"The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night."
There is a passage in Longinus which appears to me to have furnished Milton with the germ of this thought. The Greek rhetorician is commenting on the use of figurative language, and, after illustrating his views by a quotation from Demosthenes, he adds: "In what has the orator here concealed the figure? plainly in its own lustre." In this passage Longinus elucidates one figure by another,—a not unusual practice with that elegant writer.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia, April, 1851.
ON THE APPLICATION OF THE WORD "LITTUS" IN THE SENSE OF RIPA, THE BANK OF A RIVER.
The late Marquis Wellesley, towards the close of his long and glorious life, wrote the beautiful copy of Latin verses upon the theme "Salix Babylonica," which is printed among his Reliquiæ.
In this copy of verses is to be found the line,—