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is one clafs whofe grandeur, in fome cafes, confifts in its abfence. 

 In the noble defcription of a firm and intrepid mind, which the 

 patriotifm of Horace has given us, every circumftance of terror is 

 indeed introduced, but only for the purpofe of more confpicu- 

 oufly difplaying unftiaken magnanimity. To fay that terror is 

 the principle of the fublimity of this defcription which exhibits 

 to us a mind unmoved by the menaces of a mob or a tyrant, 

 by the violence of natural caufes and even by the power of the 

 Divinity, would, in my opinion, be to ftrain in fupport of an 

 hypothefis. Conceive thofe circumftances of terror to have their 

 cffed, and the capital obje6l in the pidure, the moral fublimity 

 of a great mind, is annihilated. Befides fuch inftances, in which 

 the abfence of terror appears to conftitute the fublime, there are 

 others which have no apparent connedion with terror, as the 

 view of a fpacious plain or of the ftarry heaven ; and in many 

 painful and terrible objeds, as Dodor Blair has obferved, there 

 is no fort of grandeur. 



The emotion of terror, which this author confiders as the ruling 

 principle of the fublime, is, by Dodor Prieftley, wholly excluded. 

 " The pure fublime," according to him, " tends to fix the atten- 

 " tion and to keep the mind in a kind of aivfitl Jiillnefs^ whereas 

 " it is the nature of every fpecies of the pathetic to throw it 

 " into an agitation" In this he appears to me to have com- 

 mitted an error fimilar to that of the writer whom I have lafl 

 confidered, by extending to the fubHme in general that difpofition 

 of mind with which fome fublime objeds are contemplated. I 

 do not difpute the fublimity which he attributes to Young's 

 defcription of night, but I think that cafes might be mentioned 



in 



