378 



introduce the marvellous al'oneinto their trage- 

 dies, Aristotle says *0i to <po£spov } ocXXot, to 

 TipoLTufog (j,ovqv 7roifiix,<rx£Vx^o]/Ti<;, ov$w Tpayoodia, 

 xoti/wi/a<rt. Now, if Aristotle can be supposed to 

 have meant, that if terrific, as well as marvellous 

 circumstances had been introduced, the whole 

 would then have been truly tragical, the au- 

 thors of many modern dramas, in which the 

 excess of all that is terrific has been very se- 

 verely, and I believe very justly censured by 

 modern critics, as having nothing in common 

 with the true spirit of tragedy, might take 

 refuge under the authority of the ancient : but 

 if we conceive him to have meant by to <po%tpov 

 those erand and awful circumstances, which 

 when selected with judgment, and impressed 

 in their full force, can hardly fail of being 

 sublime, no such refuge will be afforded. If 

 we were to imitate the turn of Aristotle's 

 criticism in censuring the exaggerated use 

 of terror in the dramas to which I have 

 alluded, we might say, that the authors of 

 them havingdisplayed,notthe sublime,butonly 

 the terrific, had nothing of the genuine spirit 

 ef tragedy. Longinus has in several places 

 made use of the words QoQspo; and ftivog, both of 

 which are generally translated terrible, nearly as 

 we should use the word sublime: speaking of a 

 bombast passage he says, if you examine it, tx 

 <po€eps, X.CCT oXiyov vrrovorsi vpog to KOt,Ta,<ppovr\Tov ; 

 and again, when he is discriminating between 



