Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

ful fenfation in the mind, though we can obferve no nicety or artifice in those sorts of mufic. The fhouting of multitudes has a fimilar effect; and, by the fole strength of the found, fo amazes and confounds the imagination, that, in this staggering, and hurry of the mind, the best established tempers can scarcely forbear being borne down, and joining in the common cry, and common refolution of the crowd.

[blocks in formation]

A

Sudden beginning, or fudden ceffation of found of any confiderable force, has the fame power. The attention is roused by this; and the faculties driven forward, as it were, on their guard. Whatever either in fights or founds makes the transition from one extreme to the other eafy, causes no terror, and confequently can be no cause of greatness. In every thing sudden and unexpected, we are apt to ftart; that is, we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it. It may be observed that a fingle found of some strength, though but of short duration, if repeated after intervals, has a grand effect. Few things are more awful than the ftriking of a great clock, when the filence of the night prevents the attention from being too much diffipated. The fame may be faid of a fingle ftroke on a drum, repeated with pauses; and of the fucceffive firing of cannon at a diftance. All the effects mentioned in this fection have caufes very nearly alike.

SECT.

SE C T. XIX.

INTERMITTING.

A LOW, tremulous, intermitting found, though it seems in fome refpects oppofite to that just mentioned, is productive of the fublime. It is worth while to examine this a little. The fact itself must be determined by every man's own experience and reflection. I have already obferved, that night increafes our terror, more perhaps than any thing else; it is our nature, when we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the worst that can happen; and hence it is, that uncertainty is fo terrible, that we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mifchief. Now, fome low, confufed, uncertain founds leave us in the fame fearful anxiety concerning their caufes, that no light, or an uncertain light, does concerning the objects that furround us.

Quale per incertam lunam fub luce maligna
Eft iter in fylvis.——

A faint fhadow of uncertain light,

Like as a lamp, whofe life doth fade away;
Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night

Doth fhew to him who walks in fear and great affright.

SPENSER.

But a light now appearing, and now leaving us, and so 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.

X

* Sect. 3.

SECT.

[blocks in formation]

SUCH

THE CRIES OF

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 some creature, on which we are used to look with contempt. The angry tones of wild beasts are equally capable of caufing a great and awful fenfation.

Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum

Vincla recufantum, et fera fub nocte rudentum ;
Setigerique fues, atque in præfepibus urfi

Savire; et formæ magnorum ululare luporum.

It might seem that these 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 almost infinite. Those I have mentioned, are only a few inftances to fhew, on what principles they are all built.

SE C T. XXI.

SMELL AND TASTE. BITTERS AND STENCHES.

SMELLS, and Tafes, have fome fhare too in ideas of

greatness; but it is a small one, weak in its nature, and confined in its operations. I fhall only obferve, that

no

no smells or taftes can produce a grand fenfation, except exceffive bitters, and intolerable stenches. It is true, that thefe affections of the fmell 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 bitterness;" "to drain the bitter cup of "fortune;""the bitter apples of Sodom;" thefe are all ideas fuitable to a fublime description. Nor is this paffageof Virgil without fublimity, where the ftench of the vapour in Albunea confpires fo happily with the facred horror and gloominefs of that prophetic forest:

At rex folicitus monftris oracula Fauni
Fatidici genitoris adit, lucofque fub alta

Confulit Albunea, nemorum quæ maxima facro

Fonte fonat; fæevamque exhalat opaca Mephitim.

In the fixth book, and in a very fublime description, the poisonous exhalation of Acheron is not forgot, nor does it at all disagree with the other images amongst which it is introduced:

[ocr errors]

Spelunca alta fuit, vaftoque immanis biatu
Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro, nemorumque tenebris,
Quam fuper baud ulla poterant impune volantes
Tendere iter pennis, talis fefe halitus atris

Faucibus effundens fupera ad convexa ferebat.

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,

fubject, at first view, to burlefque and ridicule; but this I imagine would principally arife from confidering the bitterness and stench in company with mean and contemptible ideas, with which it must be owned they are often united; fuch an union degrades the fublime in all other instances as well as in those. But it is one of the tests 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 fpiders.

[blocks in formation]

F 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 inftances, as thofe given in the former fections 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 fublime with reference to all the fenfes, my firft obfervation (fect. 7.) will be found very nearly true; that the fublime is an idea belonging to felf-prefervation; that it is therefore one of the

moft

« AnteriorContinuar »