of magnitude. Thus, Thucydides has applied one in 
 the case of his countrymen that perished in Sicily. — 
 (Thucyd. vii.) ^*The Syracusans, says he, came down 
 upon them, and made a slaughter chiefly of those that were 
 in the river. The water immediately became turbid. But 
 still, though polluted with mud and gore, they drank it ; 
 and most of them even fought for a draught of it." The 
 circumstances, and the very afiecting character of the tran- 
 saction, make it not incredible that gore and mud were 
 drunk, and yet were fought for. 
 
 Herodotus (vii.) has used an hyperbole similarly con- 
 cerning those warriors who fell at Thermopylae. " In this 
 place, says he, while defending themselves with their 
 swords, that is, such as had swords left them, and with 
 their hands and teeth, they were buried under the arrows of 
 the barbarians." You will say here, what is meant by men 
 defending themselves with their teeth against heavy armed 
 troops, and what in the world by being buried under 
 arrows? Notwithstanding, it is rendered credible, on a 
 similar principle to that stated above. For the circum- 
 stances do not appear to have been called in to aid the 
 hyperbole ; but the hyperbole seems to be naturally pro- 
 duced by the transaction. For, as I still continue to insist, 
 when the deeds are of a violent kind, and the passions are 
 vehemently excited, they qualify and abate aU boldness 
 of expression. Whence, also, in comedy, circumstances 
 wholly absurd and incredible pass off very well, because 
 they excite laughter.* As in this passage : " He was owner 
 
 So, again, in return to the swelling arrogance of a bully, 
 
 To whom ? to thee ? what art thou ? have not I 
 
 An arm as big as thine ? a heart as big ? 
 
 Thy words I grant, are bigger : for I wear not 
 
 My dagger in my mouth. Shakspere's Cymheline. 
 
 Hyperboles literally are impossibilities, and, therefore, can only then 
 be seasonable or productive of sublimity, when the circumstances may 
 be stretched beyond their proper size, that they may appear, without 
 fail, important and great. 
 
 * The author has hitherto treated of hyperboles as conducive to 
 subhmity, and has nothing to do with humour and mirth, the peculiar 
 province of comedy. Here the incidents must be so over-stretched as 
 to promote diversion and laughter. Now, what is most absurd and 
 
80 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 of a piece of ground, less than a Laconic epistle." For 
 laughter also is a passion which is founded in pleasure.* 
 
 But hyperboles are equally applicable to enlarging and 
 lessening ; for both alike admit of being carried to further 
 degrees. The diasyrm is a sort of further lessening of that 
 which is already small and mean.f 
 
 PART V. 
 
 SECTION XXXIX. 
 
 It still remains for us, my honoured friend, to inquire into 
 the fifth of those which were laid down to be the causes 
 that contribute to the consummation of the sublime. J It is 
 
 incredible, sometimes become the keenest joke. But there is judgment 
 even in writing absurdities and incredibihties ; otherwise, instead 
 of raising the laugh, they sink below it, and give the spleen. Genius 
 and discretion are requisite to play the fool with applause. 
 
 * Demetrius Phalereus has commended one of these letters for 
 its sententious and expressive conciseness, which has been often quoted 
 to illustrate this passage. It is very well worth observation. The 
 direction is longer than the letter: — The Lacedemonians to Philip. 
 " Dionysius is at Corinth." 
 
 At the time when this was written, Dionysius, who for his tyranny 
 had been driven out of Sicily, taught school at Corinth for bread. So 
 that it was a hint to Philip not to proceed, as he had begun, to imitate 
 his conduct, lest he should be reduced to the same necessitous 
 condition. 
 
 f Shakspere has made Richard III. speak a merry diasyrm upon 
 himself : — 
 
 I, that am rudely stampM, and want love's majesty, 
 To strut before a wanton ambhng nymph ; 
 I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion. 
 Cheated of feature by dissembhng nature, 
 Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
 Into this breathing world, scarce half made up ; 
 And that, so lamely and unfashionably. 
 That dogs bark at me as I halt by them. 
 
