CELEBRATION OF GENIUS. 61 -similes and picturesque settings, and can be judged by the laws that govern the propriety of these. His least figurative description is this: Superior, and alone, Confucius stood, Who taught that useful science--to be good. The only figure here is a delicate innuendo in describing the science of being good as 'useful'. Otherwise, the couplet is a poet's selection of the most popular and effective point in the system of Confucius. It is almost his only instance where the point of eulogy is a literal, or matter-of-fact statement. The other heroes are given in the richest poetic garb. Literary power, or the art of expressing and diffusing thoughts, is celebrated in a variety of epigrams. It is said -'syllables govern the world'; 'the pen is mightier than the sword'; a book is a church'. These are illustrative of the production of great results from apparently small causes. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL STRENGTH COMBINED. 5. Many forms of greatness combine Intellectual and Moral superiority. Chatham described Clive as that heaven-born general, whose magnanimity, resolution, determination and execution would charm a king of Prussia; and whose presence of mind astonished the Indies '. The leader of men needs self-control and a commanding personality, as well as great force of intellect. A Demosthenes, who wielded at will the fierce democracy; a Columbus, who guided a recalcitrant crew over unknown seas; a Luther, who, from an obscure origin, became a revolutionary power -demand both moral and intellectual gifts, and are eulogized accordingly. The charm of Ulysses, in the 'Odyssey,' is the combined intellectual power and moral endurance, so skilfully represented in the fictitious adventures assigned to him. As the hero of many wiles,' he initiated a type whose interest will never die. To this is added Horace's condensed eulogy of his moral side (Epistles, I. 2). Mythical and Imagined Heroes.-With these, language is everything. Being so plastic in the hands of a poet or dcscriber, they are shaped according to purely poetic fancy; and are bound to exhibit well-selected and combined attributes of grandeur harmoniously sustained. When they are made to depart from the human type, their management is exceedingly perilous, and seldom entirely successful; as can be seen in Paradise Lost, where marvellous occasional strokes are alternated with much that is incoherent, and unsuited to maintain the lofty interest of the poem. The conduct of Homer's deities is often greatly out of keeping with their illustrious position. Collective Strength.-The highest and most imposing manifestation of strength is seen in the aggregation of human beings in crowds, armies and nations. The wroughtup interest of history is made out of the actions of collective humanity. Wars, conquests, the restraining discipline of mankind, the advances in civilization, are effected by human beings organized under skilled leaders. To express all these various forms of collective energy is the business of the historian, and may be a means of evoking the highest sublime. The loftiest epics involve at once individual supremacy and collective might: the one supposing the other. The greatness of kings, generals, ministers of state, party leaders, rests on the national strength at their disposal. IMPERSONAL STRENGTH. 6. The Inanimate world supplies objects for the emotion of the Sublime. Under Personification, has been noticed the ascribing of human feelings to the world outside of humanity. By this means, a great extension is given to the reflex interest in Strength as a quality. A very large department of nature is characterized by boundless energy, and its contemplation has an elating influence on the mind, which is described by the term Sublimity. The great powers of inanimate nature-heat, light, winds, waves, tides, rivers, volcanoes-occupy a place in poetry, through their imposing might. There is sublimity in the mountain mass, notwithstanding its repose. It represents upheaving energy, with cohesive force, and suggests power on the vastest scale. In its simplicity of form as well as its familiarity, it is suited to easy conception. The amplitude of space is allied with the physical STRENGTH A COMPLEX QUALITY. 63 sublime; and language is frequently employed in helping us to conceive its vast dimensions. The dimension of height or loftiness, and also abysmal depth, are associated with circumstances of physical force, and inspire corresponding emotions. The great works of human industry afford images of power, which, both in the actual view and in the language rendering, are enrolled among the stimulating causes of the emotion of Strength. Enormous steam engines, employed in the industries of mankind; great furnaces, and gunpowder blasting; huge ships; and all the permanent products of human energy on the great scale, inspire the feeling of superior might. Architectural erections are employed in the production of sublimity (as well as beauty), and by adequate description can lend the same interest in poetry. By vastness, they affect us with the emotion of power, or the sublime. CONSTITUENTS OF STRENGTH. 