Here is not one word said of the
particulars
of her beauty; nothing which can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person ; but yet we are much more touched by this manner of mentioning her, than by those long and labored descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition, or formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors.
Edmund Burke
The humming-bird, both in shape and coloring, yields to none of the winged species, of which it is the least; and perhaps his beauty is enhanced by his smallness.
But there are animals, which, when they are extreme ly small, are rarely (if ever) beautiful.
There is a dwarfish size of men and women, which is almost constantly so gross and massive in comparison of their height, that they present us with a very disa
? But should a man be found not above two or three feet high, supposing such a person to have all the parts of his body of a delicacy suitable
to such a size, and otherwise endued with the com mon qualities of other beautiful bodies, I am pretty well convinced that a person of such a stature might be considered as beautiful; might be the object 'of love; might give us very pleasing ideas on viewing him. The only thing which could possibly interpose to check our pleasure that such creatures, however formed, are unusual, and are often therefore consid ered as something monstrous. The large and gigan tic, though very compatible with the sublime, contrary to the beautiful. It impossible to sup pose giant the object of love. When we let our imagination loose in romance, the ideas we naturally annex to that size are those of tyranny, cruelty, in
justice, and everything horrid and abominable. We paint the giant ravaging the country, plundering the innocent traveller, and afterwards gorged with his half-living flesh: such are Polyphemus, Cacus, and others, who make so great figure in romances and
greeable image.
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heroic poems. The event we attend to with the
satisfaction is their defeat and death. I do not remember, in all that multitude of deaths with which the Iliad is filled, that the fall of any man, remarkable for his great stature and strength, touches us with pity; nor does it appear that the author, so well read in human nature, ever intended it should. It is Simoisius, in the soft bloom of youth, torn from his parents, who tremble for a courage so ill suited to his strength; it is another hurried by war from the new embraces of his bride, young and fair, and a novice to the field, who melts us by his untimely fate. Achilles, in spite of the many qualities of beauty which Homer has bestowed on his outward form, and the many great virtues with which he has adorned his mind, can never make us love him. It may be ob served, that Homer has given the Trojans, whose fate he has designed to excite our compassion, infinitely more of the amiable, social virtues than he has dis tributed among his Greeks. With regard to the Tro jans, the passion he chooses to raise is pity; pity is a passion founded on love; and these lesser, and if I may say domestic virtues, are certainly the most ami able. But he has made the Greeks far their superi
ors in the politic and military virtues. The councils of Priam are weak; the arms of Hector comparatively feeble; his courage far below that of Achilles. Yet We love Priam more than Agamemnon, and Hector more than his conqueror Achilles. Admiration is
the passion which Homer would excite in favor of the Greeks, and he has done it by bestowing on them the virtues which have but little to do with love. This short digression is perhaps not wholly beside our purpose, where our business is to show that objects of
greatest
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ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
great dimensions are incompatible with beauty, the more incompatible as they are greater; whereas the small, if ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not to be attributed to their size.
SECTION XXV. or COLOR.
WITH regard to color, the disquisition is almost in finite; but I conceive the principles laid down in the beginning of this part are sufficient to account for the effects of them all, as well as for the agreeable effects of transparent bodies, whether fluid or solid. Sup pose I look at a bottle of muddy liquor, of a blue or red color; the blue or red rays cannot pass clearly to the eye, but are suddenly and unequally stopped by the intervention of little opaque bodies, which with out preparation change the idea, and change it too into one disagreeable in its own nature, conformably to the principles laid down in Sect. 24. But when the ray passes without such opposition through the glass or liquor, when the glass or liquor is quite trans parent, the light is sometimes softened in the passage, which makes it more agreeable even as light; and the liquor reflecting all the rays of its proper color evenly, it has such an effect on the eye, as smooth opaque bodies have on the eye and touch. So that the pleasure here is compounded of the softness of the transmitted, and the evenness of the reflected light. This pleasure may be heightened by the com mon principles in other things, if the shape of the glass which holds the transparent liquor be so judi ciously varied, as to present the color gradually and
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interchangeably, weakened and strengthened with all the variety which judgment in affairs of this nature shall suggest. On a review of all that has been said
of the effects, as well as the causes of both, it will ap pear that the sublime and beautiful are built on prin ciples very different, and that their affections are as different: the great has terror for its basis, which, when it is modified, causes that emotion in the mind, which I have called astonishment; the beautiful is founded on mere positive pleasure, and excites in the soul that feeling which is called love. Their causes
have made the subject of this fourth part.
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PART V.
SECTION I. or woims.
NATURAL objects affect us by the laws of that con nection which Providence has established between cer tain motions and configurations of bodies, and certain consequent feelings in our mind. Painting affects in the same manner, but with the superadded pleasure of imitation. Architecture affects by the laws of na ture and the law of reason ; from which latter result the rules of proportion, which make a work to be praised or censured, in the whole or in some part, when the end for which it was designed is or is not properly answered. But as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture ; yet words have as consider able a share in exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as many of those, and sometimes a much greater than any of them; therefore an inquiry into the manner by which they excite such emotions is far from being unnecessary in a discourse of this kind.
SECTION II.
THE COMMON EFFECTS OF POETRY, NOT BY RAISING IDEAS OF THINGS
THE common notion of the power of poetry and eloquence, as well as that of words in ordinary con
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versation, that they affect the mind by raising in ideas of those things _for which custom has ap
pointed them to stand. To examine the truth of this notion, may be requisite_to observe that words may be divided into three sorts. The first are such as represent many simple ideas united nature to form some one determinate composition, as man, horse, tree, castle, &c. These call aggregate words. The second are they that stand for one simple idea of
such compositions, and no more; as red, blue, round, square, and the like. These call simple abstract words. The third are those which are formed by an union, an arbitrary union of both the others, and of the various relations between them in greater or lesser degrees of complexity; as virtue, honor, persuasion, magistrate, and the like. These call compound abstract words. Words, am sensible, are capable of being classed into more curious distinc tions; but these seem to be natural, and enough for our purpose; and they are disposed in that order in
which they are commonly taught, and in which the mind gets the ideas they are substituted for. shall begin with the third sort of words; compound ab stracts, such as virtue, honor, persuasion, docility. Of these am convinced, that whatever power they may have on the passions, they do not derive from any representation raised in the mind of the things for which they stand. As compositions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, think, any real ideas. Nobody, believe, immediately on hearing the sounds, virtue, liberty, or honor, conceives any precise notions of the particular modes of action and thinking, together with the mixed and simple ideas, and the several relations of them for which these
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words are substituted; neither has he any general idea compounded of them; for if he had, then some
of those particular ones, though indistinct
and confused, might come soon to be perceived. But this, I take hardly ever the case. For, put yourself upon analyzing one of these words, and you must reduce from one set of general words to an other, and then into the simple abstracts and aggre gates, in much longer series than may be at first imagined, before any real idea emerges to light, be fore you come to discover anything like the first prin ciples of such compositions; and when you have
made such discovery of the original ideas, the effect of the composition utterly lost. A train of think ing of this sort much too long to be pursued the ordinary ways of conversation; nor at all necessary that should. Such words are in reality but mere sounds; but they are sounds which being used on particular occasions, wherein we receive some good, or suffer some evil or see others affected with good or evil; or which we hear applied to other interesting things or events; and being applied in such variety of cases, that we know readily by
habit to what things they belong, they produce in the mind, whenever they are afterwards mentioned, effects similar to those of their occasions. The SOI1. IidS being often used without reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still their first impressions, they at last utterly lose their connection with the particu lar occasions that gave rise to them; yet the sound, without any annexed notion, continues to operate as before.
perhaps,
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SECTION III. GENERAL WORDS BEFORE IDEAS.
