STUDY XIII. 157 



widely from the fmile of Nature. It is not, like 

 this laft, the ejflfed of fome agreeable harmony in 

 OUT fenfations, or in our fentiments : but it is the 

 refult of a harflb contraft between two objeds, 

 of which the one is great, the otlier little j of which 

 the one is powerful, and the other feeble. It is 

 remarkably fingular, that ridicule is produced by 

 the very Came oppofitions which produce terror ; 

 with this difference, that in ridicule, the mind 

 makes a tranfition from an object that is formi- 

 dable, to one that is frivolous, and, in terror, from 

 an objeft that is frivolous to one that is formidable. 

 The afpic of Cleopatra^ in a baiket of fruit ; the 

 fingers of the hand which wrote, amidft the mad- 

 nefs of a feftivity, the doom of Beljloazzar ; the 

 found of the bell which announces the death of 

 Clarijja ; the foot of a (iwage imprinted, in a de- 

 fert ifland, upon the fand, fcare the imagination 

 infinitely more than all the horrid apparatus of 

 battles, executions, maffacres and death. Accord- 

 ingly, in order to imprefs an awful terror, a frivo- 

 lous and unimportant objed: ought to be firft ex- 

 hibited ; and in order to excite exceffive mirth, 

 you ought to begin with a folemn idea. To this 

 may be farther added fome other contraft, fuch as 

 that of furpize, and fome one of thofe fentiments 

 which plunge us into infinity, fuch as that of myftcry; 

 in this cafe, the foul, having loft it's equilibrium, 

 precipitates itfelf into terror, or into mirth, accord- 

 ing to the arrangement which has been made for it. 



We 



