Sublimity. This attribute of objects of sight seldom occurs on the face of nature, in its natural state, comparatively with most of those which have been enumerated. Mountain scenery, how grand or magnificent it may be, is not, on that account, the more sublime; an extent of water, though wide as the sea itself, will not admit of the epithet, while it remains in a calm, unagitated state; any more than will an extent of country covered with snow; unless the idea of unbounded space raise it in some degree: but how infinitely more is this idea capable of exciting it, in viewing space itself, – in beholding the universe, – in looking towards infinity!

The sublime seems to require that the higher degrees of astonishment should be roused, to demonstrate its presence: a degree of terror, if not of horror, is required to produce the more forcible emotions of the mind, which sublimity is capable of exciting.

A giant precipice, frowning over its base, whether we view it from beneath, or look downward from its brink, is capable of producing sublime emotions. A river tumbling headlong over such a precipice, especially if it be viewed with difficulty and a degree of danger, real or imaginary, still heightens those emotions. Lightning, thunder, and hurricanes may produce them.

Section I

We are now, Palemon, to treat of that kind of writing which of all others is the truly excellent and great manner, and which is peculiar to a genius noble, lofty, comprehensive. You will easily know I mean the Sublime, and perhaps tell me the task is difficult; I acknowledge it, especially when I consider that we have already a great author upon the subject, who has received the approbation of ages, and who, in the opinion of most, has exhausted it. – Yet I have something to plead as my apology for my presumption, for such I believe it may be reckoned, although not by you, yet by one, ‘qui redit ad fastus, et virtutem astimat annis.’

Notwithstanding Longinus entitles his treatise, a Treatise upon the Sublime, yet whoever considers the full extent of the work, will perceive the author does not confine himself to the bare explanation of any one certain and particular manner in writing. Some part of his treatise regards the figurative style, some the pathetic, and indeed some part regards what I think is properly called the sublime. – However, the bulk of the performance relates more to the perfection of writing in general, than to any particular kind or species.

As every different manner of writing has its peculiar character, it must likewise have its different principles, and to treat of them separately must undoubtedly be the clearer method.

Book IV. Of the operation of opinion in societies and individuals Chapter V. Of the cultivation of truth

… In the discovery and knowledge of truth seems to be comprised, for the most part, all that an impartial and reflecting mind is accustomed to admire. No one is ignorant of the pleasures of knowledge. In human life there must be a distribution of time, and a variety of occupations. Now there is perhaps no occupation so much at our command, no pleasure of the means of which we are so little likely to be deprived, as that which is intellectual. Sublime and expansive ideas produce delicious emotions. The acquisition of truth, the perception of the regularity with which proposition flows out of proportion, and one step of science leads to another, has never failed to reward the man who engaged in this species of employment. Knowledge contributes two ways to our happiness: first by the new sources of enjoyment which it opens upon us, and next by furnishing us with a clue in the selection of all other pleasures. No well informed man can seriously doubt of the advantages with respect to happiness, of a capacious and improved intellect, over the limited conceptions of a brute. Virtuous sentiments are another source of personal pleasure, and that of a more exquisite kind than intellectual improvements. But virtue itself depends for its value upon the energies of intellect.

Of the sublime

…By the sublime in general I mean the most excellent of what is excellent, as the excellent is the best of what is good. The dignity of a man consists chiefly in his capacity of thinking, and of communicating his ideas to another; the greatest, and most noble thoughts, images, or sentiments, conveyed to us in the best chosen words, I take therefore to be the perfect sublime in writing; the admirable, the marvellous.

But as there may be degrees even in the sublime, something short of the utmost may be also sublime.

Thought, and language are two distinct excellencies: there are few that are capable of adding dignity to a great subject, or even of doing right to such a one; in some cases none: the bulk of mankind conceive not greatly, nor do they know how to utter the conceptions they have to the best advantage; and those that have higher capacities exert them but rarely, and on few occasions: hence it is that we so justly admire what is so excellent, and so uncommon.

