The

and raise the strongest emotion of grandeur. fpectator is conscious of an enthusiasm, which cannot bear confinement, nor the strictness of regularity and order he loves to range at large; and is fo enchanted with magnificent objects, as to overlook flight beauties or deformities.

The fame obfervation is applicable in fome meafure to works of art in a fmall building, the flighteft irregularity is difagreeable: but, in a magnificent palace, or a large Gothic church, irregularities are lefs regarded in an epic poem we pardon many negligences that would not be permitted in a fonnet or epigram. Notwithstanding fuch exceptions, it may be justly laid down for a rule, That in works of art, order and regularity ought to be governing principles and hence the obfervation of Longinus,* "In works of art we have regard to exact proportion; in thofe of nature, to grandeur and magnificence."

The fame reflections are in a good measure applicable to fublimity; particularly, that, like grandeur, it is a fpecies of agreeablenefs; that a beautiful object placed high, appearing more agreeable than formerly, produces in the fpectator a new emotion, termed the emotion of fublimity; and that the perfection of order, regularity, and proportion, is lefs required in objects placed high, or at a distance, than at hand. The pleafant emotion raised by large objects, has not efcaped the poets:

-He doth beftride the narrow world

Walk under his huge legs.

Like a Coloffus: and we petty men

Julius Cafar, alt 1. fc. 3.

Cleopatra. I dreamt there was an Emp'ror Antony; Oh fuch another fleep, that I might fee

But fuch another man!

His

* Chap. 30.

His face was as the heavens

and therein stuck

A fun and moon, which kept their courfe, and lighted

The little O o' th' earth.

His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear'd arm

Crefted the world.

Antony and Cleopatra, a&t 5. Sc. 3.

-Majefty

Dies not alone, but, like a gulph, doth draw
What's near it with it. It's a maffy wheel
Fix'd on the fummit of the highest mount;
To whofe huge fpokes, ten thoufand leffer things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd, which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty confequence,
Attends the boift'rous ruin.

Hamlet, act 3. Sc. 8.

The poets have alfo made good ufe of the emotion produced by the elevated fituation of an object :

Quod fi me lyricis vatibus inferes,
Sublimi feriam fidera vertice.

Horat. Carm. l. 1. ode 1.

Oh thou! the earthly author of my blood,
Whose youthful fpirit, in me regenerate,
Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up,
To reach at victory above my head.

Richard II. act 1. fc. 4.

Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal

The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne.

Kichard II. a 5. fc. 2.

Anthony. Why was I rais'd the meteor of the world,
Hung in the fkies, and blazing as I travell'd,

Till all my fires were fpent; and then caft downward
To be trod out by Cæfar?

Dryden, All for love, at 1.

The

The defcription of Paradife in the fourth book of Paradife Loft, is a fine illustration of the impreffion made by elevated objects:

So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradife,

Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness; whofe hairy fides
With thicket overgrown, grotefque and wild,
Accefs deny'd and over head up grew
Infuperable height of loftieft fhade,

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A fylvan fcene; and as the ranks afcend,
Shade above fhade, a woody theatre

Of statelieft view. Yet higher than their tops
The verd'rous wall of Paradife up fprung;
Which to our general fire gave profpect large
Into his nether empire neighb'ring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodlieft trees, loaden with faireft fruit,
Bloffoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd with gay enamell'd colours mix'd.

B. 4. l. 131.

Though a grand object is agreeable, we must not infer that a little object is difagreeable;, which would be unhappy for man, confidering that he is furrounded with fo many objects of that kind. The fame holds with refpect to place: a body placed high is agreeable; but the fame body placed low, is not by that circumstance rendered difagreeable. Littlenefs and lownefs of place are precifely fimilar in the following particular, that they neither give pleasure nor pain. And in this may vifibly be difcovered peculiar attention in fitting the internal constitution of man to his external circumftances were littleness and lowness of place agreeable, greatnefs and elevation could not be fo: were littleuefs and lowness of place

N.E

place difagreeable, they would occafion perpetual uneafinefs.

The difference between great and little with respect to agreeableness, is remarkably felt in a series, when we pass gradually from the one extreme to the other. A mental progrefs from the capital to the kingdom, from that tó Europe-to the whole earthto the planetary fyftem-to the univerfe, is extremely pleasant the heart fwells, and the mind is dilated, at every step. The returning in an oppofite direction is not pofitively painful, though our pleasure leffens at every step, till it vanish into indifference: fuch a progrefs may fometimes produce pleasure of a different fort, which arifes from taking a narrower and narrower infpection. The fame obfervation holds in a progrefs upward and downward. Afcent is pleafant because it elevates us : but defcent is never painful; it is for the most part pleafant from a different caufe, that it is according to the order of nature. The fall of a ftone from any height is extremely agreeable by its accelerated motion. I feel it pleasant to defcend from a mountain, because the defcent is natural and eafy. Neither is looking downward painful; on the contrary, to look down upon objects makes part of the pleasure of elevation: looking down becomes then only painful when the object is fo far below as to create dizziness; and even when that is the cafe, we feel a fort of pleasure mixed with the pain, witnefs Shakespear's defcription of Dover cliffs:

How fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to caft one's eye fo low!

The crows and choughs, that wing the mid-way air,
Shew fcarce fo grofs as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers famphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he feems no bigger than his head.

The

The fishermen that walk upon the beach,

Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy

Almoft too fmall for fight. The murmuring furge,
That on th' unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard fo high. I'll look no more,
Left my brain turn, and the deficient fight
Topple down headlong.

King Lear, at 4. Sc. 6.

A remark is made above, that the emotions of grandeur and fublimity are nearly allied. . And hence it is, that the one term is frequently put for the other an increafing feries of numbers, for example, producing an emotion fimilar to that of mounting upward, is commonly termed an afcending feries: a feries of numbers gradually decreafing, producing an emotion fimilar to that of going downward, is commonly termed a defcending feries: we talk familiarly of going up to the capital, and of going down to the country: from a leffer kingdom we talk of going up to a greater; whence the anabafis in the Greek language, when one travels from Greece to Perfia. We discover the fame way of speaking in the language even of Japan; and its univerfality proves it the offspring of a natural feeling.

The foregoing obfervation leads us to confider grandeur and fublimity in a figurative sense, and as applicable to the fine arts. Hitherto thefe terms have been taken in their proper fenfe, as applicable to objects of fight only and it was of importance to beftow fome pains upon that article; because, generally fpeaking, the figurative fenfe of a word is derived from its proper fenfe, which holds remarkably at prefent. Beauty in its original fignification is confined

Kempfer's hiftory of Japan, b. 5. ch. 2.