may be said that we go half-way to meet that Author, who
proposeth to reach an end by means which have an apparent probability to
effectuate it; but it will appear upon reflection, that this very
circumstance, instead of being serviceable, is in reality detrimental to
the Poet.

[Footnote 61: The reader will observe, that Admiration through
the whole of this part of the Essay is taken in the largest sense,
as including a considerable degree of wonder, which is however a
distinct feeling. The former is excited principally by the
sublime; the latter by the new and uncommon. These feelings are
united, when a subject of moderate dignity is treated in a sublime
manner. See the Essay, p. 47, 48.]

Admiration is a passion which can never be excited in any person, unless
when there is something great and astonishing, either in the general
disposition of a work or in some of the separate members of which it is
formed. Thus we admire a whole piece, when we observe that the parts
which compose it are placed in a striking and uncommon combination, and
we even consider one happy stroke as an indication of genius in the
Artist. It frequently happens that the subject of a Poem is of such a
nature, as that its most essential members cannot be set in any light
distinct from that in which custom and experience has led us to consider
them. Thus when the Poet addressed an Hymn to Jupiter, Diana, or Apollo,
he could not be ignorant that his readers were well apprised of the
general manner, in which it was necessary to treat of these Personages,
and that they would have been offended, if he had presumed to differ in
any material point from the opinions handed down by traditionary
evidence. It was therefore necessary, that the Poet should manage a
subject of this kind in the same manner as Rubens and Caypel have
painted the Crucifixion, by either varying _the attitude_ of the
principal object to make it more sublime and admirable, or by rendering
some _inferior figure_ picturesque and animated which had escaped the
notice of his Predecessors. When therefore a sublime object is not shown
in some great and uncommon point of view, the Poet sinks in our esteem
as much as he would have risen in it, if we had found his Genius equal
to his Ambition.

As I have already borrowed one illustration from painting, permit me to
recall to your Lordship's memory, that noble figure by which the Church
of Rome permitted Raphael