since, by being unacquainted with the difference between the sublime and the beautiful, they cannot happily succeed, unless by chance, in either. The design of the work then is, to lay down such principles as may tend to ascertain and distinguish the sublime and the beautiful in any art, and to form a sort of standard for each.

The author first inquires into the affections of the sublime and beautiful, in their own nature; he then proceeds to investigate the properties of such things in nature as give rise to these affections; and lastly, he considers in what manner these properties act to produce those affections, and each correspondent emotion.

All our passions have their origin in self-preservation and in society; and the ends of one or the other of these they are all calculated to answer. The passions which concern self-preservation, and which are the most powerful of all the passions, turn mostly on pain or danger. For instance, the idea of pain, sickness, and death, fill the mind with strong emotions of horror; but life and health, though they put us in a capacity of being affected with pleasure, make no such impression by the single enjoyment.

When danger or pain immediately affect us, they are simply terrible, and incapable of giving any delight; but when the idea of pain or danger is excited, without our being actually in such circumstances as to be injured by it, it may be delightful, as every one's experience demonstrates. This pleasing sensation, arising from the diminution of pain, and which may be called hereafter delight, is very different from that satisfaction which we feel without any pain preceding it, which may be, in the sequel, termed positive pleasure, or simply pleasure. Delight acts by no means so strongly as positive pleasure; since no lessening, even of the

severest pain, can rise to pleasure, but the mind still continues impressed with awe; a sort of tranquillity shadowed with horror. When we have suffered from any violent emotion, the mind naturally continues in something like the same condition, even after the cause which first produced it has ceased to operate; as the fashion of the countenance and the gesture of the body, in those who have just escaped some imminent degree of danger, sufficiently indicate.

Whatever excites this delight, whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, without their actual existence, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is the source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling.†

To prevent any interruption of the author's chain of reasoning, whatever remark may happen to occur to us, in the course of our epitome of his performance, we shall subjoin it as a note. Thus with regard to his distinction between delight and pleasure, we may here observe, that most of the real pleasures we possess, proceed from a diminution of pain. Our author imagines, that positive pleasure operates upon us, by relaxing the nervous system; but that delight acts in a quite contrary manner. Yet it is evident, that a reprieve to a criminal often affects him with such pleasure, that his whole frame is relaxed, and he faints away: here, then, a diminution of pain operates just as pleasure would have done, and we can see no reason why it may not be called pleasure. To put our objections in another light-all wants that immediately affect us, are in some degree painful. If upon offering any enjoyment to the mind, it feels no consciousness of the want, no uneasiness for the fruition of the pleasure proffered, we may safely conclude it will find no great degree of pleasure in its possession. How vainly do delicacies solicit the appetite of him who feels not a want from hunger! What various methods are tried to create this pain, only that the voluptuous may enjoy a greater pleasure by its diminution! Hence, if what the author himself allows to be pleasures are increased by preceding pain, why may they not be produced from it? In fact, pleasure and pain may be found positively subsisting without relation to each other; but then they may also be found mutually to produce each other.

[Our Author, by assigning terror for the only source of the sublime, excludes love, admiration, &c. But to make the sublime an idea incompatible

The second head to which the passions are referred, in relation to their final cause, is society. There are two kinds of society; the first is the society of the sex, the passion belonging to which is called love; it contains a mixture of lust, and its object is the beauty of women. The other is the great society with man, and all other animals; but this has no mixture of lust, though its object be beauty. The passions belonging to the preservation

with these affections, is what the general sense of mankind will be apt to contradict. It is certain, we can have the most sublime ideas of the Deity, without imagining him a God of terror. Whatever raises our esteem of an object described, must be a powerful source of sublimity; and esteem is a passion nearly allied to love: our astonishment at the sublime as often proceeds from an increased love, as from an inward fear. When, after the horrors of a tempestuous night, the poet hails us with a description of the beauties of the morning, we feel double enjoyment from the contrast. Our pleasure here must arise from the beautiful or the sublime. If from the beautiful, then we have a positive pleasure, which has had its origin, contrary to what the author advances, in a diminution of pain. If from the sublime, it is all we contend for; since here is a description, which, though destitute of terror, has the same effect that any increase of terror could have produced.

* Self-interest, and not beauty, may be the object of this passion: it is not from beauty in the man, we cement friendships; it is not from beauty in animals, that we value and maintain them; nor from the beauty of vegetables, that we improve them by culture: were this the case, there would be no society betwixt the deformed of mankind; we should entertain an abhorrence of every ill-looking, though useful and inoffensive animal; receive the painted snake to our bosom, and the spotted panther into our dwelling. Even in vegetables, we prefer use to beauty: "alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." Reason, not sensation, certainly suggests our ideas of this species of beauty, and from the dictates of reason it is we admit of new connections. The infant, new to the world, finds all beauty in color; as he grows older, shape, smoothness, and several other adventitious ideas are superadded, which his reason, not his senses, have suggested. Some, even among the adult, have no idea of what is called beauty in animals with which they are not conversant, as the beauty of horses, dogs, &c.: but an acquaintance with these animals, and a knowledge of their fitness, by particular symmetries, &c. to answer their own or our purposes, soon discover to us beauties of which we could otherwise have had no conception. Hence a great part of our perceptions of beauty arises not from any mechanical operation on the senses, capable of producing 16*

VOL. IV.

of the individual, which are capable of affecting us with the strong emotions of the sublime, turn wholly on pain and danger, but those of society, on our desire of enjoyment; hence, as the sublime had its rise in pain, so beauty has its source in positive pleasure.

The passion caused by the great and the sublime in nature, when these causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; by which all the motions of the soul are suspended, with some degree of horror. Whatever also is terrible with regard to sight, is sublime, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look to any thing as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. To heighten this terror, obscurity, in general, seems necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Thus, in pagan worship, the idol is generally placed in the most obscure part of the temple; which is done with a view of heightening the awe of its adorers. Wherefore it is one thing to make an idea clear, and another to make it affecting to the imagination. Nay, so far is clearness of imagery from being absolutely necessary to influence the passions, that they may be considerably operated upon as in music, without presenting an image at all. Painting never makes such strong impressions on the mind as description, yet painting must be allowed to represent objects more distinctly than any description can do; and even in painting, a judicious obscurity, in some things, contributes to the proper effect of the picture. Thus, in reality, clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions; as it is, in some measure, an enemy to all enthusiasm whatsoever.*

positive pleasure, but from a rational inference drawn with an eye to selfinterest, and which may, in many instances, be deduced from self-preservation. Therefore, some ideas of beauty have their origin in self-preservation.

* Distinctness of imagery has ever been held productive of the sublime.

All general privations are great, because they are terrible; as vacuity, darkness, solitude, silence. Greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime. Infinity is another source; though perhaps it may be resolved into magnitude. In all objects where no boundary can be fixed to the eye, as in the inside of a rotund, there must necessarily arise the idea of greatness. Another source of greatness is difficulty. When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, as in Stonehenge, the idea is grand. Magnificence, too, or a great profusion of any things which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is sublime.

With respect to colors, such as are soft or cheerful (except, perhaps, a strong red, which is cheerful) are unfit to produce great images. An immense mountain, covered with a shining green turf, as the author expresses it, is nothing in this respect to one dark and gloomy. The cloudy sky is more grand than the blue; and night more sublime and solemn than day; therefore, in historical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect and in buildings, where a uniform degree of the most striking sublimity is intended, the materials should consist of sad and fuscous colors; and as darkness is productive of more

The more strongly the poet or orator impresses the picture he would describe upon his own mind, the more apt will he be to paint it on the imagination of his reader. Not that, like Ovid, he should be minute in description; which, instead of impressing our imagination with a grand whole, divides our idea into several littlenesses. We only think the bold yet distinct strokes of a Virgil far surpass the equally bold but confused ones of Lucan. The term painting, in poetry, perhaps implies more than the mere assemblage of such pictures as affect the sight; sounds, tastes, feelings, all conspire to complete a poetical picture: hence, this art takes the imagination by every inlet, and What while it paints the picture, can give it motion and succession too. wonder, then, it should strike us so powerfully! Therefore, not from the confusion or obscurity of the description, but from being able to place the object to be described in a greater variety of views, is poetry superior to all other descriptive arts.