unbounded views, and feel a delightful stillness and amazement in the soul, at the apprehensions of them. The mind of man naturally hates every thing that looks like restraint upon it, and is apt to fancy itself under a sort of confinement, when the sight is pent up in a narrow compass, and shortened, on every side, by the neighborhood of walls and mountains. On the contrary, a spacious horizon is an image of liberty, where the eye has room to range abroad, to expatiate at large on the immensity of its views, and to lose itself amidst the variety of objects that offer themselves to its observation. Such wide and undetermined prospects are pleasing to the faney, as the speculations of eternity or infinitude are to the understanding. But if there be a beauty or uncommonness joined with this grandeur, as in a troubled ocean, a heaven adorned with stars and meteors, or a spacious landscape cut out into rivers, woods, rocks and meadows, the pleasure still grows upon us, as it rises from more than a single principle.

Every thing that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed. We are, indeed, so often conversant with one set of objects, and tired out with so many repeated shows of the same 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 serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of, in our usual and ordinary entertainments. It is this that bestows 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 something new, and the attention not suffered to dwell too long, and waste itself on any particular object: It is this, likewise, 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, pleasant to look upon; but never so much as in the opening of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the eye. For this reason, there is nothing that more enlivens a prospect, than rivers, jetteaus, or falls of water, where the scene is perpetually shifting, and entertaining the sight every moment, with something that is

new. We are quickly tired with looking upon hills and vallies, where every thing continues fixed and settled in the same place and posture, but find our thoughts a little agitated and relieved, at the sight of such objects as are ever in motion, and sliding away from beneath the

the beholder.

eye of

But there is nothing that makes its way more direetly to the soul, than beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction and complacency through the imagination and gives a finishing to any thing that is great or uncom mon. The very first discovery of it strikes 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 made so, that whatsoever now appears loathsome to us, might have shown itself agreeable; but we find by experience, that there are several modifications of matter, which the mind, without any previous consideration. pronounces at the first sight, beautiful, or deformed. Thus we see that every different species of sensible creatures has its different notions of beauty, and that each of them is most affected with the beauties of its own kind. This is no where more remarkable than in birds of the same shape and proportion, where we often see the male determined in his courtship by the single grain or tincture of a feather, and never discovering any charms but in the color of its species.

There is a second kind of beauty, that we find in the several produets of art and nature, which does not work in the imagination with that warmth and violence. as the beauty that appears in our own proper species, but is apt however, to raise in us a secret delight, and a kind of foudness for the places, or objects, in which we discover it. This consists either in the gaiety or variety of colors, in the symmetry and proportion of parts, in the arrangement and disposition of bodies, or in a just mixture and concar rence of all together. Among these several kinds of heauty, the eye takes most delight in colors. We no where meet with a more glorious or pleasing how in nature, than what appears in the heavens at the rising and setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show themselves in clouds of a different situa tion, For this reason we find the poets, who are always

addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colors, than from any other topic.

As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, strange or beautiful, and is still more pleased, the more it finds of these perfections in the same object; so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction, by the assistance of another sense. Thus any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of water, awakens, every moment, the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several beauties of the place that lie before him Thus, if there arise a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasures of the imagination, and make even the colors and verdure of the landscape appear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together, than when they enter the mind separately; as the diferent colors of a pieture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of their situation.

X-Liberty and Slavery.-STERNE. '

DISGUISE thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery! still thou art a.bitter draught and though thousands, in all ages, have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, liberty! thrice sweet and gracious Goddess, whom all, in publie or in private, worship; whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron. With thee, to

smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose 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 shower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy Divine Providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close to my table; and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so ! gave full Scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellowcreatures, born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did not distract me, I took a single captive; and having first shut

him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door, to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away, with long expectation and confinement; and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it is which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinsman 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 sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of these little sticks in his hand; and, with a rusty nail, he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door-then cast it down-shook his head-and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upou his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh-1 saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears. I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my faney had drawn.

XI.-The Cant of Criticism.-STERNE.

AND how did Garrick speak the soliloquy last night? Oh, against all rule, my Lord; most ungrammatically! Betwixt the substantive and adjective (which should agree together, in number, case and gender) he made a breach thus-stopping as if the point wanted settling. And after the nominative case (which your Lordship knows should govern the verb) he suspended his voice, in the epilogue, a dozen times, three seconds and three fifths, by a stop watch, my Lord, each time. Admirable grammarian! But, in suspending his voice, was the sense suspended likewise ? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look? I looked only at the stop watch, my Lord. Excellent observer!

And what of this new book, the whole world makes such a rout about ?. Oh, 'tis out of all plumb, my Lord-quite an irregular thing! Not one of the angles at the four cor

ners was a right angle. I had my rule and compasses, my Lord, in my pocket. Excellent eritic!

And for the epic poem, your Lordship bade me look at→→→ upon taking the length, breadth, height and depth of it, and trying them, at home, upon an exact scale of Bossu's, 'tis out, my Lord, in every one of its dimensions.

rable connoisseur !

Admi

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 coloring of Titian; the expression of Rubens; the grace of Raphael; the purity of Dominichino; the corregioscity of Corregio; the learning of Pouissin; the airs of Guide; the taste of the Carrachis; or the grand contour of Angelo !

Grant me patience! Of all the cants which are canted, in this canting world-though the cant of hypocrisy may be the worst the cant of criticism is the most tormenting! -I would go fifty miles on foot, to kiss the hand of that man, whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands, be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.

XII-Parallel between Pope and Dryden -JOHNSON. IN acquired knowledge the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man, in his general nature; and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation: those of Pope, by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excel led likewise in prose: But Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform: Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance