is not simply the likeness to humanity traceable in material objects viewed in repose, it is the far wider range of likeness in the motions and changes that these undergo. The movements of the sun in his daily and yearly rounds can be used to body forth human life, notwithstanding the disparity of the things compared. So with the flow of rivers, and all the multiplied displays of atmospheric effect.

The subtle references to human feelings have even a still larger scope. Much stress is laid by Professor Veitch on the suggestion of the free, as giving the charm to wild nature. The reaction from the multiplied restraints of artificial life yields a joyous rebound of deliverance, and is regarded as such in the forms of poetical expression.

Ruskin tells us that his love of Nature, ardent as it is, depends entirely on the wildness of the scenery-its remoteness from human influences and associations.

Yet further. Not content with tracing resemblances to humanity as such, the poet has often striven to involve the Deity with Nature suggestion. The oldest and most prevalent form of this reference is to rise from the world to its Creator, as in Addison's hymn. A more subtle kind of reference consists in regarding the Deity as 'immanent' or indwelling, and nature as His garment or expression: as may be seen in Goethe, and still more in Wordsworth. To this effect, the name 'Symbolism' is applied. It completes the development of nature interest through the suggestion of personality.

We have in Pope: :

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Wordsworth thus introduces the sea :

Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with His eternal motion make
A sound like thunder everlastingly.

(3) It is by minds unusually sensitive and able to express their feelings in the poetic garb, that the mass of mankind are slowly educated to the enjoyment of Nature: a circumstance that indicates the risks encountered by the nature poet. To the average reader the language used must often seem extravagant or hyperbolical and the resources of genius and art are needed by way of redemption.

(4) The treatment of Nature takes two distinct forms. The one consists in making it a main theme, as in Thomson's 'Seasons," in the poems devoted to particular flowers or animals, and in depicting scenes of grandeur or beauty, as Mont Blanc. The other form is the employment of interesting natural objects as ornament, or harmonious accompaniments and surroundings of human situations. The last is the more usual, but there is no difference between them in the conditions for securing the desired effect.

STRENGTH,

Strength, or the Sublime, as a quality of style, consists in producing by language the grateful emotions attending the manifestation of superior might.

The term Sublimity, or the Sublime, is commonly applied to the highest kinds of Strength. There are other names indicative of the quality, in various aspects and degreesLoftiness, Grandeur, Magnificence; Brilliancy, Animation, Liveliness, Vivacity; Force, Energy, Vigour, Verve. The last of these groups might be regarded either as the lower forms of Strength, or as the emotional aspects of the quality designated Impressiveness'.

In the celebrated treatise of Longinus On the Sublime, the term (vos) is used in a wide sense, being equivalent to emotional elevation of style generally.

Sublimity is often contrasted with Beauty, both being excellency of style. The more significant contrast is between Strength or the Sublime and Feeling or Pathos. The sphere most properly assigned to Beauty will be considered at a later stage.

One important accompaniment of Sublimity is the infinite or illimitable character of its objects. According to Professor Veitch, this is inseparable from the quality. Yet Strength, as active energy, has many degrees before we reach the forms that transcend our faculties of comprehension; and poetry recognizes all the modes. Nevertheless, there is a distinctive impression arising from objects in their nature unbounded; and a certain art is required to guide this into pleasurable channels.

Sublimity has always been regarded as pre-eminently a product of Art generally, and not of Poetry alone. A study of the best examples will show that it is not a simple result, but an aggregate of many effects. The one thing constantly present is the embodiment of vast or superior power. This, however, seldom stands alone. The various consequences of the power are often what makes the chief impression.

These consequences, when pleasurable, consist in gratifying some of our chief emotions, such as Love, Malevolence

and the various forms of Self-interest. In comparison with these, the feeling of manifested strength in itself would seem a slender gratification. Nay, more: we can but seldom obtain the picture of strength in this pure and abstract form; even when we think we obtain it, we are not sure but that a tacit reference to the possible emotional outgoing enters into the pleasure it gives.

The order of treatment best adapted to guide us in the exhaustive criticism of the literature of Strength, is assumed to be as follows:

.

1. The Subjects of Strength, taken in classes.

2. The Constituents of Strength, as shown by the final analysis of the quality. This will determine its most characteristic Forms and Conditions, and will be a suitable basis for the exemplification in detail.

