14 6 Dr. Barnes on the Pleafure fometimes felt 
by apt and ftriking defcription, we regard with 
fomething of the fame feelings, with which we 
look upon a dead monfter. 
...-........ Informe cadaver 
Protrahitur: nequeunt expleri corda tuendo 
Teriibiles oculos, vultum, villofaque fetis 
Pedtora femiferi, atque extindtos faucibus ignes. 
Virgil. 
<c This, he obferves, is more particularly the 
cafe, where the defciiption raifes a ferment in the 
mind, and works with violence upon the pafiions. 
One would wonder, adds he, how it comes to 
pafs, that paHions, which are very unpleafant at 
all other times, are very agreeable , when excited 
by proper defcription *, fuch as terror, deje&ion, 
grief, &c. This pleafure arifes from the reflexion 
we make upon ourfelves, whilft reading it, that 
we are not in danger from them. When we read 
of wounds, death, &c. our pleafure does not rife 
fo properly, from the grief y which tlvefe melan¬ 
choly defcriptions give us, as from the fecret 
comparifon we make of ourfelves, with thofe who 
fuffer. We fhould not feel th t fame kind of pleafure, 
if we ablually Jcnv a perfon lyTg under the tor¬ 
tures, that we meet with in a defcription.” 
And yet, upon the principle aligned by this 
amiable writer, we might feel the fame, or even 
higher pleafure, from the aftual view of diftrefs, 
than 
