gloomy: beauty fhould be light and delicate; the great ought to be folid, and even maffive. They. are, indeed, ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on pleasure; and however they may vary afterwards from the direct nature of their caufes, yet thefe caufes keep up an eternal diftinction between them, a distinction never to be forgotten by any whofe bufinefs it is to affect the paffions. In the infinite variety of natural combinations, we must expect to find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other united in the fame object. We must expect alfo to find combinations of the fame kind in the works of art. But when we confider the power of an objec upon our paffions, we muft know that when any thing is intended to affect the mind by the force of fome predominant property, the affection produced is like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other properties or qualities of the object be of the fame nature, and tending to the fame defign as the principal;

black and white blend, foften, and unite,

A thoufand ways, are there no black and white? If the qualities of the fublime and beautiful are fometimes found united, does this prove that they are the fame; does it prove that they are any way allied; does it prove even that they are not oppofite and contradictory? Black and white may foften, may blend; but they are not therefore the fame. Nor, when they are fo foftened and blended with each other, or with different colours, is the power of black as black, or of white as white, fo ftrong as when each Bands uniform and diftinguifhed.Sublime and Beautiful.

SUBLIME.

Of the Paffion caufed by the Sublime.

THE paffion caufed by the great and sublime in nature, when thofe caufes operate moft powerfully,

is aftonishment; and astonishment is that fate of the foul, in which all its motions are fufpended, with fome degree of horror. In this cafe the mind is fo entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by confequence reafon on that object which employs it. Hence arifes the great power of the fublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irrefiftible force. Aftonishment, as I have faid, is the effect of the fublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and refpe&t. Ibid.

SUBLIME,

Source of the Sublime.

WHATEVER is fitted in any fort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to fay, whatever is in any fort terrible, or is converfant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a fource of the fublime; that is, it is productive of the ftrongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling, -Ibid.

E

SUBLIME DESCRIPTION.

We do not any where meet a more fublime defcription than this juftly-celebrated one of Milton, wherein he gives the portrait of Satan with a dignity fo fuitable to the subject:

He above the reft
In fhape and gefture proudly eminent
Stood like a tower; his form had yet not loft
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Lefs than archangel ruin'd, and th' excefs
Of glory obfcur'd: as when the fun new ris'n
Looks through the horizontal mifty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon
In dim eclipfe difaftrous twilight fheds
On half the nations; and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.

Here is a very noble picture; and in what does this poetical picture confift? in images of a tower, an archangel, the fun rifing through mifts, or in an eclipfe, the ruin of monarchs, and the revolutions of kingdoms. The mind is hurried out of itself, by a crowd of great and confufed images; which affe&t because they are crowded and confufed. For feparate them, and you lofe much of the greatnefs; and join them, and you infallibly lofe the clearnefs. The images raifed by poetry are always of this obfcure kind; though in general the effects of poetry are by no means to be attributed to the images it raises. But painting, when we have allowed for the pleasure of imitation, can only affect fimply by the images it prefents; and even in painting, a judicious obfcurity in fome things contributes to the effect of the picture; because the images in painting are exactly fimilar to those in nature; and in nature dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the grander paffions, than thofe have which are more clear and determinate. But where and when this obfervation may be applied to practice, and how far it shall be extended, will be better deduced from the nature of the fubject, and from the occafion, than from any rules that can be given.

I am fenfible that this idea has met with oppofition, and is likely ftill to be rejected by feveral. But let it be confidered, that hardly any thing can ftrike the mind with its greatness, which does not make fome fort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to fee an object diftin&tly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the fame thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea. There is a paffage in the book of Job amazingly fublime, and this fublimity is principally due to the terrible uncertainty of the thing defcribed: In thoughts from the vifions of the night, when deep fleep falleth upon men, fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to

Shake. Then a fpirit paffed before my face. The hair of my flesh food up. It stood still, but I could not difcern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; there was filence; and I heard a voice, Shall mortal man be more just than God? We are firft prepared with the utmost folemnity for the vifion; we are firft terrified, before we are let even into the obfcure caufe of our emotion: but when this grand caufe of terror makes its appearance, what is it? is it not wrapt up in the fhades of its own incomprehenfible darknefs, more aweful, more ftriking, more terrible, than the livelieft defcription, than the clearest painting, could poffibly reprefent it? When painters have attempted to give us clear representations of thefe very fanciful and terrible ideas, they have, I think, almost always failed; infomuch that I have been at a lofs, in all the pictures I have feen of hell, whether the painter did not intend fomething ludicrous. Several painters have handled a fubject of this kind with a view of affembling as many horrid phantoms as their imaginations could fuggeft; but all the defigns I have chanced to meet of the temptations of St. Anthony, were rather a fort of odd wild grotefques than any thing capable of producing a ferious paffion. In all thefe fubjects poetry is very happy. Its apparitions, its chimeras, its harpies, its allegorical figures, are grand and affecting; and though Virgil's Fame, and Homer's Discord, are obfcure, they are magni-. ficent figures. Thefe figures in painting would be clear enough, but I fear they might become ridi culous.--Sublime and Beautiful.

SUPPLY.

THE facred and reserved right of the Commons. Speech on American Taxation.

SWITZERLAND.

As to Switzerland, it is a country whofe long union, rather than its poffible divifion, is the matter of wonder. Here I know they entertain very fanguine hopes. The aggregation to France of the democratic Swifs republics appears to them to be a work half done by their very form; and it might seem to them rather an encrease of importance to thefe little commonwealths, than a derogation from their independency, or a change in the manner of their government. Upon any quarrel amongst the cantons nothing is more likely than fuch an event. As to the ariftocratic republics, the general clamour and hatred which the French excite against the very name, (and with more facility and fucceís than againft monarchs) and the utter impoffibility of their government making any fort of refiftance againft an infurrection, where they have no troops, and the people are all armed and trained, render their hopes in that quarter, far indeed from unfounded. It is certain that the republic of Berne thinks itself obliged to a vigilance next to hoftile, and to imprison or expel all the French whom they find in their territories. But indeed thofe ariftocracies which comprehend whatever is confiderable, wealthy, and valuable in Switzerland, do now fo wholly depend upon opinion, and the humour of their multitude, that the lighteft puff of wind is fufficient to blow them down. If France, under its ancient regimen, and upon the ancient principles of policy, was the fupport of the Germanic conftitution, it was much more fo of that of Switzerland, which almost from the very origin of that confederacy refted upon the clofeness of its connection with France, on which the Swiss cantons wholly repofed themfelves for the prefervation of the parts of their body in their respective rights and permanent forms, as well as for the maintenance of all in their general independency.