MR. LOCKE has somewhere observed, with his usual sagacity, that most general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good and evil especially, are taught before the particular modes of action to which they belong are presented to the mind; and with them, the love of the one, and the abhorrence of the other; for the minds of children are so ductile, that a nurse,
or any person about a child, by seeming pleased or displeased with anything, or even any word, may give the disposition of the child a similar turn. When, afterwards, the several occurrences in life come to be applied to these words, and that which is pleasant of ten appears under the name of evil ; and what is dis
to nature is called good and virtuous; a strange confusion of ideas and affections arises in the minds of many ; and an appearance of no small con tradiction between their notions and their actions. There are many who love virtue and who detest vice, and this not from hypocrisy or affectation, who not withstanding very frequently act ill and wickedly in
agreeable
'
? without the least remorse; because these particular occasions never came into view, when the passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by certain words heated originally by the breath of others; and for this reason, it is hard to repeat cer tain sets of words, though owned by themselves unop
erative, without being in some degree affected; espe cially if a warm and affecting tone of voice accompa nies them, as suppose,
Wise, valiant, generous, good, and great.
particulars
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These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are aflected by them even without the occasions. When words which have been generally so applied are put together without any rational view, or in such a manner that they do not rightly agree with each other, the style is called bombast. And it requires in several cases much good sense and experience to be guarded against the force of such language ; for when propri ety is neglected, a greater number of these affecting words may be taken into the service, and a greater variety may be indulged in combining them.
SECTION IV. THE EFFECT or worms.
IF words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the mind of the hearer. The first the sound; the second, the picture, or repre sentation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is, the aflection of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. Uompounded abstract words, of which we have been speaking, (honor, jus tice, liberty, and the like,) produce the first and the last of these effects, but not the second. Simple ab stracts are used to signify some one simple idea with out much adverting to others which may chance to attend as blue, green, hot, coid, and the like; these are capable of affecting all three of the purposes of words; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, &c. are in yet higher degree. But am of opin ion, that the most general effect, even of these words,
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does not arise from their forming pictures of the sev eral things they would represent in the imagination ;
because, on a very diligent examination of my own mind, and getting others to consider theirs, I do not find that once in twenty times any such picture is formed, and when it there most commonly particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. But the aggregate words operate, as said of the compound-abstracts, not by presenting any image to the mind, but by having from use the same effect on being mentioned, that their original has when seen. Suppose we were to read passage to this effect: "The river Danube rises in moist and mountainous soil in the heart of Germany, where,
winding to and fro, waters several principalities, until, turning into Austria, and laving the walls of Vienna, passes into Hungary; there with vast flood, augmented by the Save and the Drave, quits Christendom, and rolling through the barbar ous countries which border on Tartary, enters by many mouths in the Black Sea. " In this description many things are mentioned, as mountains, rivers, cit
ies, the sea, &c. But let anybody examine himself, and see whether he has had impressed on his imagi nation any pictures of river, mountain, watery soil, Germany, &c. Indeed impossible, in the rapidity and quick succession of words in conversation, to have ideas both of the sound of the word, and of the thing
represented; besides, some words, expressing real essences, are so mixed with others of general and nominal import, that impracticable to jump from sense to thought, from particulars to generals, from things to words, in such manner as to answer the
purposes of life; nor necessary that we should.
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SECTION V.
EXAMPLES THAT WORDS MAY AFFECT WITHOUT RAISING IMAGES.
I FIND it very hard to persuade several that their passions are affected by words from whence they have no ideas; and yet harder to convince them that in the ordinary course of conversation we are suflieiently understood without raising any images of the things concerning which we speak. It seems to be an odd subject of dispute with any man, whether he has ideas in his mind or not. Of this, at first view, every man, in his own forum, ought to judge without appeal. But, strange as it may appear, we are often at a loss to know what ideas we have of things, or whether we have any ideas at all upon some subjects. It even requires a good deal of attention to be thoroughly satisfied on this head. Since I wrote these papers, I found two very striking instances of the possibility there that man may hear words without having any idea of the things which they represent, and yet afterwards be capable of returning them to others, combined in new way, and with great propriety, en ergy, and instruction. The first instance that of Mr. Blacklock, poet blind from his birth. Few men blessed with the most perfect sight can describe visual objects with more spirit and justness than this blind man which cannot possibly be attributed to his hav ing clearer conception of the things he describes than common to other persons. Mr. Spence, in an elegant preface which he has written to the works of this poet, reasons very ingeniously, and, imagine, for the most part, very rightly, upon the cause of this
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extraordinary phenomenon; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that some improprieties in language and thought, which occur in these poems, have arisen from the blind poet's imperfect conception of visual objects, since such improprieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of a higher class than Mr. Blacklock, and who, notwithstanding, possessed the faculty of seeing in its full perfection. Here is a poet doubtless as much affected by his own descrip tions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is af fected with this strong enthusiasm by things of which he neither has, nor can possibly have, any idea fur ther than that of a bare sound: and why may not those who read his works be affected in the same manner that he was; with as little of any real ideas of the things described? The second instance is of Mr. Saunderson, professor of mathematics i11 the University of Cambridge. This learned man had acquired great knowledge in natural philosophy, in astronomy, and whatever sciences depend upon math ematical skill. What was the most extraordinary and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lec tures upon light and colors; and this man taught others the theory of those ideas which they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But it is probable that the words red, blue, green, answered to him as well as the ideas of the colors themselves; for the ideas of greater or lesser degrees of refrangibility being applied to these words, and the blind man be ing instructed in what other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it was as easy for him to rea son upon the words as if he had been fully master of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned he could make no new discoveries in the way of experiment. He
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did nothing but what we do every day in common dis course. When I wrote this last sentence, and used the words every dag and common discourse, I had no images in my mind of any succession of time ; nor of men in conference with each other; nor do I imagine that the reader will have any such ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red, or blue, and green, as well as refrangibility, had I these several colors, or the rays of light passing into a different medium, and there diverted from their course, painted before me in the way of images. I know very well that the mind possesses a faculty of raising such images at pleasure; but then an act of the will is necessary to this; and in ordinary conversation or reading it is very rarely that any image at all is excited in the
? mind. If I say, "I shall go to Italy next summer," I am well understood. Yet I believe nobody has by this painted in his imagination the exact figure of the speaker passing by land or by water, or both ; some times on horseback, sometimes in a carriage: with all the particulars of the journey. Still less has he any idea of Italy, the country to which I proposed to go ; or of the greenness of the fields, the ripening of the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change
to this from a different season, which are the ideas for which the word summer is substituted ; but least of all has he any image from the word next ; for this word stands for the idea of many summers, with the exclusion of all but one: and surely the man who says next summer has no images of such a succession, and such an exclusion. In short, it is not only of those ideas which are commonly called abstract, and of which no image at all can be formed, but even of particular, real beings, that we converse without hav
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ing any idea of them excited in the imagination ; as will certainly appear on a diligent examination of our own minds. Indeed, so little does poetry depend for its effect on the power of raising sensible images, that I am convinced it would lose a very considerable part of its energy, if this were the necessary result of all
description. Because that union of affecting words, which is the most powerful of all poetical instru ments, would frequently lose its force along with its propriety and consistency, if the sensible images were always excited. There is not, perhaps, in the whole _/Eneid a more grand and labored passage than the
? of Vulcan's cavern in Etna, and the works that are there carried on. Virgil dwells par ticularly on the formation of the thunder which he describes unfinished under the hammers of the Cy clops. But what are the principles of this extraor
description
dinary composition ?
Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosw Addiderant ; rutili tres ignis, et alitis austri : Fulgores nunc terrificos, sonitumque, metumque Miscebant operi, flammisquc sequacibus iras.
ll
This seems to me admirably sublime: yet if we at tend coolly to the kind of sensible images which a combination of ideas of this sort must form, the chi meras of madmen cannot appear more wild and ab surd than such a picture. " Three rays of twisted showers, three of watery clouds, three of fire, and three
of the winged south wind; then mixed they in the work terrific lightnings, and sound, and fear,and anger, with pursuing flames. " This strange composition is formed into a gross body ; it is hammered by the Cyclops, it is in part polished, and partly continues rough. The truth poetry gives us noble assemblage of
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words corresponding to many noble ideas, which are connected by circumstances of time or place, or re lated to each otheros cause and effect, or associated in any natural way, they may be moulded together in any form, and perfectly answer their end. The picturesque connection is not demanded; because no
real picture is formed; nor is the effect of the de scription at all the less upon this account. What is said of Helen by Priam and the old men of his coun cil, is generally thought to give us the highest possi ble idea of that fatal beauty.
O1': ve? peatc, Tpiras' xal e'iiKvr')p. 43aS 'Axazm'1t Tozfid' ti/. t? i 'yw/auci 1ro7\1':v xpzivov dhyea 1rda')(? W' Aiwlvs' aiflavziryow 6:3'): sis' airra. E'ou<cv.
" They cried, No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms ; What winning graces ! what majestic mien !
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen. "
Porn.
Here is not one word said of the particulars of her beauty; nothing which can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person ; but yet we are much more touched by this manner of mentioning her, than by those long and labored descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition, or formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors. I am sure it affects me much more than the minute description which Spenser has given of Belphebe; though I own that there are parts, in that descrip tion, as there are in all the descriptions of that excel lent writer, extremely fine and poetical. The terri ble picture which Lucretius has drawn of religion in order to display the magnanimity of his philosophical hero in opposing her, is thought to be designed with great boldness and spirit: --
256 ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
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Humane ante oculos fade cum vita jaceret, In wrris, oppressa gravi sub rcligione,
Quin caput e cmli rcgionibus ostendebat Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans ; Primus Grains homo mortales tellers contra Est oculos ausus.
What idea do you derive from so excellent a picture ? none at all, most certainly: neither has the poet said a single word which might in the least serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive. In reality, poetry and rhetoric do not succeed i11 exact description so well as painting does ;
their business to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present
clear idea of the things themselves. This their Inost extensive province, and that in which they suc ceed the best.
SE CTION VI.
POETRY NOT STRICTLY AN IMITATIVE ART.
HENCE we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general sense, cannot with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It indeed an imitation
so far as describes the manners and passions of men
which their words can express; where animi motus
qfifert interprete lingua. There strictly imitation; and all merely dramatic poetry of this sort. But
descriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution by
the means of sounds, which by custom have the effect of realities. Nothing an imitation further than as
it resembles some other thing; and words undoubt
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edly have no sort of resemblance to the ideas for which they stand.
SECTI0N VII.
now woims INFLUENCE THE PASSIONS.
Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation, it might be supposed, that their influence over the passions should be but light; yet it is quite otherwise; for we find by experience, that eloquence and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of making deep and lively im
than any other arts, and even than nature itself in very many cases. And this arises chiefly from these three causes. First, that we take an ex traordinary part in the passions of others, and that we are easily affected and brought into sympathy by any tokens which are shown of them ; and there are no tokens which can express all the circumstances of most passions so fully as words; so that if a person speaks upon any subject, he can not only convey the subject to you, but likewise the manner in which he is himself affected by it. Certain it that the in fluence of most things on our passions not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions con cerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only. Secondly, there are many things of very affecting nature, which can seldom occur in the reality, but the words that represent them often do; and thus they have an opportunity of making deep impression and taking root in the mind, whilst the idea of the reality was transient; and to some
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perhaps never really occurred in any shape, to whom it is notwithstanding very affecting, as war, death, famine, &c. Besides many ideas have never been at all presented to the senses of any men but by words, as God, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over the passions. Thirdly, by words we have it in our power to make such combinations as we cannot possibly do otherwise.
By this power of combining we are able, by the addi tion of well-chosen circumstances, to give a new life and force to the simple object. In painting we may represent any fine figure we please ; but we never can give it those enlivening touches which it may receive from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw a beautiful young man winged: but what painting can furnish out anything so grand as the addition of one word, " the angel of the Lord " ? It is true, I have here no clear idea ; but these words affect the mind more than the sensible image did ; which is all I contend for. A picture of Priam dragged to the altar's foot, and there murdered, if it were well executed, would undoubtedly be very mov ing; but there are very aggravating circumstances, which it could never represent :
Sanguine ftedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes.
As a further instance, let us consider those lines of Milton, where he describes the travels of the fallen angels through their dismal habitation :
" O'er many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous;
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp ;
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death, A universe of death. "
Here is displayed the force of union in
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which yet would lose the greatest part of their effect, if they were not the
" Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades -- of Death. "
This idea or this affection caused by a word, which nothing but a word could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sublime, and this sublime is raised yet higher by what follows, a " universe of death. " Here are again two ideas not presentable but by language, and an union of them great and amazing beyond conception; if they may properly be called ideas which present no distinct image to the mind; but still it will be difficult to conceive how words can move the passions which belong to real objects, without representing these objects clearly. This is difficult to us, because we do not sufficiently distinguish, in our observations upon language, be tween a clear expression and a strong expression.
These are frequently confounded with each other, though they are in reality extremely different. The
former regards the understanding, the latter belongs to the passions. The one describes a thing as it the latter describes as felt. Now, as there amov ing tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agi tated gesture, which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to passionate subjects, and always used those who are under the influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject-matter. We yield to sympathy what we refuse to description. The truth all verbal description, merely as naked de
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scription, though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an idea of the thing described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect, if the speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark a strong and lively feeling in himself. Then, by the
contagion of our passions, we catch a fire already kin dled in another, which probably might never have been struck out by the object described. Words, by strongly conveying the passions by those means which we have already mentioned, fully compensate for their weakness in other respects. It may be observed,
that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are gen erally deficient in strength. _ The French language has that perfection and that defect. Whereas the Oriental tongues, and in general the languages of most Iu1polished people, have a great force and ener gy of expression, and this is but natural. Unculti vated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that
reason they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner. If the affec tion be well conveyed, it will work its effect without any clear idea, often without any idea at all of the
thing which has originally given rise to it.
It might be expected, from the fertility of the sub ject, that I should consider poetry, as it regards the
sublime and beautiful, more at large ; but it must be observed, that in this light it has been often and well handled already. It was not my design to enter into the criticism of the sublime and beautiful in any art, but to attempt to lay down such principles as may
tend to ascertain, to distinguish, and to form a sort
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of standard for them; which purposes I thought might be best effected by an inquiry into the proper ties of such things in nature, as raise love and aston ishment in us ; and by showing in what manner they operated to produce these passions. Words were only so far to be considered as to show upon what princi ple they were capable of being the representatives of these natural things, and by what powers they were able to aifect us often as strongly as the things they
represent,
and sometimes much more strongly.
,\
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SHORT ACCOUNT
A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION. I766.
\
? ? ? ? ? I
? ? ? A
SHORT ACCOUNT
A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION. ---Oi
late administration came into employment, THuEnder the mediation of the Duke of Cumber land, on the tenth day of July, 1765; and was re moved, upon a plan settled by the Earl of Chatham,
on the thirtieth day of July, 1766, having lasted just one year and twenty days.
In that space of time
The distractions of the British empire were com posed, by the repeal of the American stamp act;
But the constitutional superiority of Great Britain
was preserved by the act for securing the dependence of the colonies.
Private houses were relieved from the jurisdiction of the excise, by the repeal of the cider taz.
The personal liberty of the subject was confirmed, by the resolution against general warrants.
