By greatness, I do not only mean the bulk of any fingle object, but the largenefs of a whole view confidered as one entire piece. Such are the profpects of an open champaign country, a vaft uncultivated desert, of huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and precipices, or a wide expanfe of waters; where we are not ftruck with the novelty or beauty of the fight, but with that rude kind of magnificence which appears in many of thefe ftupendous works of nature. Our imagination loves to be filled with an object, or to grafp at any thing that is too big for its capacity. We are flung into a pleafing aftonishment at fuch unbounded views, and feel a delightful ftillness and amazement in the foul at the apprehenfions of them. The mind of man naturally hates every thing that looks like a restraint upon it, and is apt to fancy itfelf under a fort of confinement, when the fight is pent up in a narrow compafs, and fhortened on every fide by the neighbourhood of walls or mountains On the contrary, a fpacious horizon is an image of li berty, where the eye has room to range abroad, to expatiate at large on the immenfity of its views, and to lofe itself amidst the variety of objects that offer themfelves to its obfervation. Such wide and undetermined profpects are as pleafing to the fancy as the fpeculations of eternity or infinitude are to the understanding. But if there be a beauty or uncommonnefs joined with this grandeur, as in a troubled ocean, a heaven adorned with itars and meteors, or a fpacious landscape cut out into rivers, woods, rocks, and meadows, the pleasure ftill grows upon us, as it rifes from more than a fingle principle.

Every thing that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the foul with an agreeable furprife, gratifies its curiofity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before poffeffed. We are indeed fo often converfant with one fet of objects, and tired out with fo many repeated shows of the fame things, that whatever is new or uncommon contributes a little to vary human life, and to divert our minds for a while with the strangeness of its appearance; it ferves us for a kind of refreshinent, and takes off from that fatiety we are apt to complain of in our ufual and ordinary enter

tainments.

PART I. tainments. It is this that beftows charms on a monster, and makes even the imperfections of nature please us. It is this that recommends variety, where the mind is every instant called off to fomething new, and the attention not fuffered to dwell too long, and waste itself on any particular object: it is this likewife, that improves what is great or beautiful, and makes it afford the mind a double entertainment. Groves, fields, and meadows, are at any season of the year pleafant to look upon; but never fo much as in the opening of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their firft glofs upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the eye. For this reason there is nothing that more enlivens a profpect than rivers, jetteaus, or falls of water, where the fcene is perpetually fhifting, and entertaining the fight every moment with fomething that We are quickly tired with looking upon hills and valleys, where every thing continues fixed and fettled in the fame place and pofture, but find our thoughts a little agitated and relieved at the fight of fuch objects as are ever in motion, and fliding away from beneath the eye of the beholder.

is new.

But there is nothing that makes its way more directly to the foul than beauty, which immediately diffufes a fecret fatisfaction and complacency through the imagination, and gives a finifhing to any thing that is great or uncommon. The very firft difcovery of it ftrikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties. There is not perhaps any real beauty or deformity more in one piece of matter than another; because we might have been so made, that whatsoever now appears loathfome to us might have fhown itself agreeable; but we find by experience, that there are several modifications of matter, which the mind, without any previous confideration, pronounces at the first fight beautiful or deformed. Thus we fee that every different fpecies of fenfible creatures has its different notions of beauty, and that each of them is moft affected with the beauties of its own kind. This is no where more remarkable than in birds of the fame fhape and proportion, where we often fee the male determined in his courtship by the fingle grain or tincture

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of a feather, and never difcovering any charms but in the colour of its fpecies.

There is a fecond kind of beauty that we find in the feveral products of art and nature, which does not work in the imagination with that warmth and violence as the beauty that appears in our proper fpecies, but is apt, however, to raise in us a fecret delight, and a kind of fondnefs for the places or objects in which we discover it. This confifts either in the gaiety or variety of colours, in the fymmetry and proportion of parts, in the arrangement and difpofition of bodies, or in a juft mixture and concurrence of all together. Among these feveral kinds of beauty the eye takes most delight in colours. We no where meet with a more glorious or pleafing fhow in nature, than what appears in the heavens at the rifing and fetting of the fun, which is wholly made up of those different ftains of light that fhow themfelves in clouds of a different fituation. For this reafon we find the poets, who are always addreffing themfelves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic.

