fluous words often brought in to produce a recurrence of the same sound.

Homer's description of the nod of Jupiter has been admired in all ages as a model of elevated thought:-" He spoke, and, bending his sable brows, gave the awful nod; while he shook the celestial locks of his immortal head, all Olympus was shaken." Pope translates this passage into English verse, with a decided loss of sublime effect. It will be seen that he enlarges on the thought and attempts to beautify it; but the result is that he only weakens it. The third line is entirely expletive, being introduced for no other reason than to furnish a rhyme for the preceding one.

"He spoke: and awful bends his sable brows,
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate, and sanction of a god.

High heaven with trembling the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to its centre shook."

§ 283. The freedom and variety of our blank verse render it a decidedly better medium than rhyme for the expression of sublime ideas. Hence it is much to be preferred for epic poetry. Milton has availed himself of this fact. The images he successively presents in Paradise Lost are unsurpassed for grandeur. Take, for instance, the description of Satan after his fall, at the head of the infernal hosts :—

"He, above the rest,

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower; his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appeared
Less than archangel ruined; and the excess
Of glory obscured: as when the sun, new risen,
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 the archangel."

This passage is justly eulogized by Blair.

"Here," he says,

concur

effect? Repeat Homer's description of the nod of Jupiter, as literally translated. Re peat Pope's translation of the same. How does it compare with the literal version. Explain the reason.

§ 283. What kind of verse is preferable to rhyme for the expression of sublime ideas. Hence, for what should it be employed? Who has thus used it with great success! What is said of the images successively presented in Paradise Lost? Repeat Milton's description of Satan after his fall. What does Blair say about this passage?

a variety of sources of the sublime: the principal object eminently great a high superior nature, fallen indeed, but erecting itself against distress the grandeur of the principal object heightened, by associating it with so noble an idea as that of the sun suffering an eclipse; this picture, shaded with all those images of change and trouble, of darkness and terror, which coincide so finely with the sublime emotion; and the whole expressed in a style and versification, easy, natural, and simple, but magnificent."

§ 284. Those who aim at the sublime are iable to fall into two faults,-frigidity and bombast.

285. Frigidity consists in degrading an object or sentiment which is sublime in itself, by our mean conception of it, or by a weak, low, and childish description. No fault is more to be avoided.

As a forcible example of frigidity, we quote a passage from a poem of Sir Richard Blackmoor's, descriptive of an eruption of Etna; in which, as humorously observed by Dr. Arbuthnot, he represents the mountain in a fit of colic.

Etna, and all the burning mountains, find

Their kindled stores with inbred storms of wind
Blown up to rage, and roaring out complain,
As torn with inward gripes, and torturing pain;
Laboring, they cast their dreadful vomit round,

And with their melted bowels spread the ground."

So Ben Jonson, in a battle-scene, rather injudiciously caps the climax of his would-be sublimity by representing the sun in a perspiration.

"The sun stood still, and was, behind the cloud

The battle made, seen sweating to drive up

His frighted horse, whom still the noise drove backward."

Catiline, Act V.

§ 286. Bombast consists in attempting to raise an ordinary or trivial object above its level, and to endow it with a sublimity it does not possess. Such attempts illustrate the old saying that there is but a step from the sublime to the ridic

$284. Into what faults are those who aim at the sublime liable to fall?

285. In what does frigidity consist? Quote a passage from Blackmoor, illustrative this fault. Point out wherein the frigidity lies. What has been humorously ob. served respecting these lines? How does Ben Jonson represent the sun in a battleBoene? Of what fault is he therein guilty?

$266. In what does bombast consist? What is the mind prone to do? Into what

ulous. When under the control of violent passions, the mind, it is true, is prone to magnify the objects of its concep tions beyond their natural bounds; but such hyperbolical description has its limits, and, when carried too far, degenerates into the burlesque. Ben Jonson, Blackmoor, and Dryden, have fallen into this fault.

