There are also many descriptions in the poets and orators, which owe their sublimity to a richness and profusion of images, in which the mind is so dazzled as to make it impossible to attend to that exact coherence and agreement of the allusions, which we should require on every other occasion.

I do not now remember a more striking example of this, than the description which is given of the king's army in the play of Henry IV.:-- "All furnished, all in arms, All plumed like ostriches that with the wind Baited like eagles having lately bathed: As full of spirit us the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun in midsummer, Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry with his beaver on Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury; And vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropped down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus." In that excellent book, so remarkable for the vivacity of its descriptions, as well as the solidity and penetration of its sentences, the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, there is a noble panegyric on the high-priest Simon the son of Onias; and it is a very fine example of the point before us:-- _How was he honored in the midst of the people, in his coming out of the sanctuary! He was as the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at the full; as the sun shining upon the temple of the Most High, and as the rainbow giving light in the bright clouds: and as the flower of roses in the spring of the year, as lilies by the rivers of waters, and as the frankincense-tree in summer; as fire and incense in the censer, and as a vessel of gold set with precious stones; as a fair olive-tree budding forth fruit, and as a cypress which groweth up to the clouds.

When he put on the robe of honor, and was clothed with the perfection of glory, when he went up to the holy altar, he made the garment of holiness honorable.

He himself stood by the hearth of the altar, compassed with his brethren round about; as a young cedar in Libanus, and as palm-trees compassed they him about.

So were all the sons of Aaron in their glory, and the oblations of the Lord in their hands, &c._ SECTION XIV.
LIGHT.
Having considered extension, so far as it is capable of raising ideas of greatness; _color_ comes next under consideration.