The lawful secrets of business and friendship were rendered inviolable, by the resolution for condemning the seizure of papers.
The trade of America was set free from injudicious and ruinous impositions, -- its revenue was improved,
and
? settled upon a rational foundation,-- its com
? ? ? 266 A SHORT ACCOUNT oF
merce extended with foreign countries; while the advantages were secured to Great Britain,
act for repealing certain duties, and encouraging, regu lating, and scouring the trade this kingdom, and the British dominions in America.
Materials were provided and insured to our man ufactures,--the sale of these manufactures was creased, --the African trade preserved and extended, --the principles of the act of navigation pursued, and the plan improved,---and the trade for bullion rendered free, secure, and permanent, by the act for opening certain ports in Dominica and Jamaica.
That administration was the first which proposed and encouraged public meetings and free consulta
tions of merchants from all parts of the kingdom; which means the truest lights have been received; great benefits have been already derived to manufac tures and commerce; and the most extensive
pects are opened for further improvement.
Under them, the interests of our northern and southern colonies, before that time jarring and dis sonant, were understood, compared, adjusted, and perfectly reconciled. The passions and animosities of the colonies, by judicious and lenient measures, were allayed and composed, and the foundation laid for lasting agreement amongst them.
_ Whilst that administration provided for the liberty and commerce of their country, as the true basis its power, they consulted its interests, they asserted its honor abroad, with temper and with firmness; by making an advantageous treaty of commerce with Russia; by obtaining liquidation of the Canada bills, to the satisfaction of the proprietors; by reviv ing and raising from its ashes the negotiation for
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A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION. 267
the Manilla ransom, which had been extinguished and abandoned by their predecessors.
They treated their sovereign with decency; with reverence. They discountenanced, and, it is hoped, forever abolished, the dangerous and Imconstitutional practice of removing military officers for their votes in Parliament. They firmly adhered to those friends
of liberty, who had run all hazards in its cause ; and provided for them in preference to every other claim. With the Earl of Bute they had no personal connec tion; no correspondence of councils. They neither
courted him nor persecuted him. They practised no corruption; nor were they even suspected of it. They sold no offices. They obtained no reversions or pensions, either coming in or going out, for them selves, their families, or their dependents.
In the prosecution of their measures they were traversed by an opposition of a new and singular character ; an opposition of placemen and pensioners. They were supported by the confidence of the nation. And having held their offices under many difficulties and discouragemcnts, they left them at the express command, as they had accepted them at the earnest request, of their royal master.
These are plain facts; of a clear and public na ture; neither extended by elaborate reasoning, nor heightened by the coloring of eloquence. They are the services of a single year.
The removal of that administration from power is not to them premature ; since they were in office long enough to accomplish many plans of public utility; and, by their perseverance and resolution, rendered
the way smooth and easy to their successors ; having left their king and their country in a much better
? ? ? ? ACCOUNT or A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION.
condition than they found them. By the temper they manifest, they seem to have now no other wish than that their successors may do the public as real and as faithful service as they have done.
268
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OBSERVATIONS
on A LATE PUBLICATION,
INTITULED
"THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION. "
? "O Tite, si quid ego adjuvem curarnve levasso, Quse nunc te coquit, ct versat sub pectore fixa,
Ecquid erit pretii? " I769.
ENN. ap. Clo.
I
? ? ? OBSERVATIONS
on A LATE PUBLICATION, lN'lTl'ULED
"THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION. "
PARfoTrYdivisions,whetheronthewholeoperating good or evil, are things inseparable from free government. This is a truth which, I believe, admits
little dispute, having been established by the uniform experience of all ages. The part a good citizen ought to take in these divisions has been a matter of much deeper controversy. But God forbid that any contro
versy relating to our essential morals should admit of no decision. It appears to me, that this question, like most of the others which regard our duties in life, is to be determined by our station in it. Private men may be wholly neutral, and entirely innocent: but they who are legally invested with public trust,
or stand on the high ground of rank and dignity, which is trust implied, can hardly in any case remain indifferent, without the certainty of sinking into in significance ; and thereby in effect deserting that post
in which, with the fullest authority, and for the wis est purposes, the laws and institutions of their coun try have fixed them. However, if it be the office of those who are thus circumstanced, to take a decided part, it is no less their duty that it should be a sober one. It ought to be circumscribed by the same laws
? ? ? ? "III!
272 OBSERVATIONS on A LATE PUBLICATION
of decorum, and balanced by the same temper, which bound and regulate all the virtues. In a word, we ought to act in party with all the moderation which does not absolutely enervate that vigor, and quench that fervency of spirit, without which the best wishes for the public good must evaporate in empty specula tion.
It is probably from some such motives that the
friends of a very respectable party in this kingdom have been hitherto silent. For these two years past, from one and the same quarter of politics, a continual fire has been kept upon them; sometimes from the unwieldy column of quartos and octavos; sometimes from the light squadrons of occasional pamphlets and flying sheets. Every month has brought on its peri odical calumny. The abuse has taken every shape which the ability of the writers could give it; plain invective, clumsy raillery, misrepresented anecdote? ' No method of vilifying the measures, the abilities, the intentions, or the persons which compose that body, has been omitted.
On their part nothing was opposed but patience and character. It was a matter of the most serious and indignant affliction to persons who thought them selves in conscience bound to oppose a ministry dan gerous from its very constitution, as well as its measures, to find themselves, whenever they faced their adversaries, continually attacked on the rear by a set of men who pretended to be actuated by mo tives similar to theirs. They saw that the plan long pursued, with but too fatal a success, was to break the strength of this kingdom, by frittering down the
* History of the Minority. History of the Repeal of the Stamp Act. Considerations on Trade and Finance. Political Register, &c. , Sac.
'
? ? ? ? ON rnn PRESENT sum or THE NATION. 273
bodies which compose by fomenting bitter and sanguinary animosities, and by dissolving every tie of social affection and public trust. These virtuous men, such am warranted by public opinion to call them, were resolved rather to endure everything, than co-operate in that design. A diversity of opin ion upon almost every principle of politics had in deed drawn strong line of separation between them and some others. However, they were desirous not to extend the misfortune by unnecessary bitterness; they wished to prevent difference of opinion on the commonwealth from festering into rancorou and incurable hostility. Accordingly they endeavored that all past controversies should be forgotten; and
that enough for the day should be the evil thereof. There however limit at which forbearance ceases to be virtue. Men may tolerate injuries whilst they are only personal to themselves. But not the first of virtues to bear with moderation the in dignities that are offered to our country. A piece has at length appeared, from the quarter of all the
former attacks, which upon every public considera tion demands an answer. Whilst persons more equal to this business may be engaged in affairs of greater
moment, hope shall be excused, in few hours of a time not very important, and from such matc
rials as have by me (more than enough however for this purpose), undertake to set the facts and argu ments of this wonderful performance in proper
? will endeavor to state what this piece is; the purpose for which take to have been written
and
light.
the effects (supposing should have any effect
at all)
VOL. I. 18
must necessarily produce.
This piece called " The Present State of the
? ?
? But should a man be found not above two or three feet high, supposing such a person to have all the parts of his body of a delicacy suitable
to such a size, and otherwise endued with the com mon qualities of other beautiful bodies, I am pretty well convinced that a person of such a stature might be considered as beautiful; might be the object 'of love; might give us very pleasing ideas on viewing him. The only thing which could possibly interpose to check our pleasure that such creatures, however formed, are unusual, and are often therefore consid ered as something monstrous. The large and gigan tic, though very compatible with the sublime, contrary to the beautiful. It impossible to sup pose giant the object of love. When we let our imagination loose in romance, the ideas we naturally annex to that size are those of tyranny, cruelty, in
justice, and everything horrid and abominable. We paint the giant ravaging the country, plundering the innocent traveller, and afterwards gorged with his half-living flesh: such are Polyphemus, Cacus, and others, who make so great figure in romances and
greeable image.
