ner, but eventuates in being frightful, at that moment, he becomes invested with an extraordinary charm. This remark is applicable even to animals. An ox at the plough, a horse at the cart, a dog, are common objects; but if we excite the ox to battle, if we put a gentle horse in a rage, or if we see an infuriated dog, then these animals become exalted to æsthetic objects, and we begin to observe them with a feeling that borders on pleasure and esteem. The general inclination of all mankind for what is passionate the power of sympathetic feeling which draws us in the Nature at the sight of grief, of alarm, and of horror, which has so much charm for us in Art, which allures us to the theatre, which gives us such a relish for the delineation of great misfortunes—all these things are evidence of a fourth source of enjoyment which neither the Agreeable, the Good nor the Beautiful can produce.

All the instances above cited have something objective in the feeling which they excite within us common with others. In every case we receive the image of something "that either overcomes, or threatens to overcome our sensuous power of comprehension, or our sensuous power of resistance," while at the same time this pre-eminence does not drive either of the two powers to a depression, neither discourages within us the effort at comprehension or of resistance. A multifarious peculiarity is there presented to us, which drives us to the limits of our faculties of comprehension, in order to embrace them together in unity. A power appears before us here, against which our own disappears, but with which we are compelled to assimilate. Either it is an object which presents itself to, and immediately withdraws from our faculties of comprehension, and arouses an effort to obtain the image, without permitting an entertainment of a hope of satisfaction, or it is an object which appears to rise up in hostility against our existence, challenges us out as it were to battle, and makes us apprehensive about the issue. The same effect is also visible on the faculties

of sensibility in all of the above cited cases. All put the disposition of the mind in an uneasy commotion, and on a stretch. A certain earnestness, which may amount to solemnity, takes possession of our soul itself, and while it shows significant traces of anguish in the sensuous organs, plunges the meditating spirit back within itself, and appears to rely on an exalted consciousness of its own self-sustaining power and worth. This consciousness must by all means be overpowering, when the grandeur or horror of it is worthy of æsthetic merit. Now because the disposition of the mind is inspired by such images, and feels itself exalted above itself, we denote it with the name of the Sublime, although the object itself objectively, presents nothing sublime, and it were more becoming to call it exalting.

When an object may be said to exalt, it must be placed in opposition to our sensuous faculties. But in general we may allow two different relations which the thing may bear towards our sen

suality, and conformably to these there must be also two different kinds of resistance. Either it is to be viewed as an object of which we would procure a knowledge for ourselves, or contemplated as a power with which we compare ourselves. According to this division there are two kinds of the Sublime, the Sublime of Knowledge, and the Sublime of Power.

But now the sensuous faculties contribute nothing farther towards knowledge, except that they take up the material furnished, and place the manifold variety of the same together in space and time. It is the business of the understanding, and not of the power of the imagination, to separate and classify this manifold variety. There is a heterogenousness for the understanding alone. There is a homogeniousness for the power of imagination (as Sense) only, and there is also merely the abundance of homogeniousness (the quantity not the quality) which may be distinguished by the sensuous comprehension of appearances. Moreover should the sensuous faculty of perception sink under an object, it must be because the object overwhelms the power of the imagination by means of its quantity. The Sublime of Knowledge is consequently dependent upon the number or greatness, and may therefore also be called mathematical.*

[From the Cieeronean Magazine.]

EARTH'S HIGHEST STATION ENDS IN "HERE HE LIES."

BY MISS M. B. A.

Nature is but a volume inscribed to Change. 'T is revolution all. Where'er through Nature's scenes we look, the lesson is impressed, of vanity and change. Decay and dissolution tinge with evanescence the fair visage of all sublunary objects. Change, as a lordly monarch, exerts an effectual and unlimited sway over earth's wide domain. Night, from her ebon throne, draws her sable mantle over creation's ample dome; and day in turn, sways the sceptre of light, in the expulsion of darkness.

Behold this orb, of whose empire we mortals boast; how marked by change! Summer, glad and beautiful, in the gay habiliments of fresh and exuberant nature, landscapes decked with flowers and green, soon lays on the shrine of Autumn her richest offerings, and, stripped of her insignia of gay but transient empire, yields the scepter and the realm to stern Winter, who founds the glory of his dominion in the conquest of all that Summer had fostered and loved. Heralded by the blighting frosts of Autumn, he comes, and soon * See Kant's Criticism on the Power of Esthetic Judgment.

embeds in snow and ice the fields and lawns arrayed in the rich luxuriance of prodigal Summer.

Thus change and revolution have diversified the history of the universe from Creation's birth, when first breathed o'er the chaotic profound the fiat of Omnipotence, rolling into sublime existence and harmonious revolution the wheeling planets, which float in the effulgence of a million suns; when change, the mistress of wonders, swept from the brow of sleeping eternity the pall of darkness. O change! whose mandates all obey; is man too the sport of thy fancy and the victim of thy power? "T is even so. Though a sovereign prince, a being so august, so rich, so complicate, a bright miniature of etherial greatness, an heir of heavenly glory, a grand and noble "link in being's endless chain;" yet this "lord of creation," in all his magnificence of origin and destiny, is the child of weakness, and the sport of change. Soon must his royalty be laid in the dust. To him, whose fiery and impetuous thought grasps in a moment little less than the idea of the Deity, the narrow vault shall furnish a resting place, where all that is seen of him shall repose in forgetfulness. As all nature expires, so must man expire.