3. The Vocabulary of Strength: the groundwork of its successful embodiment in language.

4. Other Aids and Conditions, including those that all the qualities have in common, and those referring to Strength in particular.

5. Passages examined.

SUBJECTS OF STRENGTH.

1. In illustrating the various ways of embodying Strength as a literary quality, we consider, first, the SUBJECTS of it. These are either Personal or Impersonal.

The Subjects of Strength are powerful and commanding agencies of every kind, whether physical or mental.

PERSONAL PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

2. Our interest in Persons comprises all the appearances of superior might, in any of its modes-Physical, · Moral, Intellectual.

In the actual display of great personal power, we are moved, as mere spectators, to a pleasing admiration; while, through the medium of language, we may derive a share of the same grateful excitement.

Men, in all ages, have been affected by the sight of great physical superiority in individuals. When not under fear

THE ATHLETIC FIGURE.

57

for themselves, they have beheld, with a certain disinterested admiration and delight, the form and bearing of a powerful frame. Not merely in war, but in minor contests of personal superiority, as in games, has been attested the charm of physical prowess. With Homer, renown is attached to all the displays of physical greatness, extending even to the avocations of peaceful industry. His divine and semi-divine personages are admired for purely muscular and mechanical energies; the mythical Hercules is expressly conceived to gratify the fond imaginations of early ages for such superiority. The more powerful animals have contracted an interest from the same cause: as the horse for swiftness and strength; the elephant for enormous size and muscle; the lion, the tiger and the bear for concentrated energy.

The athletic figure, to produce its full effect, must be viewed, either in reality, or as represented in sculpture and painting; description is ineffectual to produce it. A heroic personage may be pictured as taller by the head than the surrounding multitude, as was said of Saul among the people. In Milton, we find occasionally depicted the commanding bulk of the Satanic chiefs. For example, of Satan himself:

His other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
Briareos or Typhon.

On the other side, Satan, alarmed,
Collecting all his might, dilated, stood,

Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved.

His stature reached the sky, and on his crest
Sat Horror plumed.

The poet, however, has a still more excellent resource. Language can assign the results or consequences of great physical energy: striking down rivals in a contest; overcoming measured resistance; performing such laborious operations as propelling missiles, working at the oar, sustaining heavy loads, felling an ox at a blow. The twelve labours of Hercules are realizable by us through description alone. The formidable personality of Achilles is conveyed by his being styled swift of foot, and the utterer of a terrible shout; he is also the irresistible slayer of the most powerful of his enemies.

While the production of great effects (by comparison with what is ordinary) is necessarily the surest token of strength, the impression is enhanced by the appearances of ease on the part of the agent. When a small expenditure brings about a great result, our sense of might is at the utmost pitch; while the opposite case-a great expenditure with small result-is one of the modes of the ridiculous. A large ship carried along by the invisible breeze is a sublime spectacle. The explosion of a mine, or the discharge of a heavy gun by a slight touch, communicates the feeling of power in a high degree. The whole of this class of energies is pre-eminently suited to description.

Milton abounds in strokes of physical energy on the part of his superhuman personages. Whether these are adequate to their end, depends on their fulfilling the various stringent conditions of an artistic embodiment of strength. From their foundations, loosening to and fro,

They plucked the seated hills, with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods, and by their shaggy tops
Uplifting, bore them in their hands.

Landor has, in his Count Julian,' a fine stroke of physical Energy, indicated by consequences and by felicitous comparison; the effect being perhaps all the greater that the act is just within the scope of human strength :

The hand that hurl'd thy chariot o'er its wheels,

That held thy steeds erect and motionless,

As molten statues on some palace gate,
Shakes as with palsied eye before thee now.

Chaucer's Miller is a picture of coarse physical energy, supported by poetic arts.

The description of Geraint, in Tennyson, may also be quoted:

And bared the knotted column of his throat,

The massive square of his heroic breast,

And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,

Running too vehemently to break upon it.

The physical power in this instance is portrayed by figure alone; the three circumstances being all significant of a highly muscular frame.

MORAL STRENGTH.

8. The term Moral, in contrast to Physical and to Intellectual, embraces our feelings and our voluntary