"FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS," ETC.
(Vol. v., p. 100.)
Since my former communication on the use of the phrase "From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step," I have met with some farther examples of kindred forms of expression, which you may deem worth inserting in "N. & Q."
Shakspeare has an instance in Romeo and Juliet, where he describes "Love" as—
"A madness most discreet,
A choaking gall, and a preserving sweet."
Quarles has it in his Emblems, Book iv. Epigram 2.:—
"Pilgrim, trudge on; what makes thy soul complain?
Crowns thy complaint; the way to rest is pain:
The road to resolution lies by doubt;
The next way home's the farthest way about."
We find it in this couplet in Butler:
"For discords make the sweetest airs,
And curses are a kind of prayers."
Rochester has it in the line—
"An eminent fool must be a man of parts."
It occurs in Junius's remark—
"Your Majesty may learn hereafter how nearly the slave and the tyrant are allied."
and in the following well-known passage in the same writer:
"He was forced to go through every division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state; but, brought into action, you become vitriol again. Such are the extremes of alternate indolence or fury which have governed your whole administration."
The thought here (be it said in passing) seems to have been adopted from these lines in Rochester:
"Wit, like tierce claret, when 't begins to pall,
Neglected lies, and 's of no use at all;
But in its full perfection of decay
Turns vinegar, and comes again in play."
But the most beautiful application of this sentiment that I have met with, occurs in an essay on "The Uses of Adversity," by Mr. Herman Hooker, an American writer:—
"A pious lady, who had lost her husband, was for a time inconsolable. She could not think, scarcely could she speak, of anything but him. Nothing seemed to take her attention but the three promising children he had left her, singing to her his presence, his look, his love. But soon these were all taken ill, and died within a few days of each other; and now the childless mother was calmed even by the greatness of the stroke. As the lead that goes quickly down to the ocean's depth ruffled its surface less than lighter things, so the blow which was strongest did not so much disturb her calm of mind, but drove her to its proper trust."
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.