SCIONEBY APMCTED BY THE WEATHEK. 339 



If tie artificial representation of every subject 

 seems rather to require a balance of sbade, in 

 siohlime subjects it is still more required. All 

 writers on sublime subjects deal in shadows and 

 obscurity.* The grandeur of Jehovali is com- 

 monly represented by the Hebrew writers behind 

 a cloud. The imagination makes up deficiencies 

 by grander ideas than it is possible for the pencil 

 to produce. Many images owe much of their 

 sublimity to their indistinctness, and, frequently, 

 what we call sublime is the effect of that heat and 

 fermentation, which ensues in the imagination 

 from its ineffectual efforts to conceive some dark, 

 obscure idea beyond its grasp. Bring the same 

 within the compass of its comprehension, and it 

 may continue great, but it will cease to be sublime. 

 This species of the sublime is oftener found in the 

 composition of the poet than of the painter. In 

 general, the poet has great advantages over the 

 painter in the process of sublimication, if the term 

 may be allowed. The business of the former is 

 only to excite ideas ; that of the latter, to represent 



* See Burke on the Sulblime. 



