which gives a character of life and animation to composition--whatever raises it above the dead level of flat prosaic style. Emphasis, or what in an artist's sense gives _relief_ to a passage, causing it to stand forward, and in advance of what surrounds it--that is the predominating idea in the 'sublime' of Longinus. And this explains what otherwise has perplexed his modern interpreters--viz. that amongst the elements of his sublime, he ranks even the pathetic, _i. e._ (say they) what by connecting itself with the depressing passion of grief is the very counter-agent to the elevating affection of the sublime. True, most sapient sirs, my very worthy and approved good masters: but that very consideration should have taught you to look back, and reconsider your translation of the capital word [Greek: hypsos]. It was rather too late in the day, when you had waded half-seas over in your translation, to find out either that you yourselves were ignoramuses, or that your principal was an ass. 'Returning were as tedious as go o'er.' And any man might guess how you would settle such a dilemma. It is, according to you, a little oversight of your principal: '_humanum aliquid passus est._' We, on the other hand, affirm that, if an error at all on the part of Longinus, it is too monstrous for any man to have 'overlooked.' As long as he could see a pike-staff, he must have seen that. And, therefore, we revert to _our_ view of the case--viz. that it is yourselves who have committed the blunder, in translating by the Latin word _sublimis_[7] at all, but still more after it had received new determinations under modern usage. [Footnote 5: The beauty of this famous epigram lies in the _form_ of the conception. The first had A; the second had B; and when nature, to furnish out a third, should have given him C, she found that A and B had already exhausted her cycle; and that she could distinguish her third great favourite only by giving him both A and B in combination. But the filling up of this outline is imperfect: for the A (_loftiness_) and the B (_majesty_) are one and the same quality, under different names.]