Elements of Criticism. Henry Home, Lord Kames

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СКАЧАТЬ than formerly, produces in the spectator a new emotion, termed the emotion of sublimity; and that the perfection of order, regularity, and proportion, is less required in objects placed high, or at a distance, than at hand.

      The pleasant emotion raised by large objects, has not escaped the poets:

      ——— He doth bestride the narrow world

      Like a Colossus; and we petty men

      Walk under his huge legs.

      Julius Caesar, act 1. sc. 3.²

      Cleopatra. I dreamt there was an Emp’ror Antony;

      Oh such another sleep, that I might see

      But such another man!

      His face was as the heavens: and therein stuck

      A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted

      The little O o’ th’ earth.

      His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear’d arm

      Crested the world.

      Antony and Cleopatra, act 5. sc. 3.³

      ——— Majesty

      Dies not alone, but, like a gulf, doth draw

      What’s near it with it. It’s a massy wheel

      Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount;<218>

      To whose huge spokes, ten thousand lesser things

      Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls,

      Each small annexment, petty consequence,

      Attends the boist’rous ruin.

      Hamlet, act 3. sc. 8.⁴

      The poets have also made good use of the emotion produced by the elevated situation of an object:

      Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseres,

      Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

      Horat. Carm. l. 1. ode 1.⁵

      Oh thou! the earthly author of my blood,

      Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,

      Doth with a two fold vigour lift me up,

      To reach at victory above my head.

      Richard II. act 1. sc. 4.⁶

      Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal

      The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne.

      Richard II. act 5. sc. 2.⁷

      Anthony. Why was I rais’d the meteor of the world,

      Hung in the skies, and blazing as I travell’d,

      Till all my fires were spent; and then cast downward

      To be trod out by Caesar?

      Dryden, All for love, act 1.

      The description of Paradise in the fourth book<219> of Paradise lost, is a fine illustration of the impression made by elevated objects:

      So on he fares, and to the border comes

      Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

      Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green,

      As with a rural mound, the champain head

      Of a steep wilderness; whose hairy sides

      With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,

      Access deny’d; and over head up grew

      Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

      Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,

      A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend,

      Shade above shade, a woody theatre

      Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops

      The verd’rous wall of Paradise up sprung;

      Which to our general fire gave prospect large

      Into his nether empire neighb’ring round.

      And higher than that wall a circling row

      Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,

      Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,

      Appear’d, with gay enamell’d colours mix’d.

      B. 4. l. 131.

      Tho’ a grand object is agreeable, we must not infer that a little object is disagreeable; which would be unhappy for man, considering that he is surrounded with so many objects of that kind. The same holds with respect to place: a body placed high is agreeable; but the same body placed low, is not by that circumstance rendered dis-<220>agreeable. Littleness and lowness of place are precisely similar in the following particular, that they neither give pleasure nor pain. And in this may visibly be discovered peculiar attention in fitting the internal constitution of man to his external circumstances: were littleness and lowness of place agreeable, greatness and elevation could not be so: were littleness and lowness of place disagreeable, they would occasion perpetual uneasiness.

      The difference between great and little with respect to agreeableness, is remarkably felt in a series when we pass gradually from the one extreme to the other. A mental progress from the capital to the kingdom, from that to Europe—to the whole earth—to the planetary system—to the universe, is extremely pleasant: the heart swells, and the mind is dilated, at every step. The returning in an opposite direction is not positively painful, tho’ our pleasure lessens at every step, till it vanish into indifference: such a progress may sometimes produce pleasure of a different sort, which arises from taking a narrower and narrower inspection. The same observation holds in a progress upward and downward. Ascent is pleasant because it elevates us: but descent is never painful; it is for the most part pleasant from a different cause, that it is according to the order of nature. The fall of a stone from any height, is extremely agreeable by its accelerated motion. I feel it pleasant to descend from a mountain, because the de-<221>scent is natural and easy. Neither is looking downward painful; on the contrary, to look down upon objects, makes part of the pleasure of elevation: looking down becomes then only painful when the object is so far below as to create dizziness; and even when that is the case, we feel a sort of pleasure mixt with the pain, witness Shakespear’s description of Dover cliffs:

      ——— ——— How fearful

      And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eye so СКАЧАТЬ