"How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, "Art cut down from earth, thou that didst "subdue the nations!" "Glittering lances form the loom "Shafts for shuttles," &c. In his critique upon this sublime Ode of Isaiah, the learned Bishop appears to have overlooked a principal source of its beauty; which consists in the happy adaptation of imagery from the history and fate of Nimrod, the founder and first king of Babylon, to prefigure the excision of his successor and representative. See Dissertation on the controverted Passages in St. Peter and St. Jude concerning the Angels that sinned. S. H. 29 O Lucifer! &c.] This is, I think, the most sublime image I have ever seen conveyed in so few words. The aptness of the allegory to express the ruin of a powerful monarch, by the fall of a bright star from heaven, strikes the mind in the most forcible manner; and the poetical beauty of the passage is greatly heightened by the personification, "Son of the morning." Whoever does not relish such painting as this, is not only destitute of poetical taste, but of the common feelings of humanity. T. He himself is at length brought upon the stage, boasting in the most pompous terms of his own power, which furnishes the poet with an excellent opportunity of displaying the unparalleled misery of his downfal. Some persons are introduced, who find the dead carcass of the king of Babylon cast out and exposed; they attentively contemplate it, and at last scarcely know it to be his: "Is this the man, that made the earth to trem"ble; that shook the kingdoms? "That made the world like a desert; that destroyed the cities 30?" They reproach him with being denied the common rites of sepulture, on account of the cruelty and atrocity of his conduct; they execrate his name, his offspring, and their posterity. A solemn address, as of the Deity himself, closes the scene, and he denounces against the king of Babylon, his posterity, and even against the city which was the seat 30 XENOPHON gives an instance of this king's wanton cruelty in killing the son of Gobrias, on no other provocation than that, in hunting, he struck a boar and a lion, which the king had missed. Cyrop. iv. p. 309. quoted by Bishop LowтH, Notes on Isaiah, p. 98. T. of of their cruelty, perpetual destruction, and confirms the immutability of his own counsels by the solemnity of an oath. How forcible is this imagery, how diversified, how sublime! how elevated the diction, the figures, the sentiments!-The Jewish nation, the Cedars of Lebanon, the Ghosts of departed kings, the Babylonish monarch, the Travellers who find his corpse, and last of all JEHOVAH himself, are the characters which support this beautiful Lyric Drama. One continued action is kept up, or rather a series of interesting actions are connected together in an incomparable whole: this, indeed, is the principal and distinguished excellence of the sublimer ode, and is displayed in its utmost perfection in this poem of Isaiah, which may be considered as one of the most ancient, and certainly the most finished specimen of that species of composition, which has been transmitted to us. The personifications here are frequent, yet not confused; bold, yet not improbable: a free, elevated, and truly divine spirit pervades the whole; nor is there any thing wanting in this ode to defeat its claim to the character of perfect beauty and sublimity. sublimity. If, indeed, I may be indulged in the free declaration of my own sentiments on this occasion, I do not know a single instance in the whole compass of Greek and Roman poetry, which, in every excellence of composition, can be said to equal, or even to approach it. LECTURE XIV. OF THE SUBLIME IN GENERAL', AND OF SUBLIMITY OF EXPRESSION IN PARTICULAR. III. In what manner the word Mashal implies the idea of Sublimity-Sublimity of language and sentiment— On what account the poetic diction of the Hebrews, either considered in itself, or compared with prose composition, merits an appellation expressive of sublimity-The sublimity of the poetic diction arises from the passions-How far the poetic diction differs from prose among the Hebrews-Certain forms of poetic diction and construction exemplified from Joв, ch. iii. HAVING, in the preceding Lectures, given my sentiments at large, on the nature of the figurative style, on its use and application * An author, whose taste and imagination will be respected as long as the English language exists, has written a most elegant treatise on the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. But after all that has been said, our feelings must be the only criterion. The pleasure which is afforded by the contemplation of beauty, appears to be a pure and unmixed pleasure, arising from the gentler agitation, and is less vivid than that which is produced by the sublime. For, as the latter often borders upon terror, it requires a greater exertion, and produces a stronger, though |