Light of an inferior strength to this, if it moves with great celerity, has the same power; for lightning is certainly productive of grandeur, which it owes chiefly to the extreme velocity of its motion.

A quick transition from light to darkness, or from darkness to light, has yet a greater effect.

But darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light.

Our great poet was convinced of this; and indeed so full was he of this idea, so entirely possessed with the power of a well-managed darkness, that in describing the appearance of the Deity, amidst that profusion of magnificent images, which the grandeur of his subject provokes him to pour out upon every side, he is far from forgetting the obscurity which surrounds the most incomprehensible of all beings, but "With majesty of _darkness_ round Circles his throne." And what is no less remarkable, our author had the secret of preserving this idea, even when he seemed to depart the farthest from it, when he describes the light and glory which flows from the Divine presence; a light which by its very excess is converted into a species of darkness:-- "_Dark_ with excessive _light_ thy skirts appear." Here is an idea not only poetical in a high degree, but strictly and philosophically just.

Extreme light, by overcoming the organs of sight, obliterates all objects, so as in its effect exactly to resemble darkness.