The elevation of an object affects us not less than its magnitude. A high place is chofen for the statue of a deity or hero. A tree growing upon the brink of a precipice viewed from the plain below, affords by that circumftance an additional pleasure. A throne is erected for the chief magiftrate, and a chair with a high feat for the prefident of a court. In fome objects, greatness and elevation concur to make a complicated impreffion. The Alps and the pike of Teneriff are proper examples; with the following difference, that in the former greatnefs feems to prevail, elevation in the latter. The emotions raised by great and by elevated objects, are clearly diftinguishable, not only in the internal feeling, but even in their external expreffions. A great object dilates the breast, and makes the fpectator endeavour to enlarge his bulk. This is remarkable in perfons, who, neglecting delicacy in behaviour, give way to nature without referve. In defcribing a great object, they naturally expand themselves by drawing in air with all their force. An elevated object produces a different expreffion. It makes the fpectator stretch upward and stand a tiptoe. Great and elevated objects confidered with relation to the emotions produced by them, are termed grand and fublime. Grandeur and fublimity have a double fignification. They generally fignify the quality or circumstance in the objects by which the emotions are produced; fometimes the emotions themselves. Whether magnitude singly in an object of fight, have the effect to produce an emotion distinguishable from the beauty or deformity of that object; or whether it be only a circumftance modifying the beauty or deformity, is an intricate queftion. If magnitude produce an emotion of its own diftinguishable from others, this emotion muft either be pleasant pleafant or painful. But this feems to be contradicted by experience; for magnitude, as it would appear, contributes in fome inftances to beauty, in fome to deformity. A hill, for instance, is agreeable, and a great mountain still more fo. But an ugly monster, the larger, the more horrid. Greatnefs in an enemy, great power, great courage, serve but to augment our terror. Hath not this an appearance as if grandeur were not an emotion distinct from all others, but only a circumstance that qualifies beauty and deformity? I am notwithstanding fatisfied, that grandeur is an emotion not only diftinct from all others, but in every circumftance pleafant. These propofitions must be examined separately. I begin with the former, and fhall endeavour to prove, that magnitude produceth a peculiar emotion distinguishable from all others. Magnitude is undoubtedly a real property of bodies, not lefs than figure, and more than colour. Figure and colour, even in the fame body, produce feparate emotions, which are never mifapprehended one for the other. Why should not magnitude produce an emotion different from both? That it has this effect, will be evident from a plain experiment of two bodies, one great and one little, which produce different emotions, though they be precifely the fame as to figure and colour. There is indeed an obfcurity in this matter, occafioned by the following circumstance, that the grandeur and beauty of the fame object, mix fo intimately as fcarce to be distinguished. But the beauty of colour comes in happily to enable us to make the distinction. For the emotion of colour unites with that of figure, not lefs intimately than grandeur does with either. Yet the emotion of colour is distinguishable from that of figure; and so is grandeur, attentively confidered: though when thefe thefe three emotions are blended together, they are scarce felt as different emotions. Next, that grandeur is an emotion in every circumftance pleafant, appears from the following confiderations. Magnitude or greatness, abstracted from all other circumftances, fwells the heart and dilates the mind. We feel this to be a pleafant effect; and we feel no fuch effect in contracting, the mind upon little objects. This may be il-. luftrated by confidering grandeur in an enemy.. Beauty is an agreeable quality, whether in a friend! or enemy; and when the emotion it raifeth is mixed with refentment against an enemy, it must have the effect to moderate our refentment. In. the fame manner grandeur in an enemy undoubted-ly foftens and blunts our refentment. Grandeur indeed may indirectly and by reflection produce: an unpleafant effect. Grandeur in an enemy, like: courage, may increase our fear, when we confider the advantage he hath over us by this quality. But: the fame indirect effect may be produced by many other agreeable qualities, fuch as beauty or wif dom. The magnitude of an ugly object, ferves, it is true, to augment our horror or averfion. But this proceeds not from magnitude separately confidered.. It proceeds from the following circumftance, that in a large object a great quantity of ugly parts are prefented to view. The fame chain of reasoning is fo.obviously applicable to fublimity, that it would be lofing time to. fhow the application. Grandeur therefore and. fublimity fhall hereafter be confidered both of them. as pleasant emotions. The pleafant emotion raised by large objects, has. Dotefcaped the poets: He doth beftride the narrow world Like a Coloffus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs. Julius Cæfar, at 1. fc. 3. Cleopatra. I dreamt there was an Emp'ror, An tony; Oh fuch another fleep, that I might fee But fuch another man! His face was as the heav'ns and therein stuck. A fun and moon, which kept their courfe and lighted The little O o' th' earth. His legs beftrid the ocean, his rear'd arm Antony and Cleopatra, act 5. Sc. 3. -Majefty Dies not alone, but, like a gulf, doth draw. Hamlet, act 3. fc. 8. The poets have also made good use of the emotion produced by the elevated fituation of an object: Quod fi me lyricis vatibus inferes,. Sublimi feriam fidera vertice. Horace, Carm. 1. 1. ode 1. Oh thou! the earthly author of my blood, Richard II. act 1. Sc. 4. Nor Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal Richard II. a 5. sc. 2. Antony. Why was I rais'd the meteor of the world, Hung in the skies and blazing as I travell❜d, Till all my fires were spent ; and then caft downward To be trod out by Cæfar? Dryden, All for Love, act 1. Though the quality of magnitude produceth a pleafant emotion, we must not conclude that the oppofite quality of littlenefs produceth a painful emotion. It would be unhappy for man, were an: object disagreeable from its being of a small fize merely, when he is furrounded with fo many objects of that kind. The fame obfervation is applicable to elevation of place. A body placed high is agreeable, but the fame body placed low, is not by that circumstance rendered difagreeable. Littleness and lownefs of place, are precifely fimilar in the following particular, that they neither give pleasure nor pain. And in this may vifibly be dif covered peculiar attention in fitting the internal conftitution of man to his external circumstances. Were littleness, and lownefs of place agreeable, greatnefs and elevation could not be fo. Were littlenefs, and lownefs of place difagreeable, they would occafion uninterrupted uneafinefs. The difference betwixt great and little with refpect to agreeablenefs, is remarkably felt in a feries when we pass gradually from the one extreme to the other. A mental progrefs from the capital to the kingdom, from that to Europe-to the whole earth-to the planetary fyftem-to the univerfe, is extremely pleafant: the heart fwells and the mind is dilated, at every step. The returning in an oppofite |