in him nature had embodied, by concentration as
in one focus, whatever excellencies she had scattered separately
amongst her earlier favourites. But, in strict regard to the facts,
this is far from being a faithful statement of the relations between
Milton and his elder brothers of the _Epos_: in sublimity, if that is
what Dryden meant by 'loftiness of thought,' it is not so fair to
class Milton with the greatest of poets, as to class him apart,
retired from all others, sequestered, 'sole-sitting by the shores of
old romance.' In other poets, in Dante for example, there may be rays,
gleams, sudden coruscations, casual scintillations, of the sublime;
but for any continuous and sustained blaze of the sublime, it is in
vain to look for it, _except_ in Milton, making allowances (as before)
for the inspired sublimities of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and of the great
Evangelist's Revelations. As to Homer, no critic who writes from
personal and _direct_ knowledge on the one hand, or who understands
the value of words on the other, ever contended in any critical sense
for sublimity, as a quality to which he had the slightest pretensions.
What! not Longinus? If he did, it would have been of little
consequence; for he had no field of comparison, as we, knowing no
literature but one--whereas we have a range of seven or eight. But he
did not: [Greek: To hypselon],[6] or the elevated, in the Longinian
sense, expressed all, no matter of what origin, of what tendency,
which gives a character of life and animation to composition--whatever
raises it above the dead level of flat prosaic style. Emphasis, or
what in an artist's sense gives _relief_ to a passage, causing it to
stand forward, and in advance of what surrounds it--that is the
predominating idea in the 'sublime' of Longinus. And this explains
what otherwise has perplexed his modern interpreters--viz. that
amongst the elements of his sublime, he ranks even the pathetic, _i. e._
(say they) what by connecting itself with the depressing passion
of grief is the very counter-agent to the elevating affection of the
sublime. True, most sapient sirs, my very worthy and approved good
masters: but that very consideration should have taught you to look
back, and reconsider your translation of the capital word [Greek:
hypsos]. It was rather too late in the day, when you had waded
half-seas over in your translation, to find out either that you
yourselves were ignoramuses, or that your principal was an