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powerfully seizes on the imagination, and 

 rivets the attention, I believe almost every 

 voice will give it for Macbeth. In that 

 all is terror; and therefore either Aristotle, 

 Longinus, Shakspeare, and Burke, or Mr. 

 G. Mason, and his learned friends, have 

 been totally wrong in their ideas of the 

 sublime, and of its causes. 



That the same principle prevails in all 

 natural scenery, has been so fully and 

 clearly explained by Mr. Burke, that any 

 further arguments seem superfluous; yet 

 as it sometimes happens, that what is 

 placed in a different, though less striking 

 light, may chance to make an impression 

 on particular minds, I will mention a few 

 things which have occurred to me. I am 

 persuaded that it would be difficult to 

 conceive any set of ol jects, to which, how- 

 ever grand in themselves, an addition of ter- 

 ror would not give a higher degree of sublim- 

 ity ; and surely that must be a cause, and a 

 principal cause, the increase of which in- 

 creases the effect, the absence of which, 

 weakens, or destroys it. The sea is at all 



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