The great manner of thinking (as thought in general) is either pure invention, or what arises upon hints suggested from without.…

Eighteenth-century readers of Longinus were particularly impressed by the style and verbal resonance of the text. A number of passages became almost conventional topoi for the display of a commentator's learning and appreciation, many of which were known in the fine English translations.

Longinus suggests that there are five sources of the sublime [Longinus], and these are much discussed and debated throughout the eighteenth century. See below part V in which Blair's comments represent one of the critical strands of this debate in which all but the first two sources are diminished as of real importance in the analytic of the sublime. There is, however, another strand to this discussion in which the rhetorical analysis of tropes and figures takes on far greater importance thereby creating an understanding of the sublime in terms of its discursive and figurative formation.

Another topos in the Longinian text for extensive commentary begins “So the space between Heaven and Earth” in section IX. This distinction in conjunction with images of terror leads Smith to cite Milton's sublimity:

A correct speaker does not make a movement of limb, or feature, for which he has not a reason. If he addresses heaven, he looks upward. If he speaks to his fellow-creatures, he looks round upon them. The spirit of what he says, or is said to him, appears in his look. If he expresses amazement, or would excite it, he lifts up his hands and eyes. If he invites to virtue and happiness, he spreads his arms, and looks benevolence. If he threatens the vengeance of heaven against vice, he bends his eyebrow into wrath, and menaces with his arm and countenance. He does not needlessly saw the air with his arm, nor stab himself with his finger. He does not clap his right hand upon his breast, unless he has occasion to speak of himself, or to introduce conscience, or somewhat sentimental. He does not start back, unless he wants to express horror or aversion. He does not come forward, but when he has occasion to solicit. He does not raise his voice, but to express somewhat peculiarly emphatical. He does not lower it, but to contrast the raising of it. His eyes, by turns, according the humour of the matter he has to express, sparkle fury; brighten into joy; glance disdain; melt into grief; frown disgust and hatred; languish into love; or glare distraction.

How the mind is raised to the sublime

They who never felt that kind of enthusiasm, which Aristotle, and Longinus mention, as necessary to succeed in poetry, and produce the sublime in writing, will be little the better informed, from what may be said, to give an idea of it. He, who can behold without emotion, and surprise the more noble works of nature, and of art, will gain, even from the most expressive words, and strongest terms, but a very faint notion of what is not so easily described, or taught, as conceived by a mind truly disposed for the perception of that, which is great and marvellous.

All the vast, and wonderful scenes, either of delight, or horror, which the universe affords, have this effect upon the imagination, such as unbounded prospects, particularly that of the ocean, in its different situations of agitation, or repose; the rising and setting sun; the solemnity of moon light; all the phenomena in the heavens, and objects of astronomy. We are moved in the same manner by the view of dreadful precipices; great ruins; subterraneous caverns, and the operations of nature in those dark recesses. The like is often produced by that greatness, which results from the ornaments, and magnificence of architecture; the sight of numerous armies, and assemblies of people. We are no less inspired, if it may be so called, by that kind of ardour from the charms of beauty, or the resemblance of beautiful persons, and things in fine statues, or paintings.

Part I. Chapter V

That Passion is the chief Thing in Poetry, and that all Passion is either ordinary Passion, or Enthusiasm

But before we proceed, let us define poetry; which is the first time that a definition has been given of that noble art: for neither ancient nor modern critics have defined poetry in general.

Poetry then is an imitation of nature, by a pathetic and numerous speech. Let us explain it.

As poetry is an art, it must be an imitation of nature. That the instrument with which it makes its imitation, is speech, need not be disputed. That that speech must be musical, no one can doubt: for numbers distinguish the parts of poetic diction, from the periods of prose. Now numbers are nothing but articulate sounds, and their pauses measured by their proper proportions of time. And the periods of prosaic diction are articulate sounds, and their pauses unmeasured by such proportions. That the speech, by which poetry makes its imitation, must be pathetic, is evident; for passion is still more necessary to it than harmony. For harmony only distinguishes its instrument from that of prose, but passion distinguishes its very nature and character. For, therefore, poetry is poetry, because it is more passionate and sensual than prose. A discourse that is writ in very good numbers, if it wants passion, can be but measured prose.