 X The author, in the fifth division, treats of composition, or such a 
 structure of the words and periods, as conduces most to harmony 
 of sound. This subject has been handled with the utmost nicety and 
 refinement by the ancient vn.'iters, particularly Dionysius of Hahcar- 
 nassus, and Demetrius Phalereus. The former, in his treatise on 
 the structure of words, has recounted the different sorts of style, 
 has divided each into the periods of which it is composed, has again 
 subdivided those periods into their different members, those members 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 81 
 
 the due structure of words. Having already, in two 
 treatises, delivered sufficiently upon this subject, all that I 
 could attain to in the matter, I will now add only, in 
 compliance with the necessary requirements of my present 
 purpose, that harmony is not only a cause of persuasion and 
 delight, inherent in human nature, but a wonderful means 
 of imparting majesty to diction, and expressing mental 
 affections. For does not the pipe inspire its hearers with 
 certain emotions, and, in a manner, transport and fill them 
 with ecstasy ; and when it has played off some closing 
 notes, in a certain rythm, does it not force the hearer 
 to step according to it, and keep time, and to adapt himself 
 to the tune, even though he be altogether unversed in 
 music. And, assuredly, the tones of the harp, which sig- 
 nify nothing unconnectedly, yet by the changes of sounds, 
 by being tempered together, and mutually blended, often 
 charm us marvellously, by the concord of sweet sounds, as 
 you very well know. Yet these are but faint shadows and 
 bastard imitations of the powers of persuasion, and not the 
 genuine operations of man's distinctive nature. Think we 
 not, then, that composition in language, which is a sort of 
 harmony of that speech which nature has implanted in man, 
 which reaches to the very soul, and not the ear alone, which 
 
 into their words, those words into syllables, and has even anatomized 
 the very syllables into letters, and made observations on the different 
 natures and sound of the vowels, half-vowels, and mutes. He shows, 
 by instances drawn from Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, &c., with 
 what artful management those great authors have sweetened and 
 ennobled their compositions, and made their sound to echo to the sense. 
 But a style, he says, may be sweet without any grandeur, and may be 
 grand without any sweetness. Thucydides is an example of the latter, 
 and Xenophon of the former ; but Herodotus has succeeded in both, 
 and written his history in the highest perfection of style. 
 
 An English reader would be surprised to see with what exactness 
 they lay down rules for the feet, times, and measures of prose as well as 
 of verse. This was not peculiar to the Greek vvriters, since Cicero 
 himself, in his rhetorical works, abounds in rules of this nature for the 
 Latin tongue. The works of that great orator could not have lived, 
 and received such general applause, had they not been laboured with 
 the utmost art ; and, what is really surprising, how careful soever 
 his attention was to the length of his syllables, the measure of his 
 feet, and the modulation of his words, yet it has not damped the spirit, 
 or stiffened the freedom of his thoughts. Any one of his performances, 
 on a general survey, appears grand and noble ; on a closer inspection, 
 every part shows peculiar symmetry and grace. 
 
82 
 
 LONGINTJS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 suggests such various forms of words, sentiments, things, 
 beauty, proportion ; all innate and congenial to us — that har- 
 mony, which, by blending and diversifying its own sounds, 
 insinuates into the souls of others the affection kindled in 
 the speaker's breast, and infallibly causes the hearers to 
 participate therein, and which, by l3uilding up an edifice of 
 words, forms into one harmonious whole the grand things 
 at its disposal — think we not, I say, that, acting by such 
 means as these, composition must charm the soul at the 
 same time that it invariably impresses us with ideas of 
 grandeur, dignity, sublimity, and whatsoever else is com- 
 prehended in it, exercising an absolute and sovereign sway 
 overall the powers of the mind?* But it seems madness to 
 make a question of points so fully admitted ; for the evi- 
 dence of experience requires no confirmation. 
 
 Sublimely effective and substantially admirable is that 
 conception of Demosthenes, (Oration on the Crown,) 
 which he subjoins to the decree : — This decree caused the 
 danger, which then enveloped the city, to pass away like a 
 mist."f Yet the harmonious sound of the words comes up 
 to the subHmity of the sentiment they convey ; for the whole 
 is uttered in dactylic measures ; the finest and most conducive 
 to sublimity ; for which cause also, they are employed in 
 forming heroic verse, the goodhest of all. For do but remove 
 the two last words (in the Greek) from their proper place 
 to any other you please, or even lop off one syllable only, 
 from the end of the last but one, and you will be satisfied 
 how much harmonious sound contributes to subHmity. For 
 tlie two last words form a close, having the first foot 
 long, and measured by four times, (a spondee ;) but if one 
 syllable be taken away, what is left mars the grandeur of 
 the period, by dropping a part of it. As, conversely, if you 
 lengthen the last word but one, by adding a syllable to the 
 end, the signification is the same, but its effect upon 
 