§ 287. BEAUTY does not afford the imagination so high a degree of pleasure as sublimity; but, characterizing a greater variety of objects than the latter quality, it is a more fruitful source of gratification to that faculty. The emotion it awakens is easily distinguishable from that of grandeur. It is calmer and more gentle, and is calculated, not so much to elevate the mind, as to produce in it an agreeable serenity. Sublimity raises a feeling too violent to be lasting; the pleasure arising from beauty admits of longer continuance.

does hyperbolical description degenerate? What writers have fallen into this fault? Give examples, and show wherein the bombast lies.

$287. Which affords the higher degree of pleasure, beauty or sublimity? Which is

Few words in the language are applicable to as wide a range of objects as beauty. It is used in connection with whatever pleases the eye or ear; with many of the graces of writing; and even with the abstract terms of science. We speak of a beautiful tree or flower; a beautiful poem; a beautiful character; and a beautiful theorem in mathematics.

§ 288. Frequent attempts have been made to discover in what the beautiful consists; what quality it is, which all beautiful objects possess, and which is the foundation of the agreeable sensations they produce. Yet no theory has been advanced on this subject which is not open to objection; and it would, therefore, seem as if the various objects so denominated are beautiful, by virtue, not of any one principle common to them all, but of several different qualities. same agreeable emotion is produced by them all, and they are therefore designated by the common appellation beautiful; but this emotion seems to spring from sources radically different.

The

Of the theories here alluded to, several are worthy of mention. The principle of the beautiful has been made to consist in,

I. Agreeableness. Experience, however, which is the great test of theory, proves this hypothesis false. All agreeable things are not beautiful; nor do those which have the one quality in the highest degree possess the other in proportion. We never speak of a beautiful taste or a beautiful smell; but would certainly do so if the beautiful and the agreeable were synonymous. As long as they can be separated and are not commensurate with each other, they cannot be identical.

II. Utility. Here again, applying the test of experience, we find the theory does not hold good. A three-legged stool may be very useful, yet is far from being generally regarded as beautiful.

III. Unity and variety. This has been a favorite theory, and makes beauty to consist in a variety of contrasting features so combined that

the more fruitful source of gratification? Why? Show the difference in the emotions they respectively produce. To what is the term beauty applicable?

$288. What attempts have been made by different writers? What is said of the various theories advanced? What would seem to follow, with respect to the source of the beautiful?

In what does the first theory mentioned make the beautiful to consist? What is the great test of theory? What does experience prove with respect to this hypothesis? Show how this is proved. According to the second theory, in what does beauty consist? Show how this hypothesis does not always hold good. What has been a favorite

unity of design characterizes the whole. Thus, in a beautiful flower, there is a unity of proportion and symmetry, and at the same time a diversity in the size and tints of the leaves. Even in mathematics, what is beautiful is not merely an abstract principle; it is a great truth, carrying with it a long train of consequences. Yet it is objected, and with justice, that many things please us as beautiful in which we are unable to detect any variety at all; and others, again, in which variety is carried to such a degree of intricacy as to preclude the idea of unity.

As, therefore, we can discover no common and universal source of beauty, we shall next consider the different qualities from which it proceeds in individual cases.

§ 289. COLOR is one of the chief elements of beauty; though why it is so we can explain no further than by saying, that the structure of the eye is such as to receive more pleasure from some modifications of the rays of light than others. This organ, moreover, is so variously constituted, that a color which is agreeable to one may excite no special admiration in another. Still, we find there are some peculiarities belonging to colors, which, in the estimation of all, enhance their beauty.

I. They must not be dusky or muddy, but clear and fair. II. They must be delicate rather than strong. Light strawcolor and mellow pink are generally considered more beautiful than deep and dazzling yellow and red.

III. If the colors are strong and vivid, they must be mingled and contrasted with each other, the strength and glare of each being thus abated. This constitutes the charm of variegated flowers.

These various traits are found to characterize the beautiful colors which nature everywhere employs to render her works attractive, and which art finds it extremely difficult to imitate. They will be recog nized in the blending shades with which she paints the feathers of birds,

theory with many? Exemplify it. What objection is justly made to it? What, therefore, are we unable to discover?

§ 289. What is one of the chief elements of beauty? How far are we able to explain this? What three peculiarities, in the general estimation, enhance the beauty of colors? In what natural objects do these peculiarities characterize color? As in the