… Another great pleasure the ancients had beyond us, if we consider them as the poet's countrymen, was, that they lived as it were on the spot, and within the verge of the poem; their habitations lay among the scenes of the Æneid; they could find out their own country in Homer, and had every day perhaps in their sight the mountain or field where such an adventure, or such a battle was fought. Many of them had often walked on the banks of Helicon, or the sides of Parnassus, and knew all the private haunts and retirements of the muses: so that they lived as it were on fairy ground, and conversed in an enchanted region, where every thing they looked upon appeared romantic, and gave a thousand pleasing hints to their imaginations. To consider Virgil only in this respect: how must a Roman have been pleased that was well acquainted with the capes and promontories, to see the original of their names, as they stand derived from Misenus, Palinurus and Cajeta? That could follow the poet's motions, and attend his hero in all his marches from place to place? That was very well acquainted with the lake Amsanctus, where the fury sunk, and could lead you to the mouth of the cave where Æneas took his descent for hell? Their being conversant with the place where the poem was transacted, gave them a greater relish than we can have at present of several parts of it; as it affected their imaginations more strongly, and diffused through the whole narration a greater air of truth.

But the eloquence of Lord Chatham was one of his most striking characteristics. He far outstripped his competitors, and stood alone, the rival of antiquity. When he took his place in parliament, it has been observed, by a celebrated writer, that there were half a dozen speakers, in both houses, who, in the judgment of the public, had reached nearly the same pitch of eloquence. Voltaire represents them, as rivalling, or surpassing the greatest orators of Greece and Rome. But the equality of their fame has justly been considered, as an unanswerable argument, against this supposition. In an art, which is either necessarily, or casually, in a state of mediocrity, twenty workmen will perform equally well; but, where true eminence has been reached, the comparative merit of the artists will be no longer doubtful. And indeed, how cold and jejune, in a poetical view, do the harangues of a Wyndham, or a Pulteney appear? But neither of these objections can be urged against Lord Chatham. He has tropes and sallies, that may justly vie, with the noblest flights of antiquity. And he certainly leaves his coadjutors, as far behind him, as ever did a Cicero, or a Demosthenes.

His eloquence was of every kind. No man excelled him, in close argument, and methodical deduction. But this was not the style, into which he naturally fell. His oratory was unlaboured and spontaneous.

The principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries; illustrated by the history of astronomy

Wonder, Surprise, and Admiration, are words which, though often confounded, denote, in our language, sentiments that are indeed allied, but that are in some respects different also, and distinct from one another. What is new and singular, excites that sentiment which, in strict propriety, is called Wonder; what is unexpected, Surprise; and what is great or beautiful, Admiration.

We wonder at all extraordinary and uncommon objects, at all the rare phaenomena of nature, at meteors, comets, eclipses, at singular plants and animals, and at every thing, in short, with which we have before been either little or not at all acquainted; and we still wonder, though forewarned of what we are to see.

We are surprised at those things which we have seen often, but which we least of all expected to meet with in the place where we find them; we are surprised at the sudden appearance of a friend, whom we have seen a thousand times, but whom we did not imagine we were to see then.

We admire the beauty of a plain or the greatness of a mountain, though we have seen both often before, and though nothing appears to us in either, but what we had expected with certainty to see. …

… All that I contend for is, that the sentiments excited by what is new, by what is unexpected, and by what is great and beautiful, are really different, however the words made use of to express them may sometimes be confounded.

The scenes which I have hitherto described, are chiefly of the pleasing kind: but the Chinese Gardeners have many sorts, which they employ as circumstances vary; all which they range in three separate classes; and distinguish them by the appellations of the pleasing, the terrible, and the surprising.

The first of these are composed of the gayest and most perfect productions of the vegetable world; intermixed with rivers, lakes, cascades, fountains, and water-works of all sorts: being combined and disposed in all the picturesque forms that art or nature can suggest. Buildings, sculptures, and paintings are added, to give splendour and variety to these compositions; and the rarest productions of the animal creation are collected; to enliven them: nothing is forgot that can either exhilarate the mind, gratify the senses, or give a spur to the imagination.

Their scenes of terror are composed of gloomy woods, deep valleys inaccessible to the sun, impending barren rocks, dark caverns, and impetuous cataracts rushing down the mountains from all parts. The trees are ill formed, forced out of their natural directions, and seemingly torn to pieces by the violence of tempests: some are thrown down, and intercept the course of the torrents; others look as if blasted and shattered by the power of lightning: the buildings are in ruins; or half consumed by fire, or swept away by the fury of the waters: nothing remaining entire but a few miserable huts dispersed in the mountains, which serve at once to indicate the existence and wretchedness of the inhabitants.

Part First. Of the general characteristics of human nature

Section I. Of the questions relating to the state of nature

… We speak of art as distinguished from nature; but art itself is natural to man. He is in some measure the artificer of his own frame, as well as his fortune, and is destined, from the first age of his being, to invent and contrive. He applies the same talents to a variety of purposes, and acts nearly the same part in very different scenes. He would be always improving on his subject, and he carries this intention wherever he moves, through the streets of the populous city, or the wilds of the forest. While he appears equally fitted to every condition, he is upon this account unable to settle in any. At once obstinate and fickle, he complains of innovations, and is never sated with novelty. He is perpetually busied in reformations, and is continually wedded to his errors. If he dwell in a cave, he would improve it into a cottage; if he has already built, he would still build to a greater extent. But he does not propose to make rapid and hasty transitions; his steps are progressive and slow; and his force, like the power of a spring, silently presses on every resistance; and effect is sometimes produced before the cause is perceived; and with all his talent for projects, his work is often accomplished before the plan is devised.

Chapter III

There are few words whose meaning has been less accurately determined than that of the word Picturesque.

In general, I believe, it is applied to every object, and every kind of scenery, which has been, or might be represented with good effect in painting, and that without any exclusion. But, considered as a separate character, it has never yet been accurately distinguished from the sublime and the beautiful; though as no one has ever pretended that they are synonymous, (for it is sometimes used in contradistinction to them) such a distinction must exist ….

The principles of those two leading characters in nature, the sublime and the beautiful, have been fully illustrated and discriminated by a great master; but even when I first read that most original work, I felt that there were numberless objects which give great delight to the eye, and yet differ as widely from the beautiful as from the sublime. The reflections I have since been led to make have convinced me that these objects form a distinct class, and belong to what may properly be called the picturesque.

That term (as we may judge from its etymology) is applied only to objects of sight, and that indeed in so confined a manner as to be supposed merely to have a reference to the art from which it is named.

Chapter IV

Grandeur and sublimity

Nature hath not more remarkably distinguished us from the other animals by an erect posture, than by a capacious and aspiring mind, attaching us to things great and elevated. The ocean, the sky, seize the attention, and make a deep impression: robes of state are made large and full to draw respect: we admire an elephant for its magnitude, notwithstanding its unwieldiness.

The elevation of an object affects us not less than its magnitude: a high place is chosen for the statue of a deity or hero: a tree growing on the brink of a precipice, looks charming when viewed from the plain below: a throne is erected for the chief magistrate; and a chair with a high seat for the president of a court.

In some objects, greatness and elevation concur to make a complicated impression: the Alps and the pike of Teneriffe are proper examples; with the following difference, that in the former greatness seems to prevail, elevation in the latter.

The emotions raised by great and by elevated objects, are clearly distinguishable, not only in the internal feeling, but even in their external expressions. A great object makes the spectator endeavour to enlarge his bulk; which is remarkable in plain people who give way to nature without reserve; in describing a great object, they naturally expand themselves by drawing in air with all their force.

