Sometimes a periphrafis comes feasonably in aid of the sublime, by giving the mind an opportunity to dwell upon the idea, and see the whole extent of it. Thus the phrafe, Nine times the Space that measures day and night to mortal men, in Milton, fuits the following fublime paffage in which it is introduced, much better than if he had barely said so many days. The former mode of expreffion, as it were, detains the idea of the angels rolling in the fiery gulph, longer in the mind; during which time our wonder and astonishment are continually rifing higher and higher.

Him th' Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th'ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin, and combuftion, down.
To bottomlefs perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durft defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulph,
Confounded, though immortal.

PARADISE LOST, Book I.

Proper names of great objects are often preferable to general terms, as they realize the ideas, and fix the attention to them. Thus, to mention the Alps, the Andes, or Teneriffe, presents a greater idea than faying, very high mountains; and to say, the Nile, the Ganges, or the La Plata, is to speak more magnificently than to say, great rivers only. Thus, the fimple and fublime Offian affects the imagination of his reader much more strongly by the hill of Cromla, the waves of Iniftore, the reeds of the lake of Lago, than he could have done by the use of any more general and abstract terms. This effect would be more fenfible

Y

fible, if we were acquainted with the objects introduced in this

manner.

Next to the pathetic, of all the excellencies of good composition, the fublime promises the most lafting-reputation to an author. Compofitions which are calculated only to please and to divert, are beings of a day. Few of them, even by the favour of a very extraordinary coincidence of circumstances, reach pofterity, in comparison of those which fake and which elevate our fouls. Let us only look into our own breafts, and we shall find that we are very differently affected to the writer who pleases. the imagination, and to the poet or orator who either raifes and enlarges our conceptions, or who thoroughly interests our paffions. The former we may admire, but we may also foon forget. Our esteem for the latter rifes to reverence; and when the pathetic and the sublime are joined (as they are capable of the most intimate union, and are perhaps never found in a very high degree intirely separate) they produce the strongest and the most lafting attachment.

A genius formed for the fublime is a mind which is naturally disposed to take the most extenfive views of things, whose attention is turned to view every thing in the grandeft and nobleft point of light; whereas other minds are more inclined to attend to what is little and beautiful in the objects they view. And as every thing we are converfant with hath various, and very different properties, every mind hath an opportunity of indulging its own taste, by contemplating those forms of things which afford it the most pleasing gratification.

I cannot conclude this article without obferving, that inftances of the true fublime abound no where more than in the Scriptures. Never

3

Never were grander ideas prefented to the human mind, than we find in the representations of the Divine Being in Isaiah, particularly chapter XL. in the book of Job, in several places in the Pfalms, and in the writings of Moses.

The false fublime, or the bombaft, will be confidered when I treat of the Hyperbole.

LECTURE XXI.

Of the Pleafure we receive from Uniformity, and Variety; and firft of Comparisons.

TH

HE pleasure we receive from the view of objects in which there is a visible mixture of uniformity and variety, hath, no doubt, more fources than one: however, as one of its fources is the moderate exercise which fuch objects give to our faculties, I fhall treat of it in this place.

To comprehend an object, the parts of which have no fort of analogy to one another, we must of neceffity go over the whole of it; and after this furvey, which (from the uniform manner in which our minds are employed when we attend to it) must be very tedious, nothing but the memory is exercised, to connect and retain the idea of the whole: whereas the moment we perceive that the parts of any object are analogous to one another, and find, or are informed, what that analogy is, the fight of a part, without any farther investigation, fuggefts the idea of the whole; and the judgment is moft agreeably and fuccefsfully employed in completing the image.

This is very evident upon the view of a part of any thing the proportions of which are known, as of an animal body, of a regular curve, or polygon, a regular building, a re

gular

gular garden, or of a consistent set of political, philofophical, or theological principles. With what fatisfaction may we often hear persons say, upon seeing part of such an object, or such a scheme, "You need fhew me no more: I fee the whole." When being fhewn fo little of an object fuffices to comprehend it, it fhews confiderable experience, and an extensive acquaintance with the forms and properties of things.

To difcern the analogy of the things we are conversant with, is to become poffeffed of the clue of knowledge, by which we are led, with unspeakable ease and fatisfaction, through the feeming labyrinths of nature. In this manner, by the help of a few general principles, we become masters of a great extent of valuable science: whereas, without fuch general principles, which are derived from the knowledge of the analogy or uniformity of things, our fpeculations prefent nothing but a scene of confufion and embarrassment.

Moreover, wherever we fee analogy in objects, we see the marks of intelligence and defign; which will be mentioned hereafter as another source of pleasure in works of genius and imagination: and the more complex is the object we view, or the greater the variety we perceive, confiftent with strict analogy, the more doth it employ our faculties to comprehend it, and the higher idea do we conceive of the intelligence of the being who formed it. Befides, the contrast there is between two properties fo different as uniformity and variety in the fame object, contributes not a little to increase the pleasure resulting from a view of the whole.

But perhaps it is to affociation that we are indebted for the greatest part of the pleasure we receive from the view of uniformity and variety. In fact, almost every pleafing object in

nature