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Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief,
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear

For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops

And hung them thickly with diamond drops,
Which crystalled the beams of moon and sun,
And made a star of every one;

No mortal builder's most rare device

Could match this winter palace of ice;
"Twas as if every image that mirrored lay
In its depths serene through the summer day,
Each flitting shadow of earth and sky
(Lest the happy model should be lost)
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry
By the elfin builders of the frost.

LOWELL.

WOLD; wood, sometimes a lawn or plain. CRYPT; a subterranean cell or cave. FRET-WORK; raised work, like small undulations continually repeated. ARABESQUE; in the manner of the Arabians, applied to ornaments consisting of imaginary foliage, stalks, and plants.

THE SUBLIME IN WRITING.

SOCIETY; give o its long sound. GLOWING; give n its ringing sound. AFFORD; short a, not short u; sound rd. APPEARANCE; in ap give a its short sound; do not call it up; a short in ance; do not call it

unse.

Ir is, generally speaking, among the more ancient authors that we are to look for the most striking instances of the sublime. The early ages of the world, and the rude, unimproved state of society, are peculiarly favorable to the strong emotions of sublimity. The genius of men is then much turned to admiration and astonishment. Meeting with many

objects, to them new and strange, their imagination is kept glowing, and their passions are often raised to the utmost. They think and express themselves boldly, and without restraint. In the progress of society, the genius and manners of men undergo a change more favorable to accuracy than to strength or sublimity.

Of all writings, ancient or modern, the Sacred Scriptures afford us the highest instances of the sublime. The descriptions of the Deity in them, are wonderfully noble, both from the grandeur of the object, and the manner of representing it. What an assemblage, for instance, of awful and sublime ideas is presented to us in that passage of the Psalms where an appearance of the Almighty is described!

"In my distress I called upon the Lord; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills were moved; because he was wroth. He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet; and he did ride upon a cherub, and did fly; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters, and thick clouds of the sky."

We see with what propriety and success the circumstances of darkness and terror are applied for heightening the sublime. So also the prophet Habakkuk, in a similar passage:

"He stood, and measured the earth; he beheld, and drove asunder the nations. The everlasting mountains were scattered; the perpetual hills did bow; his ways are everlasting. The mountains saw thee, and they trembled. The overflowing of the water passed by. The deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high."

The noted instance, given by Longinus, from Moses, "God said, Let there be light, and there was light," is not liable to the censure, which was passed on some of his

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instances, that they were inappropriate. It belongs to the true sublime; and the sublimity of it arises from the strong conception it gives of an exertion of power, producing its effect with the utmost speed and facility. A thought of the same kind is magnificently amplified in the following passage of Isaiah:

"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee: I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself; that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers; that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure; even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."

There is a passage in the Psalms, which deserves to be mentioned under this head: "God," says the Psalmist, "stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumults of the people." The joining together two such grand objects as the raging of the waters and the tumults of the people, between which there is such resemblance as to form a very natural association in the fancy, and the representing them both as subject, at one moment, to the command of God, produces a noble effect.

Homer is a poet, who, in all ages, and by all critics, has been greatly admired for sublimity; and he owes much of his grandeur to that native and unaffected simplicity which characterizes his manner. His description of hosts contending; the animation, the fire, the rapidity, which he throws into his battles, present to every reader of the Iliad frequent instances of sublime writing.

The works of Ossian abound with examples of the sublime. The subjects of which that author treats, and the manner in which he writes, are particularly favorable to it. He possesses all the plain and venerable manner of the He deals in no superfluous or gaudy orna

ancient times.

ments, but throws forth his images with a rapid conciseness which enables them to strike the mind with the greatest force. Among poets of more polished times we are to look for the graces of correct writing, for just proportion of parts, and skilfully connected narration.

In the midst of smiling scenery and pleasurable themes, the gay and beautiful will appear, undoubtedly, to more advantage. But amidst the rude scenes of nature and of society, such as Ossian describes; amidst rocks, and torrents, and whirlwinds, and battles, dwells the sublime; and naturally associates itself with the grave and solemn spirit which distinguishes the author of Fingal.

"As autumn's dark storms pour from two echoing hills, so towards each other approached the heroes. As two dark streams from high rocks meet, and mix, and roar on the plain, loud, rough, and dark, in battle met Lochlin and Innis-fail; chief mixed his strokes with chief, and man with man. Steel clanging sounded on steel. Helmets are cleft on high; blood bursts, and smokes around. As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the noise of battle. As roll a thousand waves to the rock, so Swaran's host came on; as meets a rock a thousand waves, so Innis-fail met Swaran.

"Death raises all his voices around, and mixes with the sound of shields. The field echoes from wing to wing, as a hundred hammers that fall by turns on the red sun of the furnace. As a hundred winds on Morven; as the streams of a hundred hills; as clouds fly successive over the heavens; or as the dark ocean assaults the shore of the desert; so roaring, so vast, so terrible, the armies mixed on Lena's echoing heath. The groan of the people spread over the hills. It was like the thunder of night, when the clouds burst on Cona, and a thousand ghosts shriek at once on the hollow wind." Never were images of more awful sublimity employed to heighten the terror of battle.

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BLAIR.

THE RIVULET.

WARMER ; sound r. NEW; ew like long u. HOME; give o its long sound. STRAY; sound str. NUMBERS; ers as in hers. WORDS; sound rdz.

THIS little rill that, from the springs
Of yonder grove its current brings,
Plays on the slope awhile, and then
Goes prattling into groves again;
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new.
When woods in early green were dressed,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn,
And crop the violet on its brim,
With blooming cheek and open brow,
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.
And when the days of boyhood came,
And I had grown in love with fame,
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried
My first rude numbers by thy side.
Words cannot tell how bright and gay
The scenes of life before me lay.
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak
Would bring the blood into my cheek,
Passed o'er me; and I wrote, on high,
A name I deemed should never die.
Years change thee not. Upon yon hill'
The tall old maples, verdant still,
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay,
How swift the years have passed away,

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