" A faint fhadow of uncertain light, Doth fhew to him who walks in fear and great affright. SPENSER. But light now appearing, and now leaving us, and fo off and on, is even more terrible than total darkness and a fort of uncertain founds are, when the neceffary difpofitions concur, more alarming than a total filence. SECT. XX. THE CRIES OF ANIMALS. SUCH founds as imitate the natural inarticulate voices of men, or any animals in pain or danger, are capable of conveying great ideas; unless it be the well-known voice of fome creature, on which we are used to look with contempt. The angry tones of wild beafts are equally capable of caufing a great and awful fenfation. Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum It might feem that thefe modulations of found carry fome connection with the nature of the things they reprefent, and are not merely arbitrary; because the natural cries of all animals, even of those animals with whom we have not been acquainted, never fail to make themselves fufficiently understood; this cannot be faid of language. The modifications of found, which may be productive of the fublime, are almoft infinite. Thofe I have mentioned, are only a few instances to fhew, on what principles they are all built. SECT. XXI. SMELL AND TASTE. BITTERS AND STENCHES. · SMELLS and Taftes, have fome fhare too in ideas of greatnefs; but it is a fmall one, weak in its nature, and confined in its operations. I fhall only obferve, that no smells or taftes can produce a grand sensation, except exceffive bitters, and intolerable stenches. It is true, that these affections of the smell and tafte, when they are in their full force, and lean directly upon the fenfory, are fimply painful, and accompanied with no fort of delight; but when they are moderated, as in a defcription or narrative, they become fources of the fublime, as genuine as any other, and upon the very fame principle of a moderated pain. "A cup of bitter"nefs;"" to drain the bitter cup of fortune;" "the the bitter apples of Sodom;" these are all ideas fuitable to a fublime defcription. Nor is this paffage of Virgil without fublimity, where the ftench of the vapour in Albunea confpires so happily with the facred horrour and gloominess of that prophetick foreft: At rex folicitus monftris oracula Fauni In the fixth book, and in a very fublime defcription, the poisonous exhalation of Acheron is not forgot, nor does it at all difagree with the other images amongft which it is introduced: Spelunca alta fuit, vaftoque immanis hiatu Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro, nemorumque tenebris, Quam fuper haud ulla poterant impune volantes Tendere iter pennis, talis fefe halitus atris, Faucibus effundens fupera ad convexa ferebat. 1 I have added thefe examples, because fome friends, for whofe judgment I have great deference, were of opinion, that if the fentiment ftood nakedly by itself, it would be fubject, at firft view, to burlefque and ridicule; but this I imagine would principally arife from confidering the bitterness and ftench in company with mean and contemp tible ideas, with which it must be owned they are often united; fuch an union degrades the fublime in all other inftances as well as in those. But it is one of the tefts by which the fublimity of an image is to be tried, not whether it becomes mean when affociated with mean ideas; but whether, when united with images of an allowed grandeur, the whole compofition is fupported with dignity. Things which are terrible are always great; but when things poffefs difagreeable qualities, or fuch as have indeed fome degree of danger, but of a danger eafily overcome, they are merely odious, as toads and spiders. SECT. XXII. FEELING. PAIN. OF Feeling, little more can be faid than that the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labour, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the fublime; and nothing else in this fenfe can produce it. I need not give here any fresh instances, as those given in the former sections abundantly illuftrate a remark, that in reality wants only an attention to nature, to be made by every body. Having thus run through the causes of the sublime with reference to all the fenfes, my first obfervation (fect. 7.) will be found very nearly true; that the fublimè is an idea belonging to felf-prefervation; that it is therefore one of the most affecting we have; that its strongest emotion is an emotion of diftrefs; and that no *pleasure from a pofitive caufe belongs to it. Numberlefs examples, befides those mentioned, might be brought in fupport of these truths, and many perhaps useful confequences drawn from them Sed fugit interea, fugit irrevocabile tempus, *Vide Part I. fect. 6. THE END OF THE SECOND PART. A PHILO. |