frequently recurring many times on the same page, and with uniformly agreeable effect. In familiar colloquy such repetition is allowable, but in literature, it is thought a blemish. How is it, then, that instead of impatience and offence, it is received in the present instance, with positive enjoyment and approval? Because every mind perceives the analogies on which the usage rests,-namely, the natural harmonies of whatever is pleasing to the soul with what is sweet to the external palate, and derives from that perception genuine and lasting enjoyment. Jermyn, therefore, is wrong, when in his English Epithets' he ascribes the frequent use of this metaphor to poverty of language. Still more 6 so when he condemns it as puerile and meaningless. 212 The exact etymology of 'sweet' is lost in antiquity. Its proximate parent is the Anglo-Saxon sweet, which is the same as the German süss, the Latin suavis, the Greek yous, and the Sanscrit suadu. These, however, are but cognate and transitional forms, standing midway between the current English word, and the primitive term from which all are descended, and which was doubtless onomatopatic. The Hebrew word for sweet (P matek) is strictly so, being constructed from the verb matak, to suck,' which is founded in turn on the smacking sound naturally attendant on the eating of sweet foods, and familiarly called 'smacking the lips.' The Greeks had a second word for sweet,yλukus, which in the Latin language re-appears as dulcis, † and in our own as dulcet. A fragment of it exists also in the word liquorice, which is a remote corruption of yλvkúppiča, literally sweet-root.' 213. As with all other natural metaphors, the word 'sweet' is used in precisely the same ways in ordinary conversation, and in the language of the orator and the poet. None of its applications are peculiar either to the learned or to the unlettered man. Thus, while 'sweet sleep' and 'sweet slumbers' are phrases of the multitude, they are likewise the expressions of Shakspere. The equivalent ἡδυς ὕπνός and γλυκὺς ὕπνος, dulcis somnus and dulcis quies, are no less frequent with the poets of Greece and Rome. With Homer in particular, these figures are incessant. Scripture recognizes the correspondence in the promise to those who love wisdom,' that 'their sleep shall be sweet.' (Prov. iii. 24.) The image is itself used metaphorically, by the elegant process of *The exchange of s for t is frequent in German-English words. Thus the English hot is in German heiss, nut is nuss, white weiss, foot fuss, shot schuss, &c. &c. By the permutation of d and g, as when children say 'dood' for 'good.' The innocent expressions of children learning to talk throw exceeding light on the philosophy of language. So much so, that a man can scarcely become a good etymologist without having had the opportunity of teaching a child either to speak or to read. personification, which applies it to the perfect and serene repose which in external nature pictures our own sleep, as in Shakspere's incomparable line, 'How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!' Hence again, while we speak in daily converse of 'sweet dreams,' Euripides makes Admetus say of his beloved Alcestis, that by visiting him in his dreams she will still gladden him, for it is sweet to behold a friend in the stillness of the night,' So in Festus,' ἐν δ' ὀνείρασι φοιτῶσά μ ̓ ἐυφραίνοις ἄν· ἡδὺ γαρ φιλος 'I love night more than day—she is so lovely; 214. The expressions 'sweet words' and 'honied words' illustrate the same fact of the language of common life and of poetry being one in essence. When, for instance, a tender mother speaks of her child's 'sweet prattle,' it is but the English vestment of what in Moschus is ádu λaλnua. (Idyll. i. 8.) Homer's celebrated verses descriptive λαλημα. of old Nestor's honey-sweeter eloquence' (Il. i. 247-249), are familiar to every lover of true poetry, as are Milton's on the 'accent sweet' of Eve. Scriptural examples of the figure are frequent. Thus 'Pleasant words are as an honeycomb; sweet to the soul and health to the bones.' (Prov. xvi. 24.) Hence, too, David is called the 'sweet psalmist of Israel.' (2 Sam. xxiii. 1.) Shakspere repeatedly brings it out, as in the well known line 'How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night!' Sappho, likewise, in those glowing verses, 'Seated by thee, winning smiles !' ἵξανει, καὶ πλασίον ἡδὺ φωνοῦ σας ὑπακούει, καὶ γελώσας ἱμερόεν. Frag. ii. 35.) listening to thy sweet beguiling voice, and charmed by thy Horace, with whom Sappho was a favourite, was probably indebted to this passage for the admired words 'Dulce ridentem Lalage amabo, Dulce loquentem!' 215. 'Honied words' are spoken of, because sweetness and honey are equivalent terms in the language of feeling, honey being the sweetest of substances, and therefore the natural emblem of sweetness of taste, and thence of all kinds of correspondential sweetness. Pindar speaks of the honied accents' of poetry, (Olymp. i. 49). Horace of 'poetica mella.' (Epist. i. 19, 44.) Eschylus also makes fine use of it when Prometheus, venting his rage against Jupiter, exclaims καί μ' ὄντι μελιγλώσσοις πειθοῦς 'And he shall never soothe me by the honey-tongued charms of persuasion.' The elegant fables of bees' depositing honey on the lips of Plato, Pindar, and other eloquent celebrities of old time, as they lay in their cradles, owe their poetry to the same relation. 216. All other sounds that fall pleasantly on the ear, whether accompanied or not by articulate utterances, are likewise emblemed in sweetness. This is why we speak of sweet singing,' 'sweet music,' and 'sweet laughter,' as Pindar of yeλws yλukis. Hence, too, the matchless Shaksperean phrases 'the touches of sweet harmony,' 'the sweet power of music,' the concord of sweet sounds;' together with the description of the mermaid 6 Seated on a rock, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath Hence also we bestow the name of 'sweet' on the sounds even of uncultivated nature, whenever these are of an agreeable and grateful character. Theocritus, in his charming Doric pastorals, applies it to the whispering of the wind among the trees, to the gurgle of running water, to the lowing of cows, and to the singing of birds. Cicero's 'dulcedo avium' is a most poetical phrase. There is singular melody also in the conclusion of Seneca's description of the Lernean fountain, and the stream descending from it and winding through the meadows, Sive per flores novos Fugiente dulcis murmurat rivo sonus. So too in Shakspere, (Hippolytus, 513, 514.) 