The angry tones of wild beasts are equally capable
of causing a great and awful sensation.

Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iraeque leonum
Vincia recusantum, et sera sub nocte rudentum;
Setigerique sues, atque in praesepibus ursi
Saevire; et formae magnorum ululare luporam.

It might seem that those modulations of sound carry some connection with
the nature of the things they represent, and are not merely arbitrary;
because the natural cries of all animals, even of those animals with
whom we have not been acquainted, never fail to make themselves
sufficiently understood; this cannot be said of language. The
modifications of sound, which may be productive of the sublime, are
almost infinite. Those I have mentioned are only a few instances to show
on what principles they are all built.

SECTION XXI.

SMELL AND TASTE.--BITTERS AND STENCHES.

_Smells_ and _tastes_ have some share too in ideas of greatness; but it
is a small one, weak in its nature, and confined in its operations. I
shall only observe that no smells or tastes can produce a grand
sensation, except excessive bitters, and intolerable stenches. It is
true that these affections of the smell and taste, when they are in
their full force, and lean directly upon the sensory, are simply
painful, and accompanied with no sort of delight; but when they are
moderated, as in a description or narrative, they become sources of the
sublime, as genuine as any other, and upon the very same principle of a
moderated pain. "A cup of bitterness"; "to drain the bitter cup of
fortune"; "the bitter apples of Sodom"; these are all ideas suitable to
a sublime description. Nor is this passage of Virgil without sublimity,
where the stench of the vapor in Albunea conspires so happily with the
sacred horror and gloominess of that prophetic forest:

At rex sollicitus monstris oracula Fauni
Fatidici genitoris adit, lucosque sub alta
Consulit Albunea, nemorum quae maxima sacro
Fonte sonat; _saevamque exhalat opaca Mephitim_.

In the sixth book, and in a very sublime description, the poisonous
exhalation of Acheron is not forgotten, nor does it at all disagree with
the other images amongst which it is introduced:

Spelunca _alta_ fuit, _vastoque immanis_ hiatu
Scrupea, tuta _lacu nigro_, nemorumque _tenebris_;
Quam super haud ullae poterant impune volantes
Tendere iter pennis: _talis sese halitus atris_
_Faucibus effundens supera ad conve