Had you been in a philosophising mood, had your heart or your reason been at home, you might have been convinced, by ocular demonstration, that madness is only the absence of reason. – The ruling angel leaving its seat, wild anarchy ensues. You would have seen that the uncontrolled imagination often pursues the most regular course in its most daring flight; and that the eccentricities are boldly relieved when judgment no longer officiously arranges the sentiments, by bringing them to the test of principles. You would have seen every thing out of nature in that strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of follies jumbled together. You would have seen in that monstrous tragi-comic scene the most opposite passions necessarily succeed, and sometimes mix with each other in the mind; alternate contempt and indignation; alternate laughter and tears; alternate scorn and horror – This is a true picture of that chaotic state of mind, called madness; when reason gone, we know not where, the wild elements of passion clash, and all is horror and confusion. You might have heard the best turned conceits, flash following flash, and doubted whether the rhapsody was not eloquent, if it had not been delivered in an equivocal language, neither verse nor prose, if the sparkling periods had not stood alone, wanting force because they wanted concatenation.

It is a proverbial observation, that a very thin partition divides wit and madness.

Part I. Of the propriety of action

Section I. Of the sense of propriety

Chapter V. Of the amiable and respectable virtues

Upon these two different efforts, upon that of the spectator to enter into the sentiments of the person principally concerned, and upon that of the person principally concerned, to bring down his emotions to what the spectator can go along with, are founded two different sets of virtues. The soft, the gentle, the amiable virtues, the virtues of candid condescension and indulgent humanity, are founded upon the one: the great, the awful and respectable, the virtues of self-denial, of self-government, of that command of the passions which subjects all the movements of our nature to what our own dignity and honour, the propriety of our own conduct require, take their origin from the other. …

And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and propriety. As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us.

An essay on the nature and constituion of epic poetry.

Of the marvellous

Another thing indispensably required to the constitution of an epic poem is, that the narration be marvellous; and the reason is, that when the poet intends to give delight and convey instruction, as admiration engages attention, so it prepares and opens the mind to admit the force of the poet's sentiments, and receive from them deep impressions. Hence the beautiful and surprising turns, as well in the diction as the incidents of a noble poem, strike the imagination with resistless force, break in upon the soul and excite generous and divine passions suitable to the subject. This therefore is a necessary property, by which the poet is qualified to gain his principal end, which is to afford pleasure and instruction; and is a peculiar and inseparable character, that limits the general nature of poetry, and makes the epic differ from the tragic, to which however it is more nearly allied than to any other species.

All things excite admiration that either transcend the sphere of finite activity, or that break the usual series of natural causes and events. The first sort, which proceed from almighty power, are styled miracles: I shall not here by a strict disquisition, enter into the nature and definition of a miracle, which some look upon as an immediate effect of unlimited might, and others as an action which the spectators believe the supreme being to be the author of, while they are unable to account for any natural cause, from whence it should arise.

I should have answered your letter sooner, but that I was uncertain, till of late, whether to direct for you at Edinburgh or at Aberdeen. I durst not, however, reply in the language you wrote in; for though I could perhaps have filled two or three pages with Italian words ranged in grammatical order, yet, without assuming the natural air and spirit of the language, you would no more think I had wrote Italian than you would call that a musical composition which was only a number of concords put together without any regard to the rhythm or style of the whole. This reason was stronger in writing to you, who have attained so perfectly the wild elegance, the vagbezza, which the Italians are so fond of both in language and painting, and in which, I believe, they exceed all the moderns. What is good in the French authors is of a more sober, classical manner, and greater severity of design. The Spaniards, I imagine, approach much nearer to the Italian manners. Our English poetry has but little of it, and that chiefly among the older compositions of our countrymen – the juvenilia of Milton, and the fairy scenes of Spenser and Shakespeare. Our nervous and concise language does not willingly flow into this fanciful luxuriance; besides that the genius of our poetry delights in a vehemence of passion and philosophical sublimity of sentiments much above its reach. Since we parted, I have been chiefly employed in reading the Greek philosophers, especially the Stoics.