 * Tanta oblectatio est in ipsa facilitate dicendi, ut nihil hominum aut 
 auribus aut mentibus jiicundius percipi possit. Quis enim cantus 
 moderata orationis pronunciatione dulcior inveniri potest ? quod carmen 
 artificiosa verborum conclusione aptius ? — Cicero de Orator 1. ii. 
 So Milton:-— 
 
 Song charms the sense, but eloquence the soul. 
 TovTo rh (p7}(l)i(rijLa rhy rore tt} 7r6\€i TEpiaravTa. Kivovvov irap^XQ^Iv 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 83 
 
 the ear is not the same. For by lengthening the times of 
 the two closing words, you dissolve and relax the siibhme 
 effect of the rapid cadence. 
 
 SECTION XL. 
 
 But, among the methods which conduce most to elevate 
 discourse, is that of putting together the parts, even as in 
 the members of the body."^ If they are taken apart, each 
 single member will have no beauty or grandeur, but when 
 skilfully knit together, they produce a perfect and harmo- 
 nious whole. So the constituent parts of sublime periods, 
 when disjoined and scattered here and there without mutual 
 connexion, do at the same time dissipate and fritter away 
 their sublimity ; but when embodied in mutual fellowship, 
 and moreover held together and encircled by the bond of 
 harmony, they fall effectively upon the ear from their mere 
 rotundity ; and the sublimities in the several periods may 
 be regarded as mutual contributions, which go to make up 
 one sublime whole. But I have already said enough to show 
 that many historians and poets, ungifted with sublime 
 genius, and perhaps devoid of true greatness, though em- 
 ploying, for the most part, words that are common and 
 vulgar, and impart nothing of ornament, yet only by 
 this manner of putting them together, and connecting 
 them, have invested their works with a kind of pomp and 
 grandeur, and have escaped the imputation of meanness. 
 Of this class, among many others, is Philistus ; as also 
 Aristophanes, in some passages, and Euripides in Yery 
 many. Thus Hercules, (Eurip. Here. Fur.) after the murder 
 of his children, cries, 
 
 I'm full of mis'ries ; there's not room for more. 
 The expression is very vulgar, but it is made subhme by 
 the w^ords being so constructed as to correspond with the 
 thing signified ; and if you were to put them together in 
 
 * So Pope : — 
 
 In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts 
 Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts ; 
 'Tis not a lip or cheek we beauty call, 
 But the joint force and full result of all. — 
 
 Essaij on Criticism., 
 
84 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 another way, it will become apparent to you that Euripides 
 is a poet in respect of the structure of his language, more 
 than the fineness of his sentiments. So in his description 
 of Dirce dragged along by the bull, * 
 
 Whene'er the madd'ning creature rag'd about 
 And whirl'd his bulk around in awkward circles, 
 The dame, the oak, the rock, were dragg'd along. 
 
 The thought itself is noble, but is rendered still grander, 
 because the words are put together so as not to move 
 rapidly, nor roll, as it were, down a dechvity ; but are 
 mutually sustained, and shored up by means of pauses, 
 acquiring a sort of staid grandeur, by being thus kept 
 apart. 
 
 SECTION XLI. 
 
 But nothing so much lowers the tone of sublimity as an 
 over-nice and mincing rythm, such as is formed by pyrrhics, 
 trochees, and dichorees, which make a perfect jig of it.f 
 
 * Zethus and Amphion tied their mother-in-law% Dirce, by the hair 
 of her head to a wild bull, which image Euripides has represented in 
 this passage. Langbaine observes, that there is a fine sculpture on this 
 subject, by Taurisius, in the palace of Farnese at Rome, of which 
 Baptista de Cavalleriis has given us a print in 1. iii. p. 3. antiq. statua- 
 rum urbis Romce. 
 
 There is a much greater image than this in the Paradise Lost, b. vi. 
 ver. 644, with which this remark of Longinus on the sedate grandeur 
 of judicious pauses will exactly square : 
 
 From their foundations loos'ning to and fro, 
 They pluck'd the seated hills, with all their load, 
 Rocks, waters, woods ; and by the shaggy tops 
 Uplifting bore them in their hands. 
 
 So again in book ii. ver. 557. When the fallen spirits are engaged 
 in deep and abstruse researches concerning fate, free-will, foreknow- 
 ledge, the very structure of the words expresses the intricacy of the 
 discourse; and the repetition of some of the words, with epithets of slow 
 pronunciation, shows the difficulty of making advancements in such 
 unfathomable points : 
 
 Others apart sat on a hill retii''d. 
 In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high 
 Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate ; 
 Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute ; 
 And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost. 
 
 t A pyrrhic is a foot of two short syllables ; a trochee of one long 
 and one short ; and a dichoree is a double trochee. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 85 
 
 Tor all compositions whose rythm is thus overwrought, are 
 manifestly affected, and frivolous, and with all their preten- 
 sion, fail to move in the slightest degree, because they are 
 of the same texture throughout. And a still worse effect 
 is, that as ballads divert the hearers from the matter before 
 them, and force attention to themselves, so also, things 
 spoken in a rythm overwrought, do not impress the hearers 
 with the subject, but the rythm, so that sometimes, fore- 
 knowing the cadences that should come, they themselves 
 beat time to the speakers, and, as in a dance, anticipate 
 them in the closing measure. 
 
 In Hke manner, periods forced into too narrow a compass, 
 and cut up into short words, and words of short syllables, 
 or that are bound together in an awkward and clumsy 
 manner, as it were with nails, one upon another, are desti- 
 tute of grandeur. 
 
 SECTION XLII. 
 
 Moreover, excessive contraction of style is another draw- 
 back to sublimity. For it mars the effect of sublimity, 
 when the words are forced into too contracted a compass. 
 I do not mean here sentences, that demand a proper con- 
 ciseness ; but, on the contrary, those that are curtailed and 
 minced. For contraction mutilates the sense, but concise- 
 ness carries it direct to the mark. And it is manifest, on 
 the other hand, that sentences unduly extended, are defi- 
 cient in life and energy ; I mean such as are enervated by 
 being lengthened out beyond what the occasion requires. 
 
 SECTION XLIII. 
 
 Low and sordid words are serious blemishes to the sublime. 
 For instance, Herodotus' s description of the tempest is 
 divine, so far as relates to the conceptions, but there are 
 some expressions in it which fall below the dignity of the 
 matter. This, perhaps, among others ''The sea seethed ;"f 
 for the uncouth sound of the words sea seethed^ detracts 
 
 * Herod. 1. 7. c. 191. 
 
 t " To seeth." I have chosen this word rather than hoil, which is 
 not a hlemished term in our language : and besides, seeth resemhles 
 
 I 
 
86 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 much from tlie grandeur of the conception. Again, he 
 says, The wind flagged, and those who were overtaken 
 by the storm, met with a disagreeable end." To fiag^ is a 
 mean and vidgar term ; and disagreeable, a word inappro- 
 priate to a disaster of such magnitude. 
 
 Theopompus, in like manner, after describing magnifi- 
 cently the descent of the Persians into Egypt, has exposed 
 the whole performance to censure, by the intermixture of 
 some low and trivial words.* What city or what nation 
 was there in all Asia, which did not compliment the king 
 with an embassy ? What was there of the productions of 
 the earth, or what that is admired or valued among the 
 achievements of art, which was not presented to him ? were 
 not many and sumptuous carpets, and vestments, purple, 
 white, and particoloured, many tents inwraught with gold, 
 amply furnished with all necessaries, many embroidered robes 
 and sumptuous couches ; and besides, an immense quan- 
 tity of chased silver and wrought gold, and cups and goblets, 
 some of which you might have seen adorned with precious 
 stones, and others embellished with exquisite art and costly 
 workmanship? Add to these, arms unnumbered, Grecian 
 and Barbarian, beasts of burden beyond computation, and 
 among these, cattle for slaughter ; many bushels of pre- 
 serves, many hampers and sacks, and volumes of books, 
 and all things besides, that necessity or convenience could 
 require ; and so great an abundance of salted flesh, of 
 every kind of cattle, as swelled to such prodigious heights, 
 that they were supposed by persons who approached them 
 from a distance, to be mountains and hillocks jostling 
 each other." He falls off from the more elevated to the 
 more insignificant, whereas he ought contrariwise to have 
 risen progressively in sublimity. And besides, by his 
 strange mixture of baskets, and preserves, and sacks, with 
 the spendid report of all these preparations, he has set 
 
 more the Greek word ^eaaff-ns in the ill sound that it has upon the 
 palate, which is the fault that Longinus finds with the word in Hero- 
 dotus. Milton has something of the like sort which offends the ear, 
 when we read in Book i. " Azazel, as his right/' &c. 
 
 * Theopompus was a Chian and a scholar of Isocrates. His genius 
 was too hot and impetuous, which was the occasion of a remark of his 
 master Isocrates, that " Ephorus always wanted a spur, but Theo- 
 pompus a curb." 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 87 
 
 before us the idea of a sort of kitchen. For as, if any one, 
 seeing before him, all those spendid preparations, should 
 purposely bring hampers, and sacks, and put them in the 
 midst between goblets of gold, and vessels set with precious 
 stones, and chased silver, and tents all golden, and cups, 
 it would be an unseemly sight ; so also, terms such as these, 
 introduced inopportunely, are blemishes, and, as it were, 
 disgraceful marks branded upon the language. 
 
 But it was open to him to have described in general 
 terms both those hiUs, which, he says, were thrown together; 
 and with regard to the other circumstances of the prepara- 
 tion, to have changed the form of his language, and said, 
 
 camels and a multitude of beasts of burthen laden with 
 all supplies necessary for luxury, and the delights of the 
 table or to have said, rather, heaps of all kinds of corn, 
 and of all that is excellent, either for the preparation of 
 food or for luxury ; or if he must recount every thing so pre- 
 cisely, as he preferred to do, he might have said, all the 
 delights which purveyors of the table and cooks are con- 
 cerned about. 
 
 In the sublime, we ought never to take up with sordid 
 and exploded terms, unless reduced to it by the most urgent 
 necessity ; but it were meet that our words should be pro- 
 portioned to the dignity of our sentim.ents, and that we 
 should imitate the proceeding of nature in the stucture of 
 the human fabric, who has not placed those parts, which 
 should be nameless, in open view, nor the excretions from 
 the whole body ; but concealed them as much as possible, 
 and removed their channels (to iiiake use of Xenophon's 
 words)* to the greatest distance from the eyes," thereby to 
 preserve the beauty of the animal entire and unblemished.f 
 
 To pursue this topic further, by a particular recital of 
 whatever diminishes and impairs the sublime, would be a 
 needless task. I have already shown what methods elevate 
 and ennoble, and it is obvious that their opposites must 
 lower and debase it. 
 
 * Xenoph ATTofjLvy]ixov. 1. 2. p. 45. edit. Oxon. 
 
 t Quae partes autem corporis, ad naturae necessitatem datae, adspec- 
 tum essent deformem habiturae ac turpem, eas coutexit atque abdidit. — 
 Cicero de Offic. p. 61, 62. Edit. Cochman, 
 
88 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 SECTION XLIV. 
 
 In consideration of your desire for useful information, my 
 dearest Terentianus, I shall not hesitate to add an eluci- 
 dation of that remaining question, which was recently pro- 
 posed by a certain philosopher. I wonder, said he, and 
 not I alone, but doubtless many others also, how it happens 
 that in the age we live in, there are many men eminently 
 endowed with talents for persuasion and public speaking, 
 remarkable for shrewdness and readiness, and, above all, 
 expert in the arts which give grace and sweetness to lan- 
 guage ; but that there are now none at all, or very few, 
 who are distinguished for loftiness and grandeur of style. 
 So great and universal is the dearth of genuine eloquence 
 that prevails in this age. Must we believe at last, that 
 there is truth in that oft-repeated observation. That demo- 
 cracy is the kindly nurse of sublime genius ; with whose 
 strength alone truly powerful orators flourish, and disap- 
 pear as it declines ? For liberty, say they, is able to supply 
 nutriment to the lofty conceptions of great minds, and feed 
 their aspirations, and at the same time to foster the flame 
 of mutual emulation, and stimulate ambition for preemi- 
 nence. Nay further, that the mental excellencies of orators 
 are whetted continually by reason of the rewards proposed 
 in free states ; that they are made, as it were, to give out 
 fire by colhsion, and naturally exhibit the hght of liberty 
 in their oratorical efforts. But we of the present day, con- 
 tinued he, seem to be trained from our childhood to absolute 
 slavery, having been all but swathed in its customs and 
 institutes, and never allowed to taste of that most copious 
 fountain of all that is admirable and attractive in eloquence, 
 I mean, liberty; and hence it is that we turn out to be 
 nothing but pompous flatterers.* This, he said, was the 
 
 * The critic (in the person of the philosopher who speaks here) is 
 accounting for the scarcity of sublime writers ; and avers democracy 
 to be the nurse of genius, and the greatest encourager of subhmity. 
 The fact is evident from the republics of Greece and Rome. In Greece, 
 Athens was most democratical, and a state of the greatest Uberty. 
 And hence it was, that, according to the obsers^ation of Paterculus 
 (1. i. near the end,) " Eloquence flourished in greater force and plenty 
 in that city alone, than in all Greece besides : insomuch that (says he) 
 though the bodies of the people were dispersed into other cities, yet 
 you would think their genius to have been pent up witliin the bare 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 89 
 
 cause why we see that all other attamments may be found 
 in menials : but never yet a slave become an orator. His 
 spirit being effectually broken, the timorous vassal will 
 still be uppermost ; the habit of subjection continually 
 overawes and beats down his genius. For, according to 
 Homer, (Odys. i. ver. 322.) 
 
 Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day 
 
 Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away. — Pope. 
 
 As then, said he, (if what I have heard deserves credit,) 
 the cages, in which what are called pigmies are k^pt, not 
 only prevent the growth of those who are inclosed in them, 
 but contract their dimensions by reason of the confinement 
 in which their whole bodies are placed ; so slavery of every 
 kind, even the mildest, one might declare to be the cage 
 and common prison of the mind. 
 
 Now here I rejoined : It is easy and characteristic of 
 human nature, to find fault with the existing state of things, 
 whatever it be ; but I would have you consider whether, in 
 some degree, this corruption of genius is not owing to the 
 profound peace which reigns throughout the world ; but 
 much more to the well known war which our lusts are 
 waging within us universally; and, moreover, to those 
 mental foes that have invaded the present age, and waste and 
 ravage all before them.* For avarice (that disease of which 
 
 precincts of Athens." Pindar the Theban, as he afterwards owns, is 
 the only exception to this remark. So the city of Rome was not only 
 the seat of liberty and empire, but of true wit and exalted genius. The 
 Roman power indeed outUved the Roman liberty, but wit and genius 
 could not long sur\ive it. What a high value ought we then to set 
 upon liberty, since, without it, nothing great or suitable to the dignity 
 of human nature can possibly be produced ! Slavery is the fetter of 
 the tongue, the chain of the mind, as well as of the body. It embitters 
 life, sours and corrupts the passions, damps the towering faculties 
 implanted within us, and stifles in the birth the seeds of every thing 
 that is amiable, generous, and noble. Reason and freedom are our own, 
 and given to continue so. We are to use, but cannot resign them, 
 without rebelling against Him who gave them. The invaders of either 
 ought to be resisted by the united force of all men, since they encroach 
 on the privileges we receive from Ged, and traverse the designs of 
 infinite goodness. 
 
 * Reason in man obscured, or not obey'd. 
 Immediately inordinate desires 
 And upstart passions catch the government 
 From reason, and to ser\itude reduce 
 
90 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 the whole world is sick beyond a cure,) aided by voluptu- 
 ousness, holds us in abject thraldom ; or rather, if I may 
 so express it, drowns us body and mind. For the love of 
 money is the canker of the soul's greatness ; and the love 
 of pleasure corrodes every generous sentiment.* I have, 
 indeed, thought much upon it, but after all judge it impos- 
 sible for them that set their hearts upon, or, to speak more 
 truly, that deify unbounded riches, to preserve their souls 
 from the infection of all those vices which are firmly allied 
 to them. For riches that know no bounds and restraint, 
 bring with them profuseness, their close-leagued, and as 
 they call it, dogging attendant ; and while wealth unbars 
 the gates of cities, and opens the doors of houses, profuse- 
 ness gets in at the same time, and takes up a joint residence. 
 And when they have remained awhile in our principles and 
 conduct, they build their nests there (in the language of 
 philosophy,) and speedily proceeding to propagate their 
 species, they hatch arrogance, pride, and luxury-, no spuri- 
 ous brood, but their genuine offspring. If these children 
 of wealth be fostered and suffered to reach maturity, they 
 quickly engender in our souls those inexorable tyrants, 
 insolence, injustice, and impudence. When men are thus 
 fallen, what I have mentioned must needs result from their 
 depravity. They can no longer lift up their eyes to any 
 thing above themselves, nor feel any concern for reputation ; 
 but the corruption of every principle must needs be gra- 
 dually accomplished by such a series of vices ; and the 
 nobler faculties of the soul decay, and wither, and lose all 
 the fire of emulation, when men neglect the cultivation of 
 their immortal parts, and suffer the mortal and worthless 
 to engross all their care and admiration. 
 
 For he that hath received a bribe to pervert judgment, 
 is incapable of forming an unbiassed and sound decision in 
 matters pertaining to equity and honour. For it must 
 needs be, that one corrupted by gifts should be influenced 
 
 Man till then free. Therefore since he permits 
 Within himself unworthy powers to reign 
 Over free reason, God, in judgment just, 
 Subjects him from without to \iolent lords. 
 
 Milton's Paradise Lost, xii. 8. 
 
 Quisnam igitur liber ? Sapiens sihi qui imperiosus. — Horace. 
 
 * See Paul, 1 Tim. \\. 9. 
 
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 by self-interest in judging of what is just and honourable. 
 Bnd when the whole tenor of our several lives is guided 
 only by corruption, by a desire for the death of others, and 
 schemes to creep into their wills ; when we are ready to 
 barter our life for paltiy gains, led captive, one and all, 
 by the thirst for lucre, can we expect, in such a general 
 coiTuption, so contagious a depravity, that there should be 
 found one unbiassed and unperverted judge that can discri- 
 minate what is truly great, or will stand the test of time, 
 uninfluenced in his decisions by the lust of gain ? But if 
 this is the case, perhaps it is better for such as we are, to 
 be held in subjection, than to be free ; for, be sure, if such 
 rapacious desires, were suffered to prey upon others without 
 restraint, like wild beasts let out of confinement, they 
 would set the world on fire with the mischiefs they would 
 occasion. Upon the whole, then, I have shown that the 
 bane of true genius in the present day, is that dissolution 
 of morals, which, with few exceptions, prevails universally 
 among men who, in all they do, or undertake, seek only 
 applause and self-gratification, without a thought of that 
 public utility which cannot be too zealously pursued, or 
 too highly valued. 
 
 But it were best to let these matters alone ; and proceed 
 to that which follows in connexion with my design; I 
 mean the subject of the passions, of which I volunteered to 
 treat in a distinct book, since they not only have an impor- 
 tant bearing upon oratory in other ways, but if I am not 
 mistaken, contribute much to the sublime."^ 
 
 * " 'SS'e come now to the passions," &c. The learned world ought 
 certainly to be condoled with, on the great loss they have sustained in 
 Longinus's Treatise on the Passions. The excellence of this on the 
 Subhme. makes us regret the more the loss of the other, and inspires 
 us with deep resentment of the iiTcparable depredations committed on 
 learning and the valuable productions of antiquity, by Goths, and 
 monks, and time. There, in all probability, we shoidd have beheld 
 the secret springs and movements of the soid disclosed to \-iew. There 
 we should have been taught, if rule and observation in this case can 
 teach, to elevate an audience into joy, or melt them into tears. I'here 
 we should have learned, if ever, to work upon every passion, to put 
 every heart, ever}- pulse in emotion. At present we must sit down 
 contented under the loss, and be satisfied with this invaluable piece on 
 the subhme, wliich with much hazard has escaped a v^Teck, and gained 
 a port, though not undamaged. Great indeed are the commendations 
 wliich the judicious bestow upon it, but not in the least dispropor- 
 
92 
 
 LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME. 
 
 tioned to its merit. For in it are treasured up the laws and precepts 
 of fine writing, and a fine taste. Here are the rules which polish 
 the writer's invention, and refine the critic's judgment. Here is an 
 object proposed at once for our admiration and imitation. 
 
 Dr. Pearce's advice will be a seasonable conclusion — " Read over 
 very frequently this golden treatise (which deserves not only to be read 
 but imitated), that you may hence understand, not only how the best 
 authors have written, but learn yourself to become an author of the 
 first rank. Read it therefore and digest it, then take up your pen in 
 the words of Virgil's Nisus — 
 
 Aliquid jamdudum invadere magnum 
 Mens agitat mihi, nec placida contenta quiete est." 
 
 A gen'rous ardour boils -s^lthin my breast, 
 Eager of action, enemy of rest. — Dry den. 
 
 London : J. Blackburn, Printer, 6, Hatton Garden.