el and the Apocalypse, are grotesques of
the same kind, on which I need not further insist.

Sec. LXIII. Such forms, however, ought perhaps to have been arranged under
a separate head, as Symbolical Grotesque; but the element of awe enters
into them so strongly, as to justify, for all our present purposes,
their being classed with the other varieties of terrible grotesque. For
even if the symbolic vision itself be not terrible, the sense of what
may be veiled behind it becomes all the more awful in proportion to the
insignificance or strangeness of the sign itself; and, I believe, this
thrill of mingled doubt, fear, and curiosity lies at the very root of
the delight which mankind take in symbolism. It was not an accidental
necessity for the conveyance of truth by pictures instead of words,
which led to its universal adoption wherever art was on the advance; but
the Divine fear which necessarily follows on the understanding that a
thing is other and greater than it seems; and which, it appears
probable, has been rendered peculiarly attractive to the human heart,
because God would have us understand that this is true not of invented
symbols merely, but of all things amidst which we live; that there is a
deeper meaning within them than eye hath seen, or ear hath heard; and
that the whole visible creation is a mere perishable symbol of things
eternal and true. It cannot but have been sometimes a subject of wonder
with thoughtful men, how fondly, age after age, the Church has cherished
the belief that the four living creatures which surrounded the
Apocalyptic throne were symbols of the four Evangelists, and rejoiced
to use those forms in its picture-teaching; that a calf, a lion, an
eagle, and a beast with a man's face, should in all ages have been
preferred by the Christian world, as expressive of Evangelistic power
and inspiration, to the majesty of human forms; and that quaint
grotesques, awkward and often ludicrous caricatures even of the animals
represented, should have been regarded by all men, not only with
contentment, but with awe, and have superseded all endeavors to
represent the characters and persons of the Evangelistic writers
themselves (except in a few instances, confined principally to works
undertaken without a definite religious purpose);--this, I say, might
appear more than strange to us, were it not that we ourselves share the
awe, and are still satisfied with the symbol, and that justly. For,
whether we