1. If Strength be a complex quality, we should endeavour to assign its constituents. In a mixed or aggregate quality, the simple ingredients may be distributed very differently in different examples, rendering all general delineation vague and inapplicable. For each one of the foregoing classes, there will be a wide difference of treatment according to the aspect assumed, or the manner and end of the employment. There is such a thing as Strength, by itself, pure and simple; that is, where the consequences of its employment are not thought of, or not apparent. There are other cases where the results are what chiefly affect us. These results are sometimes beneficent and sometimes maleficent-in either case, appealing to powerful emotions; and we are bound to follow out both sets of consequences. The obvious arrangement might, therefore, seem to be: 1. Neutral Strength; 2. Beneficent Strength; 3. Maleficent Strength. In point of fact, however, an opposite order is more suited to the examples, as we find them. Pure strength is but seldom realized in literature; so much more unction attaches to the emotions roused by the modes of employing it. Hence, the preferable course is to begin by attending to these emotional effects; after which we can make abstraction of their workings, so as to present the Sublime of Power as nearly as possible in a neutral form. The remaining question is as to the priority of Beneficent over Maleficent Strength. In adopting these, as heads, we are necessarily led to consider the emotional results more than the fact of strength. Now Beneficence is a branch of the comprehensive quality of Feeling, as we propose to treat it, and, therefore, we need not dwell upon it at this stage. The case is different with Maleficence. For reasons that can be assigned, there will not be a place alloted to it apart from the exposition of Strength. Its close connexion with the active side of our nature would be enough. Moreover, it does not branch out into numerous relationships, as is the case with Feeling. Inasmuch, then, as the malevolent employment of Strength will make the largest part of the discussion of the quality, the order of treatment will be: I. Maleficent Strength. II. Beneficent Strength. MALEFICENT STRENGTH. 2. The Infliction of Suffering is to be regarded as one of our pleasures, unless checked by sympathy with the sufferers. There is here an opposition between two parts of our nature; and the devices of art are directed to securing the pleasure with the least offence to the sympathies. The difficulty is met in various ways. For one thing, the moral nature of an individual or a race may be so low that sympathy barely exists. This is one of the features of savagery. In such a condition, there is an almost unmingled delight in cruelty. The malevolent pleasure is then at its utmost; nothing in life is equal to it. Yet, inasmuch as cruelty, unmixed, is repugnant to all but the very coarsest natures, there is needed, with a view to pleasure, a pretext for the infliction of suffering; legitimate revenge being the most usual and sufficient, although not the only one. History has had to record the sufferings of mankind, from famine, pestilence,* storms, floods, earthquakes, conflagrations or other natural agencies. To take delight in such records is next to impossible, and no literary arts can, or ought, to make them appear other than deplorable facts. Next are devastating wars, and all the horrors that come in *Thucydides endeavoured to give interest to the great plague of Athens. Ovid poetized a pestilence. Our own Defoe employed his picturesque genius upon the plague of London. It should not be supposed possible to redeem the horrors of such calamities, still less to rank their recital among our literary pleasures. Yet, when we consider that our newspapers count upon attracting readers by the posting up in conspicuous characters of all dreadful incidents, we cannot say that the public regard such with pure abhorrence. their train-the invasions of the Mongols; the conquests of Rome, responded to by the irruptions of the Goths and Vandals; the oppressive rule of the Normans in England; the destruction of the indigenous races of mankind. To these we may add the long-continued cruelties of the traffic in slaves; persecutions for religious opinions; the bloody strife of parties in the first French Revolution. The barbarities of the shows of gladiators, and of the Roman triumphal processions, are to us of the same melancholy tenor, although considered in their day as legitimate pleasures. In the illustration of Malignant Strength, a special group of examples will be given to represent the wide field of War or Conflict. Our maleficent pleasure has itself been traced back, with some plausibility, to the early struggle for existence; the interest remaining even after the necessity has ceased. However this may be, the situation of conflict is one especially suited to afford the gratification of malignity. BENEFICENT STRENGTH. 3. Beneficent Strength includes all imposing circumstances of power put forth for good ends. There is a wide step from Righteous Indignation and Destruction of noxious agents, to power exercised constructively for good ends. The element of maleficent pleasure drops out of view, and the pleasure of benefit to mankind takes its place. We are conscious of a loss of unction in the change; it is like passing from the delights of sport to the satisfaction of peaceful industry. Our direct self-interest lends a charm to what concerns ourselves as individuals; our regards for the good of men collectively constitute our interest in objects of general benefit. While beneficence is a name wide enough to cover the whole of the amicable sentiments of mankind, and, with these, the special affections rooted in our constitution, a convenient line may be here drawn between those special instincts of Tender Feeling which form a separate department of rhetorical handling, and the feeling of collective benefits or utility. In this latter type the acuteness of the tender passion is lost or neutralized; while its gratification involves much larger displays of might, from the magnitude |