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ed on principles of awe and terror, never 

 descends to any thing light or playful ; 

 the picturesque, whose characteristics are 

 intricacy and variety, is equally adapted 

 to the grandest, and to the gayest scenery. 

 Infinity is one of the most efficient causes 

 of the sublime ; the boundless ocean, for 

 that reason, inspires awful sensations: to 

 give it picturesqueness, you must destroy 

 that cause of its sublimity; for it is on the 

 shape and disposition of its boundaries, 

 that the picturesque must in great mea* 

 sure depend. 



Uniformity, which is so great an enemy 

 to the picturesque, is not only compatible 

 w r ith the sublime, but often the cause of 

 it. That general, equal gloom which is 

 spread over all nature before a storm, 

 with the stillness, so nobly described by 

 Shakspeare, is in the highest degree sub- 

 lime*. The picturesque requires greater 



* And as we often see against a storm 

 A silence in the heavens, the wrack stand still, 

 The bold winds spi echless, and the orb itself 

 As hush as death — anon the dreadful thunder 

 Does rend the region. 



