quaintance with an agreeable perfon improves too fast, and I begin to feel fomething like an attachment, I take it as a hint for fhifting my quarters, and decamp before the fetter is fastened. To confefs the truth, I more than fufpect that I have been too long acquainted with you: I fhall quit this place immediately, left to-morrow I fhould feel myfelf your friend." He then redoubled his pace, as if willing to avoid my reply. I indulged him in his wish, and was not forry to be excufed from continuing a conversation I could not fupport with any other than common arguments; which feldom have any effect effect upon those who fo boldly differ from principles long established, and fupposed to be true. Something 66 Something beyond us, necessary. “I COULD D move this globe, said Archimedes, if I had another whereon to fix my lever." Hume fhrewdly obferves, that priests having found, what Archimedes wanted, another world to reft on, it is no wonder they move this at their pleasure. In all purfuits, whether of the artist, moralift, or the divine, it is neceffary to have fomething beyond ourselves on which we are to fix; or elfe, to use the above figure, our machinery is of no effect., A painter has, or ought to have, fomething in his imagination beyond the immed ate objects of his attention. The moralit fearches for the perfect good, and the ,the religionist directs all his hopes to a life hereafter. If we could demonftrate to the artist, the moral philofopher, and the christian, that they are in pursuit of a fhadow-that there is no beau ideal-no perfect good— and that this life is the " Be-all and Endall," we should do thefe people irreparable damage-for this world can never be moved, unless there is another whereon to fix the lever. Should it be asked, What are those points of perfection to which man afpires? It may be answered, That, perhaps, they do not exist at all. But as fuch a reply would difcourage a meritorious purfuit, let us rather fay, that great effects are not produced by exact definitions, or by perfectly knowing the thugs to which we afpire. The fublime is always painted by a broad pencil. The poet who de 1cribes fcribes minutely, is not great-distinct description is for inferior purposes. "I faw a smith ftand on his hammer, thus- The expreffion for the subject is admirable, but no one would call it fublime. When Milton, in his Description of Satan, fays that "On his creft fat horror plum'd" No particular idea is prefented, for what is the form of horror? Just what your imagination chufes to make it-fome terrible thing, but what, we know not; and because we know it not, our ideas expand until we create a grand, tho' indistinct image, and feel its fublimity. The height of a mountain envelloped with clouds, rifes upon the imagination, because its top is concealed. This principle is equally efficacious on religious fubjects. When we are told in general terms that the future life is to be happy or miferable beyond conception; there is something placed out of our reach, which is the ideal point-but if we defcend to particulars, and figure, as we fee in pictures of the Last Judgement, Angels playing on harps, and Devils brandishing pitch-forks; not even Michael Angelo's genius could prevent the fubject from being ridiculous. Perhaps it is the effect of this principle that induces me to think meanly of the ceremonies of the Roman Church, which appear to me minute, and particular-therefore not fublime. It has been justly remarked, that the French, by confidering Popery and Chriftianity as the fame, have made the latter fuffer for the faults of the former. The late |