As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, frange, or beautiful, and is fill more pleafed the more it finds of thefe perfections in the fame object; fo it is capable of receiving a new fatisfaction by the affiftance of another fenfe. Thus any continued found, as the mufic of birds, or a fall of water, awakens every moment the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the feveral beauties of the place that lie be fore him. Thus, if there arife a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleafures of the imagination, and make even the colours and verdure of the landfcape appear more agreeable: for the ideas of both fenfes recommend each other, and are pleafanter together than when they enter the mind feparately; as the different colours of a picture, when they are well difpofed, fet off one another, and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of their fituation.

X. Liberty and Slavery.

DISGUISE thyfelf as thou wilt, ftill Slavery! ftill thou art a bitter draught; and though thoufands in all'

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ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddefs! whom all, in public or in private, worship; whofe tafte is grateful, and ever will be fo till nature herself fhall change. No tint of words can spot thy fnowy mantle, or chymic power turn, thy fceptre into iron. With thee to fmile upon him as he eats his cruft, the fwain is happier than his monarch, from whofe court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven! grant me but health, thou great bestower of it! and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and fhower down thy mitres, if it feem good unto thy divine Providence, upon thofe heads which are aching for them.

Pursuing these ideas, I fat down close by my table and, leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miferies of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and fo I gave full fcope to my imagina

tion.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellowcreatures, born to no inheritance but flavery; but, finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of fad groups in it did but diftract me, I took a single captive; and, having first fhut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door, to take his picture.

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I beheld his body half wafted away with long expectation and confinement; and felt what kind of fickness of the heart it is which arifes from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I faw him pale and feverish. In thirty years, the western breeze had not once fanned his blood

he had feen no fun, no moon, in all that time—nor had the voice of friend or kinfman breathed through his lattice. His children-But here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was fitting upon the ground, upon a little ftraw in the fartheft corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little calendar of fmall sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the difmal days and nights he had paffed there. He had one of thefe little flicks in his hand; and, with a rusty nail, he

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was etching another day of mifery, to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopelefs eye towards the door-then caft it down-hook his head and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little ftick upon the bundle. He gave a deep figh.-I faw the iron enter into his foul.-I burst into tears.-1 could not fustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

XI. The Cant of Criticism.

AND how did Garrick speak the foliloquy last night? Oh, against all rule, my Lord; moit ungrammatically! Betwixt the fubftantive and adjective (which fhould agree together, in number, cafe, and gender) he made a breach thus-ftopping as if the point wanted fettling. And after the nominative cafe (which your Lordship knows fhould govern the verb) he fufpended his voice in the epilogue, a dozen times, three feconds and three fifths, by a top-watch, my Lord, each time-Admirable grammarian !-But, in fufpending his voice, was the fenfe fufpended likewife? Did no ex-preffion of attitude or countenance fill up the chafin?: Was the eye filent? Did you narrowly look?-I looks ed only at the ftop-watch, my Lord. Excellent obfer-ver!

And what of this new book the whole world makes fuch a rout about?-Oh! 'tis out of all plumb, my Lord, --quite an irregular thing!-not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. I had my rule and compaffes, my Lord, in my pocket.-Excellent critic!

And, for the epic poem your Lordship bid me look at,-upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth. of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bolfu's 'tis out, my Lord, in every one of its dimenfions. Admirable connoiffeur !

And did you step in to take a look at the grand picture in your way back?-Tis a melancholy daub, my Lord: not one principle of the pyramid in any one group! And what a price!—for there is nothing of the colouring of Titian-the expreffion of Rubens-the grace of Raphael-the purity of Dominichino-the corregiefcity

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