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LONGINUS 97
IV
LONGIXUS
On the Sublime (First Century A.D.)
[From Longinus On tJte Sublime, translated into English by H. L. Ha veil,
with an Introduction by Andrew Lang (London and New York, Macmillan,
1890, pp. 1-86).
\Ye give Mr. Haveil's translation entire, with his foot-notes;
for lack of space other annotation must be restricted. By
far the best commentary on Longinus is to be found in the
admirable- edition of the treatise On the Sublime by Professor
\\ .
Rhys Roberts (Cambridge University Press, 1899).
Students of English are referred particularly to Professor
Roberts'* remarks on the " Contents and Character of the
Treatise " (pp. 23-37). It is to be regretted that his translation
is not accessible in separate and cheaper form. Mr.
A. O. Prickard's excellent version (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1906) is accompanied by a valuable Introduction.
This celebrated and inspiring epistle, long attributed
mistakenly to an author of the third century A.D., but in all
likelihood by an unidentified writer of the first, may be not
improperly described as an essay on "
style the grand
.'' as Matthew Arnold would say. Although
it continues
the tradition of earlier works on rhetoric, rather than
Vs, it has a bearing on both subjects. It might not,
in fact, wholly escape Wackernagel's censure of theories that
fail to differentiate carefully between style in prose and style
in verse (cf. above, pp. 3-4). The student would derive benefit
in trying either to defend or to convict tin- treatise on this
I
Tin- treatise of Caecilius on the Sublime, when, as you remember,
my dearTerentian, we examined it
together, seemed
to us to be beneath the dignity of the whole subject, to fail
entirely in sei/ing the salient points, and to oiler little profit