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heroic poems. The event we attend to with the
satisfaction is their defeat and death. I do not remember, in all that multitude of deaths with which the Iliad is filled, that the fall of any man, remarkable for his great stature and strength, touches us with pity; nor does it appear that the author, so well read in human nature, ever intended it should. It is Simoisius, in the soft bloom of youth, torn from his parents, who tremble for a courage so ill suited to his strength; it is another hurried by war from the new embraces of his bride, young and fair, and a novice to the field, who melts us by his untimely fate. Achilles, in spite of the many qualities of beauty which Homer has bestowed on his outward form, and the many great virtues with which he has adorned his mind, can never make us love him. It may be ob served, that Homer has given the Trojans, whose fate he has designed to excite our compassion, infinitely more of the amiable, social virtues than he has dis tributed among his Greeks. With regard to the Tro jans, the passion he chooses to raise is pity; pity is a passion founded on love; and these lesser, and if I may say domestic virtues, are certainly the most ami able. But he has made the Greeks far their superi
ors in the politic and military virtues. The councils of Priam are weak; the arms of Hector comparatively feeble; his courage far below that of Achilles. Yet We love Priam more than Agamemnon, and Hector more than his conqueror Achilles. Admiration is
the passion which Homer would excite in favor of the Greeks, and he has done it by bestowing on them the virtues which have but little to do with love. This short digression is perhaps not wholly beside our purpose, where our business is to show that objects of
greatest
? ? ? ? 244
ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
great dimensions are incompatible with beauty, the more incompatible as they are greater; whereas the small, if ever they fail of beauty, this failure is not to be attributed to their size.
SECTION XXV. or COLOR.
WITH regard to color, the disquisition is almost in finite; but I conceive the principles laid down in the beginning of this part are sufficient to account for the effects of them all, as well as for the agreeable effects of transparent bodies, whether fluid or solid. Sup pose I look at a bottle of muddy liquor, of a blue or red color; the blue or red rays cannot pass clearly to the eye, but are suddenly and unequally stopped by the intervention of little opaque bodies, which with out preparation change the idea, and change it too into one disagreeable in its own nature, conformably to the principles laid down in Sect. 24. But when the ray passes without such opposition through the glass or liquor, when the glass or liquor is quite trans parent, the light is sometimes softened in the passage, which makes it more agreeable even as light; and the liquor reflecting all the rays of its proper color evenly, it has such an effect on the eye, as smooth opaque bodies have on the eye and touch. So that the pleasure here is compounded of the softness of the transmitted, and the evenness of the reflected light. This pleasure may be heightened by the com mon principles in other things, if the shape of the glass which holds the transparent liquor be so judi ciously varied, as to present the color gradually and
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interchangeably, weakened and strengthened with all the variety which judgment in affairs of this nature shall suggest. On a review of all that has been said
of the effects, as well as the causes of both, it will ap pear that the sublime and beautiful are built on prin ciples very different, and that their affections are as different: the great has terror for its basis, which, when it is modified, causes that emotion in the mind, which I have called astonishment; the beautiful is founded on mere positive pleasure, and excites in the soul that feeling which is called love. Their causes
have made the subject of this fourth part.
? ? ? ? 246 ON THE BUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
PART V.
SECTION I. or woims.
NATURAL objects affect us by the laws of that con nection which Providence has established between cer tain motions and configurations of bodies, and certain consequent feelings in our mind. Painting affects in the same manner, but with the superadded pleasure of imitation. Architecture affects by the laws of na ture and the law of reason ; from which latter result the rules of proportion, which make a work to be praised or censured, in the whole or in some part, when the end for which it was designed is or is not properly answered. But as to words; they seem to me to affect us in a manner very different from that in which we are affected by natural objects, or by painting or architecture ; yet words have as consider able a share in exciting ideas of beauty and of the sublime as many of those, and sometimes a much greater than any of them; therefore an inquiry into the manner by which they excite such emotions is far from being unnecessary in a discourse of this kind.
SECTION II.
THE COMMON EFFECTS OF POETRY, NOT BY RAISING IDEAS OF THINGS
THE common notion of the power of poetry and eloquence, as well as that of words in ordinary con
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? ? ? ? on THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. 247
versation, that they affect the mind by raising in ideas of those things _for which custom has ap
pointed them to stand. To examine the truth of this notion, may be requisite_to observe that words may be divided into three sorts. The first are such as represent many simple ideas united nature to form some one determinate composition, as man, horse, tree, castle, &c. These call aggregate words. The second are they that stand for one simple idea of
such compositions, and no more; as red, blue, round, square, and the like. These call simple abstract words. The third are those which are formed by an union, an arbitrary union of both the others, and of the various relations between them in greater or lesser degrees of complexity; as virtue, honor, persuasion, magistrate, and the like. These call compound abstract words. Words, am sensible, are capable of being classed into more curious distinc tions; but these seem to be natural, and enough for our purpose; and they are disposed in that order in
which they are commonly taught, and in which the mind gets the ideas they are substituted for. shall begin with the third sort of words; compound ab stracts, such as virtue, honor, persuasion, docility. Of these am convinced, that whatever power they may have on the passions, they do not derive from any representation raised in the mind of the things for which they stand. As compositions, they are not real essences, and hardly cause, think, any real ideas. Nobody, believe, immediately on hearing the sounds, virtue, liberty, or honor, conceives any precise notions of the particular modes of action and thinking, together with the mixed and simple ideas, and the several relations of them for which these
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words are substituted; neither has he any general idea compounded of them; for if he had, then some
of those particular ones, though indistinct
and confused, might come soon to be perceived. But this, I take hardly ever the case. For, put yourself upon analyzing one of these words, and you must reduce from one set of general words to an other, and then into the simple abstracts and aggre gates, in much longer series than may be at first imagined, before any real idea emerges to light, be fore you come to discover anything like the first prin ciples of such compositions; and when you have
made such discovery of the original ideas, the effect of the composition utterly lost. A train of think ing of this sort much too long to be pursued the ordinary ways of conversation; nor at all necessary that should. Such words are in reality but mere sounds; but they are sounds which being used on particular occasions, wherein we receive some good, or suffer some evil or see others affected with good or evil; or which we hear applied to other interesting things or events; and being applied in such variety of cases, that we know readily by
habit to what things they belong, they produce in the mind, whenever they are afterwards mentioned, effects similar to those of their occasions. The SOI1. IidS being often used without reference to any particular occasion, and carrying still their first impressions, they at last utterly lose their connection with the particu lar occasions that gave rise to them; yet the sound, without any annexed notion, continues to operate as before.
perhaps,
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SECTION III. GENERAL WORDS BEFORE IDEAS.
MR. LOCKE has somewhere observed, with his usual sagacity, that most general words, those belonging to virtue and vice, good and evil especially, are taught before the particular modes of action to which they belong are presented to the mind; and with them, the love of the one, and the abhorrence of the other; for the minds of children are so ductile, that a nurse,
or any person about a child, by seeming pleased or displeased with anything, or even any word, may give the disposition of the child a similar turn. When, afterwards, the several occurrences in life come to be applied to these words, and that which is pleasant of ten appears under the name of evil ; and what is dis
to nature is called good and virtuous; a strange confusion of ideas and affections arises in the minds of many ; and an appearance of no small con tradiction between their notions and their actions. There are many who love virtue and who detest vice, and this not from hypocrisy or affectation, who not withstanding very frequently act ill and wickedly in
agreeable
'
? without the least remorse; because these particular occasions never came into view, when the passions on the side of virtue were so warmly affected by certain words heated originally by the breath of others; and for this reason, it is hard to repeat cer tain sets of words, though owned by themselves unop
erative, without being in some degree affected; espe cially if a warm and affecting tone of voice accompa nies them, as suppose,
Wise, valiant, generous, good, and great.
particulars
? ? ? 250 on THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
These words, by having no application, ought to be unoperative; but when words commonly sacred to great occasions are used, we are aflected by them even without the occasions. When words which have been generally so applied are put together without any rational view, or in such a manner that they do not rightly agree with each other, the style is called bombast. And it requires in several cases much good sense and experience to be guarded against the force of such language ; for when propri ety is neglected, a greater number of these affecting words may be taken into the service, and a greater variety may be indulged in combining them.
