have such a resemblance to each other, as readily to come under one general term, viz., the emotion of beauty; but the emotion of grandeur is so different from these mentioned, as to merit a peculiar

name.

Though regularity, proportion, order, and color, contribute to grandeur as well as to beauty, yet these qualities are not by far so essential to the former as to the latter. To make out that proposi tion, some preliminaries are requisite. In the first place, the mind, not being totally occupied with a small object, can give its attention at the same time to every minute part; but in a great or extensive object, the mind being totally occupied with the capital and striking parts, has no attention left for those that are little or indifferent. In the next place, two similar objects appear not similar when viewed at different distances; the similar parts of a very large object cannot be seen but at different distances; and for that reason, its regularity, and the proportion of its parts, are in some measure lost to the eye; neither are the irregularities of a very large object so conspicuous as of one that is small. Hence it is, that a large object is not so agreeable by its regularity, as a small object, nor so disagreeable by its irregularities.

214. These considerations make it evident, that grandeur is satisfied with a less degree of regularity and of the other qualities mentioned, than is requisite for beauty; which may be illustrated by the following experiment. Approaching to a small conical hill, we take an accurate survey of every part, and are sensible of the slightest deviation from regularity and proportion. Supposing the hill to be considerably enlarged, so as to make us less sensible of its regularity, it will upon that account appear less beautiful. It will not, however, appear less agreeable, because some slight emotion of grandeur comes in place of what is lost in beauty. And at last, when the hill is enlarged to a great mountain, the small degree of beauty that is left, is sunk in its grandeur. Hence it is, that a towering hill is delightful, if it have but the slightest resemblance of a cone; and a chain of mountains no less so, though deficient in the accuracy of order and proportion. We require a small surface to be smooth; but in an extensive plain, considerable inequalities are overlooked. In a word, regularity, proportion, order, and color contribute to grandeur as well as to beauty; but with a remarkable difference, that, in passing from small to great, they are not required in the same degree of perfection. This remark serves to explain the extreme delight we have in viewing the face of nature, when sufficiently enriched and diversified with objects. The bulk of the objects in a natural landscape are beautiful, and some of them grand a flowing river, a spreading oak, a round hill, an extended

218. Emotions of grandeur and beauty distinguished.-Why regularity, proportion, &c., are not so essential to grandeur as to beauty.--Terms great, grand, and sublime, defined

and illustrated.

plain, are delightful; and even a rugged rock or barren heath, though in themselves disagreeable, contribute by contrast to the beauty of the whole joining to these the verdure of the fields, the mixture of light and shade, and the sublime canopy spread over all, it will not appear wonderful, that so extensive a group of splendid objects should swell the heart to its utmost bounds, and raise the strongest emotion of grandeur. The spectator is conscious of an enthusiasm, which cannot bear confinement, nor the strictness of regularity and order: he loves to range at large; and is so enchanted with magnificent objects, as to overlook slight beauties or deformities.

215. The same observation is applicable in some measure to works of art in a small building, the slightest irregularity is disagreeable; but, in a magnificent palace, or a large Gothic church, irregularities are less regarded; in an epic poem we pardon many negligences that would not be permitted in a sonnet or epigram. Notwithstanding such 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 observation of Longinus (chapter xxx.), "In works of art we have regard to exact proportion; in those of nature, to grandeur and magnificence."

:

The same reflections are in a good measure applicable to sublimity; particularly, that, like grandeur, it is a species of agreeableness; that a beautiful object placed high, appearing more agreeable than formerly, produces in the spectator a new emotion, termed the emotion of sublimity; and that the perfection of order, regularity, and proportion, is less required in objects placed high, or at a distance, than at hand.

216. The pleasant emotion raised by large objects, has not escaped the poets:

He doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs.

Julius Cæsar, Act I. Sc. 8.

Cleopatra. I dreamt there was an Emp'ror Antony:
Oh such another sleep, that I might see

But such another man!

His face was as the heavens: and therein stuck

A sun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted
The little O o' the earth.

His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear'd arm

Crested the world.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. Sc. 8.

214 Illustrated by the experiment of approaching a hill-How it is in passing from the sight of small to that of great objects.-The delight found in viewing the face of nature, explained.

15. Observations in regard to works of art. Also in regard to sublimity.

To whose huge spokes, ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoin'd; which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist'rous ruin.

Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 8.

The poets have also made good use of the emotion produced by the elevated situation of an object:

Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseres,
Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

Horat. Carm. L. I. Ode I.

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

Richard II. Act I. Sc. 4.

Antony. Why was I raised the meteor of the world,
Hung in the skies, and blazing as I travell'd,

Till all my fires were spent; and then cast downward,
To be trod out by Cæsar?-Dryden, All for Love, Act I.

The description of Paradise in the fourth book of Paradise Lost,
is a fine illustration of the impression made by elevated objects:
So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness; whose hairy sides,
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verd'rous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighb'ring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row

Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,

Appear'd with gay enamell'd colors mix'd.-B. iv. l. 131.

