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and his generofity overpowered the mind of Enobarbu?, who h:id 

 dcferted hi in in his laft diftrefs. His taints and honours waged 

 equal with him. Such is the charader of Antony, as Shakefpeare 

 has tal<en it from the impartial account of Plutarch, and not 

 from the exnfperated eloquence of Cicero. In this foliloquy he 

 pours forth the genuine fentiments of his heart. His affedionate 

 attachment to Csefar fuggefts to him an animated and flrong 

 conception of the calamities which fhould overwhelm his coun- 

 try ; of that dot}ie/iic fury and fierce civil firife which fliould 

 cumber all the farts of Italy. In the latter part of the fpeech 

 there is indeed prefented to us a dired: pidure of revenge. It 

 muft however be obferved that Cafars Jpirit^ with Ate by his fide, 

 come hot fircm hell, does not exhibit to us human palTions. Thus 

 rcprefented we regard him as a fuperior being ; and though the 

 vengeance of a mortal could not give us an elevated idea of his 

 charadler, we may bow with reverential awe before the terrors 

 of a deftroying Angel. At the fame time I will alfo admit, with 

 Dodor Stack, that amongft thofe with whom revenge is virtue, it 

 is a dired objed of fublime conception. Junius tells us that an 

 infult lowers the mind in its own opinion, and fiorces it to recover 

 its level by revenge. To thofe who think with the acrimony of 

 that elegant writer, the fpirit of vengeance is an exaltation of 

 the human charader, and therefore, without any variation in the 

 principle, muft, to their vitiated minds, give impreflions of moral 

 fublimity. 



This effay, on the Origin and Nature of our Idea of the Sub- 

 lime, has been reduced, as nearly as poffible, to the ftridnefs of 

 philofophical reafoning. The opinions of difterent writers have 



been 