'The current that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music to the enamell'd stones.' Anacreon, describing the cheerful note of the TéTTI, calls it Oépeos yλνкús πроþýτηs,-' sweet prophesier of the summer.' 217. In that delightful essay by Cicero, called Somnium Scipionis, or Scipio's Dream,' the word 'sweet' is elegantly applied to the singing of the stars, or, as it is more commonly called, the music of the spheres.' Scipio's Dream is a magnificent exposition of the encouragement a man may receive in the pursuit of virtue, from contemplating the nature of the gods, of the universe, and of our future state of being. Abounding with elevated philosophy and sincere piety, it is an essay which no one can peruse, and not be filled with the highest astonishment and satisfaction. The scenery and circumstances of the dream are laid in the altitudes of space, whither Scipio seems to himself to be conveyed by a spirit. After surveying for a while the moon, earth, and planets, circling through the ether in their vast and stately courses, he hears the music said by Pythagoras to be produced by their movements, and 'quis est?' he inquires, quis est, qui complet aures meas tantus, et tam dulcis sonus?',- and what now, I pray you, is this delicious sound which fills and engrosses all my hearing?' His spiritfriend informs him whence it arises, and that it is the celestial type of the musical scale in use upon the earth. It is inappreciable below, he further tells him, because of its overpowering volume and sublimity, just as the noise of the great cataracts of the Nile, though it falls continually on the ears of those who live beside of them, is nevertheless unheard, by reason of its intensity and unceasingness. 218. For this pleasing theory there is, however, no standing ground; so long, that is, as we regard it in its physical aspect. But there is no such fiction in existence but what is the broken and falsified image of some great truth. This one, accordingly, needs but to be divested of its physical mask, to assume an attitude at once lovely, intelligible, and instructive. Hence it is that poets in all ages have given currency to the doctrine of the sphere-music, for they have perceived in their souls that it is the outward or symbolic rendering of an invisible yet magnificent fact. In the 'Apollo,' for instance, of Dionysius Iambus,— Σοὶ μὲν χορὸς ἔνδιος ἀστερων κατ' Ουλυμπον ἀνακτα χορεύει, Φοιβήϊδι τέρπομενος λύρα. 'For thee, serene, move on in solemn dance, the heavenly spheres; singing eternally, as they circle round Olympus, strains accordant with thy lyre!' Shakspere describes it in a passage almost unique : 'See how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! But in his motion like an angel sings; Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim ; Such harmony is in immortal souls. But while this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close us round, we cannot hear it.' Milton alludes to it on several occasions. It is noticed also by Shelley, 219. Great poets, the pledged high-priests of truth, would not gravely set forth such a doctrine, were there not something in it deeper than mere fancy. If it seem a fancy, it is not that the poet speaks false, but that we are slow to perceive his meaning. The muddy vesture of indifference and inaptitude dulls our apprehensions. Not one of them teaches it as a literal occurrence. Pythagoras himself probably did not intend it so, any more than he intended his disciples to believe that the souls of men literally migrated into beans. A very common error in every age has been the reception as literal, of what was written and always intended to be understood symbolically. This is even more conspicuous in the history of biblical than of poetical interpretation. The key, accordingly, to the doctrine of the spheremusic is found in correspondence; and proximately in that resplendent verse in Job,When the morning stars sang together,' (xxxviii. 7.) For when the book of Job was written, which was at an exceedingly early period, the correspondences of spiritual and material things were universally used as the vehicle of moral and philosophical teaching, and hence the compositions of the time serve as a comprehensive and reliable index to them. There are none, however, but what are verified by use in the later Scriptures. In the first ages,' says Lord Bacon, 'all things were full of parables and figures, whereby it was sought to lay open knowledge, not to hide and conceal it; for as hieroglyphics preceded letters, so parables were more ancient than arguments.' (Preface to the Wisdom of the Ancients.") 220. By the stars, as mentioned in this verse, are meant truths; (Sect. 94.) and by the morning stars, those which especially relate to innocence and purity, and thus to heaven and heavenly things. For of these qualities and things the morning is the natural and original counterpart, being to the daytime what childhood is to ripened life; the character, in turn, of childhood, being freedom from all guile. It is for this reason that innocence is always typified by youth, as when our Saviour is imaged as the Lamb. Hence, too, his divine warning that unless we become as little children' we can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. To shew this more plainly, he placed the little child in the midst,' teaching thereby that innocence must always be the central, inmost, governing principle, with those who would be Christ-like. |