SECTION IV. THE EFFECT or worms.
IF words have all their possible extent of power, three effects arise in the mind of the hearer. The first the sound; the second, the picture, or repre sentation of the thing signified by the sound; the third is, the aflection of the soul produced by one or by both of the foregoing. Uompounded abstract words, of which we have been speaking, (honor, jus tice, liberty, and the like,) produce the first and the last of these effects, but not the second. Simple ab stracts are used to signify some one simple idea with out much adverting to others which may chance to attend as blue, green, hot, coid, and the like; these are capable of affecting all three of the purposes of words; as the aggregate words, man, castle, horse, &c. are in yet higher degree. But am of opin ion, that the most general effect, even of these words,
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does not arise from their forming pictures of the sev eral things they would represent in the imagination ;
because, on a very diligent examination of my own mind, and getting others to consider theirs, I do not find that once in twenty times any such picture is formed, and when it there most commonly particular effort of the imagination for that purpose. But the aggregate words operate, as said of the compound-abstracts, not by presenting any image to the mind, but by having from use the same effect on being mentioned, that their original has when seen. Suppose we were to read passage to this effect: "The river Danube rises in moist and mountainous soil in the heart of Germany, where,
winding to and fro, waters several principalities, until, turning into Austria, and laving the walls of Vienna, passes into Hungary; there with vast flood, augmented by the Save and the Drave, quits Christendom, and rolling through the barbar ous countries which border on Tartary, enters by many mouths in the Black Sea. " In this description many things are mentioned, as mountains, rivers, cit
ies, the sea, &c. But let anybody examine himself, and see whether he has had impressed on his imagi nation any pictures of river, mountain, watery soil, Germany, &c. Indeed impossible, in the rapidity and quick succession of words in conversation, to have ideas both of the sound of the word, and of the thing
represented; besides, some words, expressing real essences, are so mixed with others of general and nominal import, that impracticable to jump from sense to thought, from particulars to generals, from things to words, in such manner as to answer the
purposes of life; nor necessary that we should.
? ? ? is it it a is
it a is
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is,
a
a a
is I
it
it
a
it is a
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SECTION V.
EXAMPLES THAT WORDS MAY AFFECT WITHOUT RAISING IMAGES.
I FIND it very hard to persuade several that their passions are affected by words from whence they have no ideas; and yet harder to convince them that in the ordinary course of conversation we are suflieiently understood without raising any images of the things concerning which we speak. It seems to be an odd subject of dispute with any man, whether he has ideas in his mind or not. Of this, at first view, every man, in his own forum, ought to judge without appeal. But, strange as it may appear, we are often at a loss to know what ideas we have of things, or whether we have any ideas at all upon some subjects. It even requires a good deal of attention to be thoroughly satisfied on this head. Since I wrote these papers, I found two very striking instances of the possibility there that man may hear words without having any idea of the things which they represent, and yet afterwards be capable of returning them to others, combined in new way, and with great propriety, en ergy, and instruction. The first instance that of Mr. Blacklock, poet blind from his birth. Few men blessed with the most perfect sight can describe visual objects with more spirit and justness than this blind man which cannot possibly be attributed to his hav ing clearer conception of the things he describes than common to other persons. Mr. Spence, in an elegant preface which he has written to the works of this poet, reasons very ingeniously, and, imagine, for the most part, very rightly, upon the cause of this
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253
extraordinary phenomenon; but I cannot altogether agree with him, that some improprieties in language and thought, which occur in these poems, have arisen from the blind poet's imperfect conception of visual objects, since such improprieties, and much greater, may be found in writers even of a higher class than Mr. Blacklock, and who, notwithstanding, possessed the faculty of seeing in its full perfection. Here is a poet doubtless as much affected by his own descrip tions as any that reads them can be; and yet he is af fected with this strong enthusiasm by things of which he neither has, nor can possibly have, any idea fur ther than that of a bare sound: and why may not those who read his works be affected in the same manner that he was; with as little of any real ideas of the things described? The second instance is of Mr. Saunderson, professor of mathematics i11 the University of Cambridge. This learned man had acquired great knowledge in natural philosophy, in astronomy, and whatever sciences depend upon math ematical skill. What was the most extraordinary and the most to my purpose, he gave excellent lec tures upon light and colors; and this man taught others the theory of those ideas which they had, and which he himself undoubtedly had not. But it is probable that the words red, blue, green, answered to him as well as the ideas of the colors themselves; for the ideas of greater or lesser degrees of refrangibility being applied to these words, and the blind man be ing instructed in what other respects they were found to agree or to disagree, it was as easy for him to rea son upon the words as if he had been fully master of the ideas. Indeed it must be owned he could make no new discoveries in the way of experiment. He
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ON TI-IE sUBLnvIE AND BEAUTIFUL.
did nothing but what we do every day in common dis course. When I wrote this last sentence, and used the words every dag and common discourse, I had no images in my mind of any succession of time ; nor of men in conference with each other; nor do I imagine that the reader will have any such ideas on reading it. Neither when I spoke of red, or blue, and green, as well as refrangibility, had I these several colors, or the rays of light passing into a different medium, and there diverted from their course, painted before me in the way of images. I know very well that the mind possesses a faculty of raising such images at pleasure; but then an act of the will is necessary to this; and in ordinary conversation or reading it is very rarely that any image at all is excited in the
? mind. If I say, "I shall go to Italy next summer," I am well understood. Yet I believe nobody has by this painted in his imagination the exact figure of the speaker passing by land or by water, or both ; some times on horseback, sometimes in a carriage: with all the particulars of the journey. Still less has he any idea of Italy, the country to which I proposed to go ; or of the greenness of the fields, the ripening of the fruits, and the warmth of the air, with the change
to this from a different season, which are the ideas for which the word summer is substituted ; but least of all has he any image from the word next ; for this word stands for the idea of many summers, with the exclusion of all but one: and surely the man who says next summer has no images of such a succession, and such an exclusion. In short, it is not only of those ideas which are commonly called abstract, and of which no image at all can be formed, but even of particular, real beings, that we converse without hav
? ? ? on THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. 255
ing any idea of them excited in the imagination ; as will certainly appear on a diligent examination of our own minds. Indeed, so little does poetry depend for its effect on the power of raising sensible images, that I am convinced it would lose a very considerable part of its energy, if this were the necessary result of all
description. Because that union of affecting words, which is the most powerful of all poetical instru ments, would frequently lose its force along with its propriety and consistency, if the sensible images were always excited. There is not, perhaps, in the whole _/Eneid a more grand and labored passage than the
? of Vulcan's cavern in Etna, and the works that are there carried on. Virgil dwells par ticularly on the formation of the thunder which he describes unfinished under the hammers of the Cy clops. But what are the principles of this extraor
description
dinary composition ?
Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosw Addiderant ; rutili tres ignis, et alitis austri : Fulgores nunc terrificos, sonitumque, metumque Miscebant operi, flammisquc sequacibus iras.
ll
This seems to me admirably sublime: yet if we at tend coolly to the kind of sensible images which a combination of ideas of this sort must form, the chi meras of madmen cannot appear more wild and ab surd than such a picture. " Three rays of twisted showers, three of watery clouds, three of fire, and three
of the winged south wind; then mixed they in the work terrific lightnings, and sound, and fear,and anger, with pursuing flames. " This strange composition is formed into a gross body ; it is hammered by the Cyclops, it is in part polished, and partly continues rough. The truth poetry gives us noble assemblage of
? ? is, if
a
? "H
words corresponding to many noble ideas, which are connected by circumstances of time or place, or re lated to each otheros cause and effect, or associated in any natural way, they may be moulded together in any form, and perfectly answer their end. The picturesque connection is not demanded; because no
real picture is formed; nor is the effect of the de scription at all the less upon this account. What is said of Helen by Priam and the old men of his coun cil, is generally thought to give us the highest possi ble idea of that fatal beauty.
O1': ve? peatc, Tpiras' xal e'iiKvr')p. 43aS 'Axazm'1t Tozfid' ti/. t? i 'yw/auci 1ro7\1':v xpzivov dhyea 1rda')(? W' Aiwlvs' aiflavziryow 6:3'): sis' airra. E'ou<cv.
" They cried, No wonder such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms ; What winning graces ! what majestic mien !
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen. "
Porn.
Here is not one word said of the particulars of her beauty; nothing which can in the least help us to any precise idea of her person ; but yet we are much more touched by this manner of mentioning her, than by those long and labored descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition, or formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors. I am sure it affects me much more than the minute description which Spenser has given of Belphebe; though I own that there are parts, in that descrip tion, as there are in all the descriptions of that excel lent writer, extremely fine and poetical. The terri ble picture which Lucretius has drawn of religion in order to display the magnanimity of his philosophical hero in opposing her, is thought to be designed with great boldness and spirit: --
256 ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
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Humane ante oculos fade cum vita jaceret, In wrris, oppressa gravi sub rcligione,
Quin caput e cmli rcgionibus ostendebat Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans ; Primus Grains homo mortales tellers contra Est oculos ausus.
What idea do you derive from so excellent a picture ? none at all, most certainly: neither has the poet said a single word which might in the least serve to mark a single limb or feature of the phantom, which he intended to represent in all the horrors imagination can conceive. In reality, poetry and rhetoric do not succeed i11 exact description so well as painting does ;
their business to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker, or of others, than to present
clear idea of the things themselves. This their Inost extensive province, and that in which they suc ceed the best.
SE CTION VI.
POETRY NOT STRICTLY AN IMITATIVE ART.
HENCE we may observe that poetry, taken in its most general sense, cannot with strict propriety be called an art of imitation. It indeed an imitation
so far as describes the manners and passions of men
which their words can express; where animi motus
qfifert interprete lingua. There strictly imitation; and all merely dramatic poetry of this sort. But
descriptive poetry operates chiefly by substitution by
the means of sounds, which by custom have the effect of realities. Nothing an imitation further than as
it resembles some other thing; and words undoubt
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is
is it
is is
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edly have no sort of resemblance to the ideas for which they stand.
SECTI0N VII.
now woims INFLUENCE THE PASSIONS.
Now, as words affect, not by any original power, but by representation, it might be supposed, that their influence over the passions should be but light; yet it is quite otherwise; for we find by experience, that eloquence and poetry are as capable, nay indeed much more capable, of making deep and lively im
than any other arts, and even than nature itself in very many cases. And this arises chiefly from these three causes. First, that we take an ex traordinary part in the passions of others, and that we are easily affected and brought into sympathy by any tokens which are shown of them ; and there are no tokens which can express all the circumstances of most passions so fully as words; so that if a person speaks upon any subject, he can not only convey the subject to you, but likewise the manner in which he is himself affected by it. Certain it that the in fluence of most things on our passions not so much from the things themselves, as from our opinions con cerning them; and these again depend very much on the opinions of other men, conveyable for the most part by words only. Secondly, there are many things of very affecting nature, which can seldom occur in the reality, but the words that represent them often do; and thus they have an opportunity of making deep impression and taking root in the mind, whilst the idea of the reality was transient; and to some
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perhaps never really occurred in any shape, to whom it is notwithstanding very affecting, as war, death, famine, &c. Besides many ideas have never been at all presented to the senses of any men but by words, as God, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of which have however a great influence over the passions. Thirdly, by words we have it in our power to make such combinations as we cannot possibly do otherwise.
By this power of combining we are able, by the addi tion of well-chosen circumstances, to give a new life and force to the simple object. In painting we may represent any fine figure we please ; but we never can give it those enlivening touches which it may receive from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw a beautiful young man winged: but what painting can furnish out anything so grand as the addition of one word, " the angel of the Lord " ? It is true, I have here no clear idea ; but these words affect the mind more than the sensible image did ; which is all I contend for. A picture of Priam dragged to the altar's foot, and there murdered, if it were well executed, would undoubtedly be very mov ing; but there are very aggravating circumstances, which it could never represent :
Sanguine ftedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignes.
As a further instance, let us consider those lines of Milton, where he describes the travels of the fallen angels through their dismal habitation :
" O'er many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous;
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp ;
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death, A universe of death. "
Here is displayed the force of union in
? '
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which yet would lose the greatest part of their effect, if they were not the
" Rocks, caves, lakes, dens, bogs, fens, and shades -- of Death. "
This idea or this affection caused by a word, which nothing but a word could annex to the others, raises a very great degree of the sublime, and this sublime is raised yet higher by what follows, a " universe of death. " Here are again two ideas not presentable but by language, and an union of them great and amazing beyond conception; if they may properly be called ideas which present no distinct image to the mind; but still it will be difficult to conceive how words can move the passions which belong to real objects, without representing these objects clearly. This is difficult to us, because we do not sufficiently distinguish, in our observations upon language, be tween a clear expression and a strong expression.
These are frequently confounded with each other, though they are in reality extremely different. The
former regards the understanding, the latter belongs to the passions. The one describes a thing as it the latter describes as felt. Now, as there amov ing tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agi tated gesture, which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to passionate subjects, and always used those who are under the influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject-matter. We yield to sympathy what we refuse to description. The truth all verbal description, merely as naked de
260
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scription, though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an idea of the thing described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect, if the speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark a strong and lively feeling in himself. Then, by the
contagion of our passions, we catch a fire already kin dled in another, which probably might never have been struck out by the object described. Words, by strongly conveying the passions by those means which we have already mentioned, fully compensate for their weakness in other respects. It may be observed,
that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are gen erally deficient in strength. _ The French language has that perfection and that defect. Whereas the Oriental tongues, and in general the languages of most Iu1polished people, have a great force and ener gy of expression, and this is but natural. Unculti vated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that
reason they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner. If the affec tion be well conveyed, it will work its effect without any clear idea, often without any idea at all of the
thing which has originally given rise to it.
It might be expected, from the fertility of the sub ject, that I should consider poetry, as it regards the
sublime and beautiful, more at large ; but it must be observed, that in this light it has been often and well handled already. It was not my design to enter into the criticism of the sublime and beautiful in any art, but to attempt to lay down such principles as may
tend to ascertain, to distinguish, and to form a sort
? ? ? ? 262 on THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.
of standard for them; which purposes I thought might be best effected by an inquiry into the proper ties of such things in nature, as raise love and aston ishment in us ; and by showing in what manner they operated to produce these passions. Words were only so far to be considered as to show upon what princi ple they were capable of being the representatives of these natural things, and by what powers they were able to aifect us often as strongly as the things they
represent,
and sometimes much more strongly.
,\
? ? ? ? A
SHORT ACCOUNT
A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION. I766.
