This metaphor feems, at first, to reach no farther than the gloominefs of Hamlet's drefs; but if our ideas go along with the poet's, we shall extend it to the melancholy of his mind [p].

Hor. THE manner in which you have expreffed yourself in this place, gives me fome reason to imagine, that, joined to the pleafure which you have here remarked, we have a kind of selfish enjoyment on these occafions; for, while we enter into the views, and obey the direction of the Poet, we fancy that we co-operate with him; we grow proud of the connexion, and plume

[] This is plain by Hamlet's answer.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

ourselves in his beauties. But let me not interrupt you.

Eug. The purpose of Imagery is either to illuftrate, or aggrandize our ideas of the former, enough has been faid.

:

THE greatness of an image is most obvious, when it ftrikes us by its immediate power, and with a sudden effect; as, in the description of Satan in Paradife Loft.

He, above the reft

In fhape and gefture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tow'r.

A SECOND fpecies of the fublime confifts in giving a gradation to imagery. There is not, perhaps, in Poetry, a nobler instance of this, than in the description of Satan's return to hell

He through the midft, unmark'd,

In fhow Plebeian Angel militant

Of lowest order, pass'd; and from the door Of that Plutonian hall, invisible

Afcended his high throne, which under ftate

Of richest texture spread, at th' upper end Was placed in regal luftre. Down a while He fat, and round about him faw unfeen: At last as from a cloud his fulgent head And shape Star-bright appear'd.

Par. Loft.

Hort. WHILE you repeated thefe lines, Eugenio, I felt myself affected with the fame kind of pleasure, as when we see a cloud rifing flowly from the vale, become by degrees the ornament of the heavens. Might I, therefore, judge from my own feelings, I should conclude, that fuch images

as are in motion, and which, by a gradual enlargement, keep our fenfes in fufpenfe, are more interefting than thofe, which owe their power to a fingle impreffion, and are perfect at their firft appearance. Where there can be no gradation in an object, its influence on the mind is immediately determined.

Eug. In this obfervation, we see the reafon, why the principal beauties in Paradise Loft, have been naturally thrown on the person of Satan. To defcribe a permanent and unchangeable glory, is to paint without fhades; the Sun is more delightful in its fetting, than in its meridian. The divine Perfection, pure and Angelic natures, can have no clouds, no contrasts; they are all one blaze. But, it is not fo, in the defcription of fallen Greatnefs; of diminished

and interrupted fplendor; of a fuperior nature funk and difgraced, but emerging at intervals from its degradation. This is a fubject fo truly poetic; it gives rife to fuch a train of fluctuating images, that, let the object be ever fo obnoxious, if the danger, as in the prefent cafe, be remote, it feizes on the imagination, all calmer confiderations are thrown afide, and the fenfes are hurried away beyond the reach of reflection.

Afp. This is the best apology I ever heard for a diabolical greatness.

Eug. As a great effect was produced in the last instance by a gradation in a single image, fo may it equally proceed from the arrangement or fucceffion of different ideas:

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