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•• duced by the view of grand objeds in nature, filling the mind 

 " with admiration and elevating it above itfelf." From this 

 clafs terror appears to me to be excluded. The affedions and 

 adions which it comprizes are not thofe of a mind alarmed by 

 apprehenfion, nor are they fitted to excite fentiraents of fear. 

 An heroic difregard of danger, a cool and firm prefence of mind 

 in difficult and embarrafilng circumftances, a difinterefted and 

 expanded benevolence, with a ftrong fenfe of every generous 

 feeling, and a principle of virtue fuperior to the opinions of 

 weak and corrupt men, and to the inordinate propcnfities of our 

 nature, are the moral qualities which form the fiiblime of human 

 charader. To thefe perhaps fhould be added thofe qualities 

 which are confidered as belonging to the imagination or under- 

 ftanding. Shakefpeare's defcription of poetic fancy will, I think, 

 juftify its admifllon, and the charader of fublimity will fcarcely 

 be denied to the intelledual powers of Newton. When I fay 

 that terror is excluded from this clafs, I would be underftood to 

 fpeak only with reference to a manly mind. Habitual fervility 

 may poflibly efface the recolledion of the common nature of the 

 fpecies, and caufe a man to look up to his fellow-man with fen- 

 timents of awful fubmiflion ; but he who pofTeffes a manly 

 mind will feparate the confideration of the individual from that 

 of his ftation, and whilft he will fliew for the latter that deference 

 which the well-being of fociety requires, he will feel for the 

 former no other fentiments of refped than thofe which are due 

 to qualities which exalt and adorn the charader of man. Sub- 

 lime objeds of this clafs infpire us with more elevated emotions 



than 