217. Though a grand object is agreeable, we must not infer that a little object is disagreeable; which would be unhappy for man, considering that he is surrounded with so many objects of that kind. The same holds with respect to place: a body placed high is agreeable; but the same body placed low is not by that circumstance rendered disagreeable. Littleness and lowness of place are precisely similar in the following particular, that they neither give pleasure nor pain. And in this may visibly be discovered peculiar attention in fitting the internal constitution of man to his external circumstances were littleness and lowness of place agreeable, greatness

216. Pleasant emotions raised by large objects illustrated from the poets; those also raised by high objects, especially from Paradise Lost

and elevation could not be so; were littleness and lowness of place disagreeable, they would occasion perpetual uneasiness.

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 progress from the capital to the kingdom, from that to Europe-to the whole earth-to the planetary system-to the universe, is extremely pleasant; the heart swells and the mind is dilated at every step. The returning in an opposite direction is not positively painful, though our pleasure lessens at every step till it vanish into indifference: such a progress may sometimes produce pleasure of a different sort, which arises from taking a narrower and narrower inspection. The same observation holds in a progress upward and downward. Ascent is pleasant because it elevates us: but descent is never painful; it is for the most part pleasant from a different cause, that it is according to the order of nature. The fall of a stone from any height is extremely agreeable by its accelerated motion. I feel it pleasant to descend from a mountain, because the descent is natural and easy. 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 so far below as to create dizziness; and even when that is the case we feel a sort of pleasure mixed with the pain. Witness Shakspeare's description of Dover Cliffs:

-How fearful

And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows and chouglis, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach,
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy

Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight

Topple down headlong.-King Lear, Act. IV. Sc. 6.

218. A remark is made above that the emotions of grandeur and sublimity are nearly allied. And hence it is that the one term is frequently put for the other: an increasing series of numbers, for example, producing an emotion similar to that of mounting upward, is commonly termed an ascending series; a series of numbers gradually decreasing, producing an emotion similar to that of going downward, is commonly termed a descending series. We talk familiarly of going up to the capital, and of going down to the country: from a lesser kingdom we talk of going up to a greater; whence the anabasis in the Greek language, when one travels from Greece

217. Comparison between great and small, high and low objects, as to agreeableness.Progress in an advancing series from one extreme to another, and in reverse order, as to agreeableness.-Progress upward and downward.--Shakspeare's description of Dover Cliffs.

to Persia. We discover the same way of speaking in the language even of Japan; and it universally proves it the offspring of a natural feeling.

219. The foregoing observation leads us to consider grandeur and sublimity in a figurative sense, and as applicable to the fine arts. Hitherto these terms have been taken in their proper sense as applicable to objects of sight only; and it was of importance to bestow some pains upon that article, because, generally speaking, the figurative sense of a word is derived from its proper sense, which holds remarkably at present. Beauty, in its original signification, is confined to objects of sight; but as many other objects, intellectual as well as moral, raise emotions resembling that of beauty, the resemblance of the effects prompts us to extend the term beauty to these objects. This equally accounts for the terms grandeur and sublimity taken in a figurative sense. Every emotion, from whatever cause proceeding, that resembles an emotion of grandeur or elevation, is called by the same name: thus generosity is said to be an elevated emotion, as well as great courage; and that firmness of soul, which is superior to misfortunes, obtains the peculiar name of magnanimity. On the other hand, every emotion that contracts the mind and fixeth it upon things trivial or of no importance, is termed low, by its resemblance to an emotion produced by a little or low object of sight; thus an appetite for trifling amusements is called a low taste. The same terms are applied to characters and actions: we talk familiarly of an elevated genius, of a great man, and equally so of littleness of mind: some actions are great and elevated, and others are little and grovelling. Sentiments, and even expressions, are characterized in the same manner; an expression or sentiment

*Kempfer's History of Japan, b. v. chap. 2.

[Cousin gives the following classification of the objects of beauty:

"Among sensible objects, colors, sounds, figures, movements, are capable of producing the idea and the sentiment of the beautiful. All these beauties are arranged under that species of beauty, which, right or wrong, is called physical beauty.

"If, from the world of sense, we elevate ourselves to that of mind, truth, and science, we shall find there beauties more severe, but not less real. The universal laws that govern bodies, those that govern intelligences, the great principles that contain and produce long deductions, the genius that creates in the artist, poet, or philosopher,-all these are beautiful, as well as nature herself: this is what is called intellectual beauty.

"Finally, if we consider the moral world and its laws, the idea of liberty, virtue, and devotedness; here the austere justice of an Aristides, there the heroism of a Leonidas, the prodigies of charity or of patriotism, we shall certainly find a third order of beauty that still surpasses the other two, to wit, moral beauty.

"Neither let us forget to apply to all these beauties the distinct.on between the beautiful and the sublime. There are, then, the beautiful and the sublime at once in nature, in ideas, in sentiments, in actions. What an almost infinite variety in beauty!"-Lect. vi. pp. 143-4.]

218. Emotions of grandeur and sublimity nearly allied.-Increasing series of numbers termed ascending, &c.