\
? ? ? ? ? I
? ? ? A
SHORT ACCOUNT
A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION. ---Oi
late administration came into employment, THuEnder the mediation of the Duke of Cumber land, on the tenth day of July, 1765; and was re moved, upon a plan settled by the Earl of Chatham,
on the thirtieth day of July, 1766, having lasted just one year and twenty days.
In that space of time
The distractions of the British empire were com posed, by the repeal of the American stamp act;
But the constitutional superiority of Great Britain
was preserved by the act for securing the dependence of the colonies.
Private houses were relieved from the jurisdiction of the excise, by the repeal of the cider taz.
The personal liberty of the subject was confirmed, by the resolution against general warrants.
The lawful secrets of business and friendship were rendered inviolable, by the resolution for condemning the seizure of papers.
The trade of America was set free from injudicious and ruinous impositions, -- its revenue was improved,
and
? settled upon a rational foundation,-- its com
? ? ? 266 A SHORT ACCOUNT oF
merce extended with foreign countries; while the advantages were secured to Great Britain,
act for repealing certain duties, and encouraging, regu lating, and scouring the trade this kingdom, and the British dominions in America.
Materials were provided and insured to our man ufactures,--the sale of these manufactures was creased, --the African trade preserved and extended, --the principles of the act of navigation pursued, and the plan improved,---and the trade for bullion rendered free, secure, and permanent, by the act for opening certain ports in Dominica and Jamaica.
That administration was the first which proposed and encouraged public meetings and free consulta
tions of merchants from all parts of the kingdom; which means the truest lights have been received; great benefits have been already derived to manufac tures and commerce; and the most extensive
pects are opened for further improvement.
Under them, the interests of our northern and southern colonies, before that time jarring and dis sonant, were understood, compared, adjusted, and perfectly reconciled. The passions and animosities of the colonies, by judicious and lenient measures, were allayed and composed, and the foundation laid for lasting agreement amongst them.
_ Whilst that administration provided for the liberty and commerce of their country, as the true basis its power, they consulted its interests, they asserted its honor abroad, with temper and with firmness; by making an advantageous treaty of commerce with Russia; by obtaining liquidation of the Canada bills, to the satisfaction of the proprietors; by reviv ing and raising from its ashes the negotiation for
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A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION. 267
the Manilla ransom, which had been extinguished and abandoned by their predecessors.
They treated their sovereign with decency; with reverence. They discountenanced, and, it is hoped, forever abolished, the dangerous and Imconstitutional practice of removing military officers for their votes in Parliament. They firmly adhered to those friends
of liberty, who had run all hazards in its cause ; and provided for them in preference to every other claim. With the Earl of Bute they had no personal connec tion; no correspondence of councils. They neither
courted him nor persecuted him. They practised no corruption; nor were they even suspected of it. They sold no offices. They obtained no reversions or pensions, either coming in or going out, for them selves, their families, or their dependents.
In the prosecution of their measures they were traversed by an opposition of a new and singular character ; an opposition of placemen and pensioners. They were supported by the confidence of the nation. And having held their offices under many difficulties and discouragemcnts, they left them at the express command, as they had accepted them at the earnest request, of their royal master.
These are plain facts; of a clear and public na ture; neither extended by elaborate reasoning, nor heightened by the coloring of eloquence. They are the services of a single year.
The removal of that administration from power is not to them premature ; since they were in office long enough to accomplish many plans of public utility; and, by their perseverance and resolution, rendered
the way smooth and easy to their successors ; having left their king and their country in a much better
? ? ? ? ACCOUNT or A LATE SHORT ADMINISTRATION.
condition than they found them. By the temper they manifest, they seem to have now no other wish than that their successors may do the public as real and as faithful service as they have done.
268
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OBSERVATIONS
on A LATE PUBLICATION,
INTITULED
"THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION. "
? "O Tite, si quid ego adjuvem curarnve levasso, Quse nunc te coquit, ct versat sub pectore fixa,
Ecquid erit pretii? " I769.
ENN. ap. Clo.
I
? ? ? OBSERVATIONS
on A LATE PUBLICATION, lN'lTl'ULED
"THE PRESENT STATE OF THE NATION. "
PARfoTrYdivisions,whetheronthewholeoperating good or evil, are things inseparable from free government. This is a truth which, I believe, admits
little dispute, having been established by the uniform experience of all ages. The part a good citizen ought to take in these divisions has been a matter of much deeper controversy. But God forbid that any contro
versy relating to our essential morals should admit of no decision. It appears to me, that this question, like most of the others which regard our duties in life, is to be determined by our station in it. Private men may be wholly neutral, and entirely innocent: but they who are legally invested with public trust,
or stand on the high ground of rank and dignity, which is trust implied, can hardly in any case remain indifferent, without the certainty of sinking into in significance ; and thereby in effect deserting that post
in which, with the fullest authority, and for the wis est purposes, the laws and institutions of their coun try have fixed them. However, if it be the office of those who are thus circumstanced, to take a decided part, it is no less their duty that it should be a sober one. It ought to be circumscribed by the same laws
? ? ? ? "III!
272 OBSERVATIONS on A LATE PUBLICATION
of decorum, and balanced by the same temper, which bound and regulate all the virtues. In a word, we ought to act in party with all the moderation which does not absolutely enervate that vigor, and quench that fervency of spirit, without which the best wishes for the public good must evaporate in empty specula tion.
It is probably from some such motives that the
friends of a very respectable party in this kingdom have been hitherto silent. For these two years past, from one and the same quarter of politics, a continual fire has been kept upon them; sometimes from the unwieldy column of quartos and octavos; sometimes from the light squadrons of occasional pamphlets and flying sheets. Every month has brought on its peri odical calumny. The abuse has taken every shape which the ability of the writers could give it; plain invective, clumsy raillery, misrepresented anecdote? ' No method of vilifying the measures, the abilities, the intentions, or the persons which compose that body, has been omitted.
On their part nothing was opposed but patience and character. It was a matter of the most serious and indignant affliction to persons who thought them selves in conscience bound to oppose a ministry dan gerous from its very constitution, as well as its measures, to find themselves, whenever they faced their adversaries, continually attacked on the rear by a set of men who pretended to be actuated by mo tives similar to theirs. They saw that the plan long pursued, with but too fatal a success, was to break the strength of this kingdom, by frittering down the
* History of the Minority. History of the Repeal of the Stamp Act. Considerations on Trade and Finance. Political Register, &c. , Sac.
'
? ? ? ? ON rnn PRESENT sum or THE NATION. 273
bodies which compose by fomenting bitter and sanguinary animosities, and by dissolving every tie of social affection and public trust. These virtuous men, such am warranted by public opinion to call them, were resolved rather to endure everything, than co-operate in that design. A diversity of opin ion upon almost every principle of politics had in deed drawn strong line of separation between them and some others. However, they were desirous not to extend the misfortune by unnecessary bitterness; they wished to prevent difference of opinion on the commonwealth from festering into rancorou and incurable hostility. Accordingly they endeavored that all past controversies should be forgotten; and
that enough for the day should be the evil thereof. There however limit at which forbearance ceases to be virtue. Men may tolerate injuries whilst they are only personal to themselves. But not the first of virtues to bear with moderation the in dignities that are offered to our country. A piece has at length appeared, from the quarter of all the
former attacks, which upon every public considera tion demands an answer. Whilst persons more equal to this business may be engaged in affairs of greater
moment, hope shall be excused, in few hours of a time not very important, and from such matc
rials as have by me (more than enough however for this purpose), undertake to set the facts and argu ments of this wonderful performance in proper
? will endeavor to state what this piece is; the purpose for which take to have been written
and
light.
the effects (supposing should have any effect
at all)
VOL. I. 18
must necessarily produce.
This piece called " The Present State of the
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