_Sejanus._---- Great and high The world knows only two, that’s Rome and I. My roof receives me not; ’tis air I tread, And at each step I feel my advanc’d head Knock out a star in heav’n. _Sejanus, Ben Johnson, act 5._ A writer who has no natural elevation of genius, is extremely apt to deviate into bombast. He strains above his genius; and the violent effort he makes carries him generally beyond the bounds of propriety. Boileau expresses this happily: L’autre à peur de ramper, il se perd dans la nue[68]. The same author Ben Johnson abounds in the bombast: ---- The mother, Th’expulsed Apicata, finds them there; Whom when she saw lie spread on the degrees, After a world of fury on herself, Tearing her hair, defacing of her face, Beating her breasts and womb, kneeling amaz’d. Crying to heav’n, then to them; at last Her drowned voice got up above her woes: And with such black and bitter execrations, (As might affright the gods, and force the sun Run backward to the east; nay, make the old Deformed Chaos rise again t’ o’erwhelm Them, us, and all the world) she fills the air, Upbraids the heavens with their partial dooms, Defies their tyrannous powers, and demands What she and those poor innocents have transgress’d, That they must suffer such a share in vengeance. _Sejanus, act 5. sc. last._ ---- Lentulus, the man, If all our fire were out, would fetch down new, Out of the hand of Jove; and rivet him To Caucasus, should he but frown; and let His own gaunt eagle fly at him to tire. _Catiline, act 3._ Can these, or such, be any aids to us? Look they as they were built to shake the world, Or be a moment to our enterprise? A thousand, such as they are, could not make One atom of our souls. They should be men Worth heaven’s fear, that looking up, but thus, Would make Jove stand upon his guard, and draw Himself within his thunder; which, amaz’d, He should discharge in vain, and they unhurt. Or, if they were, like Capaneus at Thebes, They should hang dead upon the highest spires, And ask the second bolt to be thrown down. Why Lentulus talk you so long? This time Had been enough t’ have scatter’d all the stars, T’ have quench’d the sun and moon, and made the world Despair of day, or any light but ours. _Catiline, act 4._ This is the language of a madman: _Guilford._ Give way, and let the gushing torrent come, Behold the tears we bring to swell the deluge, Till the flood rise upon the guilty world And make the ruin common. _Lady Jane Gray, act 4. near the end._