BEAUTY AND SUBLIMITY. 17 



over it, from bank to bank, and then suddenly sparkling in 

 the open sunshine, as if with a still brighter current than 

 before. Let us trace it, till it widens to a majestic river, of 

 which the waters are tlie boundary of two flourishing em- 

 pires, conveying abundance equally to each, while city suc- 

 ceeds city, on its populous shores, almost with the same ra- 

 pidity as grove formerly succeeded grove. Let us next be- 

 hold it losing itself in the immensity of the ocean, which 

 seems to be only an expansion of itself, when there is not an 

 object to be seen but its own wide amplitude, between the 

 banks which it leaves, and the sun that is setting, as if in 

 another world, in the remote horizon ; — in all this course, 

 from the brook to the boundless waste of waters, — if we 

 were to trace and contemplate the whole continued progress, 

 we should have a series of emotions. The emotions which 

 rose, when we regarded the fiarroio stream, would be those 

 which we class as emotions of beaut?/. The emotions which 

 rose when we considered that infinity of waters, in which it 

 was ultimately lost, would be of the kind which we deno- 

 minate sublimit?/ ; and the grandeur of the river, while it 

 was still distinguishable from the ocean, to which it was pro- 

 ceeding, might be viewed with feelings, to which, on the 

 same principle of distinction, some other name or names 

 might be given. 



The same progressive series of feelings, which may thus 

 be traced as we contemplate works of nature, is not less evi- 

 dent in the contemplation of works of human art, whether 

 that art has been employed in material things, or be purely 

 intellectual. From the cottage to the cathedral — from the 

 simplest ballad air, to the harmony of a choral anthem — from 

 a pastoral to an epic poem or tragedy — from a landscape to 

 a cartoon, — in each case there is a wide interval, and you 

 may easily perceive, that, merely by adding what seemed 

 degree after degree, you arrive at last at emotions which 

 have little apparent resemblance to the emotions with which 

 the scale began. 



In the moral scene the progression is equally evident. 

 Let us suppose, for example, that in the famine of an a;my, 

 a soldier divides his scanty allowance with one of his com- 

 rades, whose health is sinking under the privation. We feel 

 in the contemplation of this action, a pleasure, which is that 

 of moral beauty. In proportion as we imagine the famine 

 3* 