And is it true, that man, the noblest mechanism of God, is to pass so soon away? We must, alas! behold the throne as well as the hovel arrayed in the sack-cloth of morning. The king must relax from obedient nations his mighty sway. The sons of genius and of fame, from their more lofty eminence and firmer grasp of immortality, must descend to the grave. The daughters of beauty and loveliness, whose charms it were sacrilege to assail, must become food for worms. The votaries of wealth, refinement, and fashion, must all be leveled with the meanest slave. Nothing terrestrial can avert the gloomy, dismal end to which all are hastening. Nature recoils at its own destiny, and thus acknowledges an invisible Hand that disposes events.

O grave! how chilling the thought of thy future dominion. Art thou a ceaseless slumber? How vain, then, is ambition! Better to perish without a struggle. Why nerve every power to weave for mortality an immortal robe? How silly, too, is conscience! Its foolish whisperings bid me hope to live again. They have wrought me to yearnings for immortality, whose disappointment must be a second and more dreadful death. Ah! why this feverish longing to be something more than human? No, terrible grave! thou art the entrance to the land where this feverish being shall be unshackled and free. Then come, thou common lot of mortals! Thou hast no terrors for which thy deliverance is not a more than counterpoise.

It is natural that recollections of the pecuniary misfortunes and sufferings which attended the commercial revulsion of 1837, should make the people of this country more vigilant in observing every important movement, whether political or financial, which threatens to affect the stability and healthy condition of commerce. The large excess of imports over the amount of exports, which was made known by the financial report for the year ending 30th June, 1850; the subsequent increase of importations over corresponding months of the preceding year; the rapid increase in the number of banksand of bank loans in connection with the spirit of internal improvement, which prevails in almost every part of the country, have. produced serious apprehension in the minds of many that a revulsion, not less disastrous, perhaps, than that of 1837, is rapidly approaching. We have been attentive observers of all these facts, and notwithstanding they indicate a spirit of speculation and overtrading, yet we do not regard a serious revulsion as a necessary consequence. The present state of things has been compared to that which immediately preceded the revulsion of 1837, from which conclusions have been drawn, that a powerful reaction is inevitable; but there are many important facts distinguishing the present condition of the country from that which then existed.

The imports of 1836 exceeded the exports by $61,316,995, and for the four years preceding 1837, the excess of imports amounted to $129,744,198. The banking capital, in 1837, amounted to $290,772,092. whilst the amount of precious metals in the vaults of the banks was only $37,955,340, representing a circulation of $149,185,890,-the bank loans were estimated at $525,115,702. The population of the country was then about 15,000,000.

Now supposing other things affecting the commerce of the country to be equal, it will be seen, by contrasting these facts with those relating to the same objects in 1850, that there is but slight cause for apprehending a revulsion from any thing that has yet occurred.

In 1847 the excess of exports was $12,102,986, and the imports of the precious metals amounted to $24,124,289; in 1848 the excess of imports, including specie, was $966,797; in 1849 the excess of imports was $2,100,619, and in 1850, $26,239,598. Making the entire excess of imports for the four years ending 1851, only $29,306,914, against $129,744,198 for the four years preceding 1837.

In 1850 the banking capital in the United States was $227,069,074; specie in the vaults, $48,636,367; circulation, $154,538,636, and bank loans $411,961,948: showing a reduction of $63,772,091 in the banking capital, and of $113,253,754 in the amount of loans, while there is found to be an increase of $10,681,027 specie in the vaults, and only an increase of $5,353,746 in the paper circulation.

In the mean time our population has increased about fifty per cent., and our manufactures have probably more than doubled.

But there are other facts which may be regarded as calculated to sustain our present prosperity, which did not exist in 1837. The separation of the banks from the government, and the payment of duties in cash, will tend to make the line of bank discounts more steady and prevent the sudden expansions and contractions of issues, which so frequently occurred in former times, and operate as a wholesome check upon excessive importations. Emigration has increased about four fold since 1837; and it is estimated that we receive from that source alone about $10,000,000 in specie annually this may be properly regarded as a clear annual gain to the national wealth. The quantity of precious metals now in the country, must be at least double that of 1837; and although we anticipate a falling off in the production of gold in California, yet there is no reason to suppose that the decline will be so sudden as to produce any material effect on the financial condition of the country. Indeed, we regard the dangers involved in the discovery of gold in California, as passed; and the excitement having subsided, our people, especially in the West, have become better contented, than formerly, with the advantages of a location east of the Rocky mountains. No one expects an increase in the productions of the California mines; and few regard the influx of gold from that quarter as calculated to affect materially the prices of labor or property; and, consequently, we are likely to escape the evils which were at one period apprehended from speculations induced by a redundancy of the precious metals.

There was an excess of imports over the exports each successive year from 1830 up to 1837, amounting, in six years, to $155,477,062, and from 1833 to the date of the revulsion, an enormous amount of individual indebtedness was created, in almost every part of the country, growing out of speculations in lands, town and city lots, negroes and other property, presenting a state of