185 



sublime in nature, when those causes ope- 

 rate most powerfully, is astonishment; and 

 astonishment is that state of the soul, in 

 which all its motions are suspended with 

 some degree of horror. This is the effect 

 of the sublime in its highest degree : the in- 

 ferior effects are admiration, reverence, and 

 respect. Mr. Burke then goes through the' 

 principal causes of the sublime — obscurity : 

 power; all general privations, as vacuity, 

 darkness, solitude, silence ; then considers 

 greatness of dimension ; infinity; the artifi- 

 cial infinite, as arising from uniformity and 

 succession; and, lastly, the effects of colour* 

 of light, as well as of its opposite darkness, 

 in producing the sublime. If even the bare 

 enumeration of these causes of our strong- 

 est emotions has something striking in it, 

 what must they be, when set forth and il- 

 lustrated by a writer of the most splendid 

 and poetical imagination, that ever adorned 

 this, or, perhaps, any other, country j 



The other head under which Mr. Burke 

 classes the passions, that of Society, he di- 

 vides into two sorts— the society of the 



