gle hexameter to illustrate
a minute trick of style or turn of phrase, as equally he will
choose a long passage or the whole "Iliad," the whole "Odyssey,"
to illustrate a grand rule of poetic construction, a first
principle of aesthetics. For an example--'Herein,' says
Aristotle, starting to show that an Epic poem must have Unity of
Subject--'Herein, to repeat what we have said before, we have a
further proof of Homer's superiority to the rest. He did not
attempt to deal even with the Trojan War in its entirety, though
it was a whole story with a definite beginning, middle and end--
feeling apparently that it was too long a story to be taken in at
one view or else over-complicated by variety of incidents.' And
as Aristotle takes the "Iliad"--_his_ Bible--to illustrate a
grand rule of poetical construction, so the late writer of his
tradition--Longinus--will use it to exhibit the core and essence
of poetical sublimity; as in his famous ninth chapter, of which
Gibbon wrote:

The ninth chapter ... {of the [Greek: PERI UPSOUS] or "De
Sublimitate" of Longinus} is one of the finest monuments of
antiquity. Till now, I was acquainted only with two ways of
criticising a beautiful passage: the one, to show, by an exact
anatomy of it, the distinct beauties of it, and whence they
sprung; the other, an idle exclamation, or a general
encomium, which leaves nothing behind it. Longinus has
shown me that there is a third. He tells me his own feelings
upon reading it; and tells them with so much energy, that he
communicates them. I almost doubt which is more sublime,
Homer's Battle of the Gods, or Longinus's Apostrophe to
Terentianus upon it.

Well, let me quote you, in translation, a sentence or two from
this chapter, which produced upon Gibbon such an effect as almost
to anticipate Walter Pater's famous definition, 'To feel the
virtue of the poet, of the painter, to disengage it, to set it
forth--these are the three stages of the critic's duty.'

'Elsewhere,' says Longinus, 'I have written as follows:
_Sublimity is the echo of a great soul._'

'Sublimity is the echo of a great soul.'--It was worth repeating
too--was it not?

For it is not possible that men with mean and servile ideas and
aims prevailing throughout their lives should produce anything
that is admirable and worthy of immortality. Great accents we
expect to fall from the lips of those whose thoughts are deep
and grave.... Hear ho