What arises hence?

What is a climax ?

What is the effect of excessive grandeur or sublimity?

Of excessive elevation?

Does revenge produce a sublime emotion?

Give a picture of revenge.

Give a rule for reaching the sublime.

What is this judicious selection called?

Where is the greatest scope for this rule
Give an example.

To what other arts is the rule applicable?

What other rule is given?

What is the exception to this rule?

What principle is illustrated by the quotation from the Tempest? What observations are made on it?

What is bombast?

Give an example.

What is another species of false sublime?

What writers use it?

What is the natural effect of the sublime on the mind?

For what fact does this account?

CHAPTER V.

Motion and Force.

MOTION is agreeable to the eye; yet is a body at rest not disagreeable, because the bulk of things we see are at rest. Motion is agreeable in all its varieties the quickest for an instant is delightful, but soon appears too rapid, and becomes painful by accelerating the course of our perceptions. Regular motion is preferred to irregular motion; and uniformly accelerated motion is more agreeable than when uniformly retarded. Motion upward is agreeable by tending to elevation; in a straight line it is agreeable, but more so when undulating, and the motion of fluids is preferred to that of solid bodies.

It is agreeable to see a thing exert force; but it makes not the thing either agreeable or disagreeable, to see force exerted upon

it.

Though motion and force are each of them agreeable, the impressions they make are different. This

difference, clearly felt, is not easily described. All we can say is, that the emotion raised by a moving body, resembling its cause, is felt as if the mind were carried along the emotion raised by force exerted, resembling also its cause, is felt as if force were exerted within the mind.

When great force is exerted, the effort felt is animating; and when the effort overpowers the mind, as the explosion of gunpowder, the violence of a torrent, in the weight of a mountain, and the crush of an earthquake, astonishment is created rather than pleasure.

No quality or circumstance contributes more to grandeur than force, especially where exerted by sensible beings. I cannot make the observation more evident than by the following quotations:

-Him the Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

PARADISE LOST.-BOOK I.

-Now storming fury rose,

And clamor such as heard in heaven till now
Was never: arms on armor clashing bray'd
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots rag'd; dire was the noise
Of conflict; over-head the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rush'd
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage; all heaven
Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth
Had to her centre shook.
IBID.-BOOK VI

The planetary system presents us with the finest view of motion and force in conjunction; but motion and force are also agreeable by their utility, when employed as means to accomplish some beneficial end. Hence the superior beauty of some machines, where force and motion concur to perform the work of numberless hands. Hence the beautiful motions, firm and regular, of a horse trained for war: every single step

is the fittest that can be for obtaining the purposed end. But the grace of motion is visible chiefly in man, because every gesture is significant. The power however of agreeable motion is not a common talent: every limb of the human body has an agreeable and disagreeable motion; some motions being extremely graceful, others plain and vulgar; some expressing dignity, others meanness. But the pleasure here, arising not singly from the beauty of motion, but from indicating character and sentiment, belongs to different chapters.

I should conclude with the final cause of the relish we have for motion and force, were it not so evident as to require no explanation. We are placed here in such circumstances as to make industry essential to our well-being; for without industry the plainest necessaries of life are not obtained. When our situation, therefore, in this world requires activity and a constant exertion of motion and force, Providence indulgently provides for our welfare by making these agreeable to us: it would be a gross imperfection in our nature, to make any thing disagreeable that we depend on for existence; and even indifference would slacken greatly that degree of activity which is indispensable.

REVIEW.

Is motion agreeable to the eye?

What sorts of motion are, most agreeable?

Is force agreeable?

Describe the emotion caused by it.

What is the effect of great and overpowering force?

Give examples of the sublime effect of force.

What affords the finest view of united motion and force?
Give examples of the agreeable effect of useful force.
Where is grace chiefly visible?

Why has Providence made motion and force agreeable?

CHAPTER VI.

Novelty and the unexpected Appearance of Objects.

EXCEPT beauty and greatness, novelty has the most powerful influence to raise emotions. A new object produces an emotion of wonder, which is different from admiration, because this last is directed to the person who performs any thing wonderful. We cease to wonder at objects with which we are familiarized by time. When any thing breaks unexpectedly upon the mind, it raises an emotion of surprise.

That emotion may be produced by the most familiar object, as when one unexpectedly meets a friend who was reported to be dead; or a man in high life lately a beggar. On the other hand, a new object, however strange, will not produce the emotion, if the spectator be prepared for the sight; an elephant in India will not surprise a traveller who goes to see one; and yet its novelty will raise his wonder: an Indian in Britain would be much surprised to stumble upon an elephant feeding at large in the open fields; but the creature itself, to which he was accustomed, would not raise his wonder.

Surprise thus in several respects differs from wonder: unexpectedness is the cause of the former emotion; novelty is the cause of the latter. They perfectly agree in the shortness of their duration; for things soon decay that come soon to perfection.

New objects are sometimes terrible, sometimes delightful; and a threatening object adds to our terror by its novelty; but from that experiment it does not follow, that novelty is in itself disagreeable; for it is perfectly consistent, that we be delighted with an object in one view, and terrified with it in another: a river in flood swelling over its banks, is a grand and delightful object; and yet it may produce no small degree of fear when we attempt to cross it: courage and

magnanimity are agreeable; and yet, when we view these qualities in an enemy, they serve to increase our terror. In the same manner, novelty may produce two effects clearly distinguishable from each other: it may, directly and in itself, be agreeable; and it may have an opposite effect indirectly, which is, to inspire terror; for when a new object appears in any degree dangerous, our ignorance of its powers and qualities affords ample scope for the imagination to dress it in the most frightful colors. The first sight of a lion, for example, may at the same instant produce two opposite feelings, the pleasant emotion of wonder, and the painful passion of terror: the novelty of the object produces the former directly, and contributes to the latter indirectly. Thus, when the subject is analyzed, we find, that the power which novelty hath indirectly to inflame terror, is perfectly consistent with its being in every circumstance agreeable. Surprise may be pleasant or painful, for its sole effect is to swell the emotion raised by the object. A tide of connected objects gliding gently into the mind, produces no perturbation but an object breaking in unexpectedly, sounds an alarm, rouses the mind, and directs its whole attention to the object, which, if agreeable, becomes doubly so.

The pleasure of novelty is distinguishable from that of variety; to produce the latter, a plurality of objects is necessary: the former arises from a circumstance found in a single object. Again, where objects, whether coexistent or in succession, are sufficiently diversified, the pleasure of variety is complete, though every single object of the train be familiar; but the pleasure of novelty, directly opposite to familiarity, requires no diversification.

There are different degrees of novelty, and its effects are in proportion. The lowest degree is found in ob jects surveyed a second time after a long interval: and that in this case an object takes on some appearance of novelty, is certain from experience: a large build