NORTH.
In the description of a storm—continues his Lordship—"to figure Jupiter throwing down huge mountains with his thunderbolts, is hyperbolically sublime, if I may use the expression: the tone of mind produced by that image is so distinct from the tone produced by a thick shower of rain, that the sudden transition must be very unpleasant."
BULLER.
Suggestive of a great-coat. That's the way to deal with a great Poet. Clap your hand on the Poet's mouth in its fervour—shut up the words in mid-volley—and then tell him that he does not know how to descend sweetly and easily from strained elevation!
NORTH.
Nor do I agree with his Lordship that "to figure Jupiter throwing down huge mountains with his thunderbolts is hyperbolically sublime." As a part for a whole is a figure of speech, so is a whole for a part. Virgil says, "dejicit;" but he did not mean to say that Jupiter "tumbled down" Athos or Rhodope or the Acroceraunian range. He knew—for he saw them—that there they were in all their altitude after the storm—little if at all the worse. But Jupiter had struck—smitten—splintered—rent—trees and rocks—midway or on the summits—and the sight was terrific—and "dejicit" brings it before our imagination which not for a moment pictures the whole mountain tumbling down. But great Poets know the power of words, and on great occasions how to use them—in this case—one—and small critics will not suffer their own senses to instruct them in Poetry—and hence the Elements of Criticism are not the Elements of Nature, and assist us not in comprehending the grandeur of reported storms.
BULLER.
Lay it into them, sir.
NORTH.
Good Dr Hugh Blair again, who in his day had a high character for taste and judgment, agreed with Henry Home that "the transition is made too hastily—I am afraid—from the preceding sublime images, to a thick shower and the blowing of the south wind, and shows how difficult it frequently is to descend with grace, without seeming to fall." Nay, even Mr Alison himself—one of the finest spirits that ever breathed on earth, says—"I acknowledge, indeed, that the 'pluviâ ingenti sata læta, boumque labores diluit' is defensible from the connexion of the imagery with the subject of the poem; but the 'implentur fossæ' is both an unnecessary and a degrading circumstance when compared with the magnificent effects that are described in the rest of the passage." In his quotation, too, the final grand line is inadvertently omitted—