great power in these as in most other paffions. I do not mean words, because words do not affect fimply by their founds, but by means altogether different. Exceffive loudness alone is fufficient to overpower the foul, to fufpend its action and to fill it with terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and aweful sensation in the mind, though we can obferve no nicety or artifice in those sorts of mufic. The fhouting of multitudes has a fimilar effect; and by the fole ftrength of the found, fo amazes and confounds the imagination, that in this staggering, and hurry of the mind, the best established tempers can scarcely forbear being borne down, and joining in the common cry, and common refolution of the croud. A SECT. XVIII. SUDDEN NESS. Sudden beginning, or fudden ceffation of found of any confiderable force, has the fame power. The attention is roufed by this; and the faculties driven forward, as it were, on their guard. Whatever either in fights or founds makes the tranfition from one extreme to the other easy, caufes no terror, and confequently can be no cause of greatness. In every thing sudden and unexpected, we are apt to ftart; that is, we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it. It may be observed, that a fingle found of fome strength, though but of short duration, if repeated after intervals, has a grand effect. Few things are more aweful than the striking of a great clock, when the filence of the night prevents the attention from being too too much diffipated. The fame The fame may be faid of a fingle stroke on a drum, repeated with pauses; and of the fucceffive firing of cannon at a diftance; all the effects mentioned in this section have causes very nearly alike. A SECT. XIX. INTERMITTING, LOW, tremulous, intermitting found, though it seems in some refpects oppofite to that just mentioned, is productive of the fublime. It is worth while to examine this a little. The fact itself must be determined by every man's own experience, and reflection. I have already obferved, that night increases our terror more perhaps than any thing elfe; it is our nature, that, when we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the worst that can happen us; and hence * * Sect. 3: it is, that uncertainty is fo terrible, that we often feek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mischief. Now fome low, confused, uncertain founds, leave us in the fame fearful anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or an uncertain light does concerning the objects that furround us. Quale per incertam lunam fub luce maligna A faint shadow of uncertain light, Like as a lamp, whofe life doth fade away; Or as the moon cloathed with cloudy night " Doth fhew to him who walks in fear and great affright, SPENSER, But a light now appearing, and now leaving us, and fo off and on, is even more terrible than total darkness: and a sort of uncertain founds are, when the neceffary difpofitions concur, more alarining than a total filence. SECT. SEC T. XX. The cries of ANIMALS. Suc CH founds as imitate the natural inarticulate voices of men, or any animals in pain or danger, are capable of conveying great ideas; unless it be the well known voice of fome creature, on which we are used to look with contempt. The angry tones of wild beasts are equally capable of caufing a great and aweful fenfation. Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum