1. LECT. the terrible, tend greatly to affift the Sublime; fuch as darkness, folitude, and filence. What are the scenes of nature that elevate the mind in the highest degree, and produce the fublime sensation? Not the gay landscape, the flowery field, or the flourishing city; but the hoary mountain, and the folitary lake; the aged foreft, and the torrent falling over the rock. Hence too, night-fcenes are commonly the most fublime. The firmament when filled with stars, scattered in such vast numbers, and with such magnificent profusion, strikes the imagination with a more awful grandeur, than when we view it enlightened by all the fplendour of the Sun. The deep found of a great bell, or the striking of a great clock, are at any time grand; but, when heard amid the filence and stillness of the night, they become doubly fo. Darkness is very commonly applied for adding fublimity to all our ideas of the Deity. "He maketh darkness his pa"vilion; he dwelleth in the thick cloud." So Milton: How oft, amidst Thick clouds and dark, does Heaven's all-ruling Sire And, with the Majesty of darkness, round Circles his throne- Воок ІІ. 263. Observe, with how much art Virgil has introduced all those ideas of filence, vacuity, and darkness, when he is going to introduce his Hero Hero to the infernal regions, and to disclose LECT. the fecrets of the great deep. Dii quibus imperium est animarum, umbræque silentes, Pandere res altâ terrâ, et calligine merfas. These passages I quote at present, not fo much OBSCURITY, we are farther to remark, is not unfavourable to the Sublime. Though III. * Ye fubterranean Gods, whose awful sway PITT. Obscure they went; through dreary shades, that led Along the waste dominions of the dead; As wander travellers in woods by night, By the moon's doubtful and malignant light. DRYDEN. it III. ५ LECT. it render the object indistinct, the impressionn, however, may be great; for, as an ingenious Author has well observed, it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination; and the imagination may be strongly affected, and, in fact, often is so, by objects of which we have no clear conception. Thus we fee, that almost all the descriptions given us of the appearances of fupernatural Beings, carry some Sublimity, though the conceptions which they afford us be confused and indistinct. Their Sublimity arises from the ideas, which they always convey, of fuperior power and might, joined with an awful obscurity. We may fee this fully exemplified in the following noble passage of the book of Job. " In thoughts from the "visions of the night, when deep fsleep falleth " upon - men, fear came upon me, and "trembling, which made all my bones to "shake. Then a spirit passed before my "face; the hair of my flesh stood up: it stood "still; but I could not difcern the form "thereof; an image was before mine eyes; "there was silence; and I heard a voice" Shall mortal man be more just than God * ?" (Job, * The picture which Lucretius has drawn of the dominion of superstition over mankind, representing it as a portentous spectre showing its head from the clouds, and difmaying the whole human race with its countenance, together with the magnanimity of Epicurus in raising himself 111. (Job, iv. 15.) No ideas, it is plain, are so LECT. fublime as those taken from the Supreme Being; the most unknown, but the greatest of all objects; the infinity of whose nature, and the eternity of whose duration, joined with the omnipotence of his power, though they furpass our conceptions, yet exalt them to the highest. In general, all objects that are greatly raised above us, or far removed from us, either in space or in time, are apt to strike us as great. Our viewing them, as through the mist of distance or antiquity, is favourable to the impressions of their Sublimity. As obscurity, so disorder too, is very compatible with grandeur; nay, frequently heightens it. Few things that are strictly regular, and methodical, appear fublime. We fee the limits on every fide; we feel ourselves confined; there is no room for the mind's exerting any great effort. Exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into up against it, carries all the grandeur of a fublime, obfcure, Humana ante oculos fæde cum vita jaceret : LIB. I. the 111. LECT. the beautiful, is much disregarded in the Sublime. A great mass of rocks, thrown together by the hand of nature with wildness and confufion, strike the mind with more grandeur, than if they had been adjusted to one another with the most accurate symmetry. In the feeble attempts, which human art can make towards producing grand objects (feeble, I mean, in comparison with the powers of nature), greatness of dimensions always constitutes a principal part. No pile of building can convey any idea of Sublimity, unless it be ample and lofty. There is, too, in architecture, what is called Greatness of manner; which seems chiefly to arise, from presenting the object to us in one full point of view; so that it shall make its impression whole, entire, and undivided, upon the mind. A Gothic cathedral raises ideas of grandeur in our minds, by its fize, its height, its awful obscurity, its ftrength, its antiquity, and its durability. THERE still remains to be mentioned one class of Sublime objects, which may be called the moral, or sentimental Sublime; arifing from certain exertions of the human mind; from certain affections, and actions, of our fellow-creatures. These will be found to be all, or chiefly, of that class, which comes under |