us.

signified. We are all partially acquainted with this truth. Our ordinary intercourse with men forces it upon our attention, and we hear abundant complaints of the inaccuracy of most of those around But few, comparatively, are aware how deeply the foundations of error are laid in the nature of language itself; and how much diligence and attention are requisite, in order to be tolerably correct in our notions, even where there is a hearty desire to avoid deceiving, or being deceived. The truth is, that language, though an instrument so beautiful that it is difficult not to suppose it of Divine invention, is and always must be, essentially imperfect. Nor is this a matter which ought at all to surprize us. It is plainly a characteristic feature in the works and ways of God, that they are not understood upon a slight inspection. The truths of natural religion are so far from presenting themselves to the understanding at the first survey of the material and moral world, that it was with difficulty the most renowned masters of wisdom, in ancient days, reached a few of the more important of them. The evidences of revealed religion are open to many plausible exceptions; and its true meaning, its sublime doctrines, its spiritual precepts, its animating promises, its heavenly consolations, are to be understood only according to the measure of since: e anxiety with which they are investigated. To the thoughtless and inattentive, the Bible is almost a sealed book. Revelation is not to be trifled with. In the providential dispensations of God in this

world the same character appears; all is contradiction and mystery to the careless inspector: to him who diligently watches, and faithfully obeys, much is unveiled. The great Author of all things sits (as the poet sublimely expresses it,) "unseen, behind his own creation." And St. Paul explains to us a part of the reason for this mystery; "that we should seek the Lord; if happily we may feel after him and find him; although he be not far from any of us.' Can it, then, be a matter of astonishment to find, that the great instrument afforded to us by Providence for reflection and mutual intercourse, partakes of the same nature with his other works and dispensations; and is it not our manifest duty to cultivate habits of vigilance, assiduity, and a practical love of truth, when every thing within us and around us so plainly calls for them?

The Essay on the Sublime was, Mr. Stewart informs us, with the exception of a few pages, written during a summer's residence in "a distant part of the country, where he had no opportunity of consulting books;" and he has thought it necessary to apologize to his readers for the selection of his illustrations; which he apprehends "may appear too hackneyed to be introduced into a disquisition, which it would have been desirable to enliven and adorn by examples possessing something more of the zest of novelty and variety." We certainly are not among the number of those to whom it could be necessary to address such an apology. We are particularly fond of seeing great men in their undress;

of observing what is the train of thoughts which presents itself the most naturally to their minds; and which, among the more celebrated writers, are those with whom they are most intimate. The unstudied effusions of an author present us with a far better history of his mind, and furnish a much truer indication of what are his real tastes and preferences, than his elaborate performances. Those must be incurious, indeed, who have no desire to have some acquaintance with Mr. Stewart's literary predilections; and none, we think, can be aware of the extent and variety of his acquirements, without wishing that he had more frequently indulged himself in the privilege of citing, without the fatigue of research, the passages which are most familiar to his imagination.

In the fifth chapter of this Essay, Mr. Stewart intimates an opinion, which none, doubtless, who are curious in matters of taste, will omit to notice. We say intimates, for his expressions are cautious: but the passages which we are about to extract seem to imply, that, in his judgment, at least as much and perhaps rather more, of the true sublime is connected with natural objects, than with sentiments and actions which possess a moral dignity.

"Although I have attempted to shew, at some length, that there is a specific pleasure connected with the simple idea of sublimity or elevation, I am far from thinking that the impressions produced by such adjuncts as eternity or power, or even by the physical adjuncts of horizontal extent and of depth, are wholly resolvable into their associa

tion with this common and central conception. I own, however, I am of opinion, that in most cases the pleasure attached to the conception of literal sublimity, identified, as it comes to be, with those religious impressions which are inseparable from the human mind, is one of the chief ingredients in the complicated emotion, and that in every case it either palpably or latently contributes to the effect." p. 411.

"In confirmation of what I have stated concerning the primary or central idea of elevation, it may be farther remarked, that when we are anxious to communicate the highest possible character of sublimity to any thing we are describing, we generally contrive, somehow or other, either directly, or by means of some strong and obvious association, to introduce the image of the heavens or of the clouds; or, in other words, of sublimity literally so called. The idea of eloquence is undoubtedly sublime in itself, being a source of the proudest and noblest species of power which the mind of one man can exercise over those of others: but how wonderfully is its sublimity increased when connected with the image of thunder; as when we speak of the thunder of Demosthenes! "Demosthenis non tam vibrarent fulmina, nisi numeris contorta ferrentur.' Milton has fully availed himself of both these associations, in describing the orators of the Greek republic:

Resistless eloquence

Wielded at will the fierce democracy;

Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.'-p. 413.

"In the concluding stanza of one of Gray's Odes, if the bard, after his apostrophe to Edward, had been represented as falling on his sword, or as drowning himself in a pool at the summit of the rock, the moral sublime, so far

as it arises from his heroical determination to conquer and to die,' would not have been in the least diminished; but how different from the complicated emotion produced by the images of altitude; of depth; of an impetuous and foaming flood; of darkness, and of eternity; all of which are crowded into the two last lines:

He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night.'

In the following well-known illustration of the superiority of the moral above the physical sublime, it is remarkable, that while the author exemplifies the latter only by the magnitude and momentum of dead masses, and by the immensity of space considered in general, he not only bestows on the former the interest of an historical painting, exhibiting the majestic and commanding expression of a Roman form, but lends it the adventitious aid of an allusion, in which the imagination is carried up to Jupiter armed with his bolt. In fact, it is not the two different kinds of sublimity which he has contrasted with each other, but a few of the constituents of the physical sublime, which he has compared in point of effect with the powers both of the physical and moral sublime, combined together in their joint operation:

Look then abroad through nature, through the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,

Wheeling, unshaken, through the vault immense;
And speak, oh man, does this capacious scene,
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,

When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud