I cannot agree with Mr. S. " that in the descent of bodies their previous ascent is implied." When a huge rock, disparted from its mountain, tumbles into a lake or into the ocean, dashing its waves and foam afar, the immediate effect is the emotion of sublimity, without any consideration how the mountain was raised. It is entertaining to perceive how this great classical scholar, by a gallaxy or stream of lustrous extracts, at length brings upwards and downwards, above and below,' to correspond with sublimity.

He concludes this part of his essay by observing that--" The expression of fallen angels, by recalling to us the eminence from which they fall, communicates in a single word, a character of sublimity to the bottomless abyss. How art thou fallen, oh Lucifer, son of the morning.' The Supreme Being is himself represented as filling hell with his presence, while the throne, where he manifests his glory, is on high."

Yet surely heaven conveys the idea of sublimity, and hell of profundity, though both occasion the emotion.

The last paragraph of this part is, "To these associations, darkness, power, terror, eternity, and various other adjuncts of sublimity, lend their aid in a manner too palpable to admit of any comment."

Here the word sublimity is introduced, to imply something different from altitude. Power, I own, causes terror, which is an effect, and thus causes and effects are jumbled together, and sublimity is made to assimilate with both. If Longinus had introduced any other word than "the sublime," this confusion would not have been occasioned.

The third chapter commences under the head of "Generalization of sublimity in consequence of associations resulting from the phenomena of gravitation, and from the other physical arrangements, with which our senses are conversant,"-in the following manner:

"When we confine our views to the earth's surface, a variety of additional causes conspire, with those already suggested, to strengthen the association between elevated position, and the ideas of power or of the terrible.-I shall only mention the security it affords against a hostile attack, and the advantage it yields in the use of missive weapons; two circumstances which

give an expressive propriety to the epithet commanding, as employed in the language of fortification." I cannot acknowledge that I ever felt the emotion of sublimity at viewing a fortification. Its various bastions, angles, &c. occasioned surprise, at the labour and art of man, and the more I considered its uses, the less I was impressed with the emotions of even wonder. The preceding paragraph is introduced to account for the emotion of sublimity created by torrents and cataracts as follows:

"In other cases, elevated objects excite emotions still more closely allied to admiration and to awe, in consequence of our experience of the effect of heavy bodies falling downwards from a great height. Masses of water in the form of a mountain torrent, or of a cataract, present to us one of the most impressive images of irresistible impetuosity which terrestrial phenomena afford, and accordingly have an effect, both on the eye and on the ear, of peculiar sublimity."

What is here meant by an effect of sublimity on the eye and ear, I cannot comprehend: if he means to say that such a cataract as the fall of Niagara conveys a shock to the sensorium, and stops thereby the former easy vibrations or movements of the brain, which presented pleasing images; or, in other words, that the great impression stopped the train of ideas, and caused the emotion of sublimity, I should acquiesce-but I cannot acquiesce that there is any sublimity or loftiness in a fall of water; for he himself has previously observed, that "in reflecting on the circumstances by which sublimity, in its primitive sense, is specifically distinguished, the first thing that strikes us is, that it carries the thoughts in a direction opposite to that in which the great and universal law of terrestrial gravitation operates. Hence it is, that while motion downwards conveys an idea only of passive obedience to the laws of nature, motion upwards always produces, more or less, a feeling of pleasing surprise, from the comparative rarity of the phenomenon; in the ascent of flame, of sparks of fire, of rockets, nay, even of a column of smoke, there is something amusing and fascinating to the eye."

This paragraph would apply better in the discussion of the beautiful. No doubt the objects mentioned convey a pleasing sensation, from the sensorium, received by it through the optic

nerve: but lord Kaimes has observed, that a fountain by the accompanying knowledge of the application of art and force, deducts somewhat from the agreeable effect.

Mr. Stewart proceeds, after alluding, 1st, to the upward growth of man, and 2d, of vegetables, and 3d, the erect form of man, surmounted with the seat of intelligence, and with the elevated "aspect of the human face divine," states that "all of these, presenting the most impressive images of an inspiring ambition, or of a tendency to rise higher, in opposition to the law of gravity, which, of all physical facts, is the most familiar to our senses."

Is it not a law of nature, that a tree should grow upwards, and root itself downwards? Neither the growth of vegetables or of man put me in mind of ambition; nor can I think with Mr. D. S. that they "conspire in imparting an allegorical or typical character to sublimity." A pole raised as high as St. Peter's would not give me the emotion of sublimity, I should call it a surprising sight-a novelty; but being without grandeur, I should not be conscious of a shock through the optic nerve to suspend thought.

I now come to what seems to be introduced as a strong corroborative argument, that descending bodies cause the emotion of sublimity because the idea of ascent accompanies the former. "It is to be remembered, besides, that in the descent of bodies from a great height, their previous ascent is implied, and accordingly, the active power by which their elevation is effected, is necessarily recalled to the imagination by the momentum, acquired during the period of their fall."

Gray, when he visited the Chartreuse and wrote his Alcaic Ode in the album of the Fathers, did not think of the momentum of the falling rock,-whilst he wrote the following lines:

Oh tu severi religio loci

Quocunque gaudes nomine non leve

Nativa nam certe fluenta

Numen habet, veteresque sylvas

Præsentiorem et conspicimus deum
Per invias rupes, fera per juga
Clivosque preruptos sonantes

Inter aquas nemorumque noctem, &c.

This murm'ring stream, shaded by sacred tree,
Of tow'ring wide-spread, vast antiquity:
These solemn mountains, and the distant sound,
Of rocks loud tumbling into depth profound;
Of yon still lake, which startles with affright,
Midst the thick forest dark as blackest night:
All, all the presence of a God declare,

More than the gorgeous temple's costly glare, &c.

The first impressions of the awful and majestic scene broke his contemplation of daily occurrences, and after the first effect had diminished, his thoughts naturally rose from the stupendous, solemn, silent scene to the Creator, the Omnipotent. He was not at leisure to remember the story of Sisiphus, or to allude to gravitation and the momentum of a descending rock.

Johnson, when speaking, in the life of Cowley, of the metaphysical poets, describes the "comprehension and expansion of thought, which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second, rational admiration." "Great thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness. These metaphysical writers were always analytic: they broke every image into fragments, and could no more represent, by their slender conccits and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, than he who dissects a sunbeam with a prism, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a summer noon." Johnson pursues this sentiment in the life of Waller, when he says, "the ideas of christian theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament; to recommend them by tropes and figures, is to magnify by a concave mirror the Sydereal hemisphere. Whatever is great, desirable or tremendous, is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted-Infinity cannot be amplificd-Perfection cannot be improved."

But to proceed with extracts from Mr. Stewart, elucidatory of his sentiments of what he terms "the sublime:"

"Sublimity, in its primitive sense, carries the thoughts in a direction opposite to that which the great and universal law of gravitation operates. Motion downward conveys the idea only of passive obedience to the laws of nature.

"It is not to be imagined, because height is a source of sublime emotion, that depth must necessarily affect the mind with. feelings of an opposite description, although in most cases motion downwards conveys the idea of a passive obedience to physical laws, it frequently implies active powers exactly the same with those which are displayed in the ascent of animated beings. Instances of this kind occur in the equable and regulated descent of a bird, &c. It is to be remembered, besides, that, in the descent of bodies from a great height, their previous ascent is implied, and accordingly the active power by which their elevation was effected, is necessarily recalled to the imagination by the momentum acquired during the period of their fall."

In a cataract, the water's previous ascent cannot be implied, for a river never naturally ascends, and is produced only by descending rains.

"It is altogether foreign to the question, whether height or depth in general, is capable of producing the strongest impression of sublimity."

When we mention the impression by sublimity, I conceive sublimity to mean, an elevated or grand object; but the emotion which Mr. Stewart denominates the sublime, may be produced equally by a mountain or an abyss,-by soaring or descending,— and is distinct from sublimity, which is applied to the quality of an object. It were to confound all meaning, if sublimity were applied equally to height and depth,-up and down.

Mr. Stewart seems to endeavour the accomplishment of this in the following passages, which close his first chapter:

"In consequence of the play of imagination, added to the influence of associations formerly remarked, it is easily conceivable in what manner height and depth, though precisely opposite to each other in their physical properties, should so easily accord together in the pictures which imagination forms, and should even in many cases be almost identified in the emotions which they produce.

"Nor will there appear any thing in this doctrine savoring of paradox, or of an undue spirit of theory, in the judgment of those who recollect, that although the humour of Swift and of Arbuthnot has accustomed us to state that YYO2 and BA002 as