MOUNTAINS. 



MOUNTAIN scenery has always been admired, and 

 will never cease to charm the eyes and excite the ima- 

 gination even of the dullest of mankind. However re- 

 luctant we might feel to be surrounded by contiguous 

 mountains, and imprisoned in their valleys, we are all 

 delighted with a journey that leads us through their 

 romantic passes and over their fearful heights. Every 

 stage in our progress opens a new scene to our eyes, amus- 

 ing us alternately with confined and extensive views, on 

 the outside of a range often sublime, and affecting the 

 mind with a singular exhilaration. Great altitude is one 

 of the most remarkable sources of sublimity arising from 

 position ; and the emotions produced by it are the more 

 vivid, when we have just emerged from some green pas- 

 toral valley. 



Mountains, except on the outside of a range, are un- 

 favorable to extensive prospects, and the sublimity of this 

 kind of scenery cannot be felt when passing along through 

 their valleys. Prospects of the grandest description are 

 frequent ; but the inhabitants are for the most part shut 

 out from all chance to look abroad upon the earth, or even 

 to see the rising and the setting sun. The distant view 

 of a mountain rising into the clouds, and enveloped in a 

 misty obscurity that enhances our conception of its mag- 

 nitude, is always attended with an emotion of grandeur, 

 very similar to what is felt on viewing the surrounding 

 landscape from its higher elevations. A sense of sub- 

 limity may thus be excited in imaginative minds by con- 



