alfo the advantage of a double propriety, being, in a metaphorical fenfe, aptly defigned to reprefent the thicknefs, and dusky appearance of the admiring multitude. Some of the fucceeding allufions were admitted to give the high priest the qualities of amiableness, as well as grandeur. "He was as the flower of rofes in the Spring "of the year as lilies by the rivers of "waters; and as the frankincenfe-tree in "fummer." All these are expreffive rather of loveliness than magnificence, and are connected, rather, with the Beautiful, than with the Sublime. Yet, mark how they are heightened, and what fuperior attractions they poffefs, by certain delicate strokes, not to be feen in the ordinary sketches of common poets. Thefe would have thought it fufficient to have compared him to roses, lilies, and the frankincenfe tree. Not fo the fon of Sirach. He painted the fon of Onias with more exquifite colouring-he drew him with a more mafterly pencil. The roses to which he was compared, were the roles of

the

the Spring, a season of the year when those flowers are more particularly sweet and captivating the lilies, which, in a figurative fenfe, resembled him, were those which derived more elegance from their fituation by the rivers of waters, and, whatever perfumes belong to the frankincenfe-tree, our poet prefented it to us, in the pride of fummer, when its beauties would naturally. be in bloffom. Befides this, there appears a coherence in thefe allufions, which may efcape us at firft. They feem to aim at the display of the moral character of the high priest. "A good name," fays the fcripture," fmelleth /weet." How proper, therefore, is Simon compared to the fragrance of roles, and other odoriferous fhrubs. Lilies have ever been emblematic of innocence, and purity. The agreement of the allufion is, therefore, exact here alfo. Thus might I proceed to obferve the moral as well as defcriptive propriety of comparing him with the reft. But it is wholly unneceffary. The abrupt and animated tranfition from one image to another, in

this defcription, are fo many noble inftances of the Sublime and Beautiful. What a divine glow, and what incomparable dignity is offered to us in the following paffage, where the figures are changed, and the allufions altered in a moment. When he put on the robe of honour, and was cloathed with the perfection of glory; when he went up to the holy altar, he made the garment of holiness bonourable.-Had Longinus been now to revife his golden treatise, he would affuredly have inferted this paffage amongst his examples of the genuine Sublime; because it boafts of every property, which, agreeable to his own definition, belongs thereto..

"That" fays he, "is grand and lofty, "which the more we confider, the greater

ideas we conceive of it: whofe force we "cannot poffibly withstand; which immediately finks deep, and makes fuch im

66

preffions on the mind, as cannot eafily "be worn out or effaced."

Never were

thefe precepts better illuftrated than by the

defcription

defcription of Simon the fon of Onias. The more we confider him, the greater is our conception of his grandeur, his virtue, and the veneration which attends it. From the time that he iffues from the fanctuary amidst the honours of the people, to his standing by the "altar compaffed by his "brethren," he rifes upon us with a force and a fuperiority, which "cannot poffibly "be withstood," and which makes upon the mind an indelible impreffion. In vain. fhall we look amongst other poets and orators for a rival defcription fo excellent. throughout.

Mr. Burke, indeed, hath brought one

All furnish'd, all in arms,

All plum'd like oftriches, that with the wind.
Baited like eagles, having lately bathed ;
As full of spirits as the month of May,
As gorgeous as the fun in midfummer,
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls,
I faw young Harry with his beaver on
Rife from the ground like feathered Mercury;
And vaulted with fuch ease into his feat
As if an angel dropped from the clouds
To turn, and wind a fiery Pegasus.

from

from an author the moft likely to furnifh it but, although fome of the allufion may be equal, others are very much. inferior, and taken upon the whole, cannot bear the brightness of the comparison.

I have already obferved, that the def criptions of Offian breathe sometimes, a fublimity truly fcriptural; and I have already, in a former effay, given an instance.

But as was before noted, when parallel paffages are produced by way of comparifon from the fcriptures, the pictures of the author of Fingal are only in fhadow, and muft ever stand in the back ground of criticifm. The following allufions would be very capital, if the imagination of the reader had not been previously charmed by those which have been the fubject of our prefent Effay.

"Far before the reft, the fon of Offian "comes; bright in the fmiles of youth,

"fair

* Shakespear.