"From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step."
For this remark Napoleon has obtained considerable notice: but the truth is, he borrowed it from Tom Paine; Tom Paine borrowed it from Hugh Blair, and Hugh Blair from Longinus. Napoleon's words are:—
"Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas."
The passage in Tom Paine, whose writings were translated into French as early as 1791, stands thus:—
"The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately; one step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again."
Blair has a remark akin to this:
"It is indeed extremely difficult to hit the precise point where true wit ends and buffoonery begins."
But the passage in Blair, from which Tom Paine adopted his notion of the sublime and the ridiculous, is that in which Blair, commenting on Lucan's style, remarks:—
"It frequently happens that where the second line is sublime, the third, in which he meant to rise still higher, is perfectly bombast."
Lastly, this saying was borrowed by Blair from his brother rhetorician, Longinus, who, in his Treatise on the Sublime, has the following sentence at the beginning of section iii.:—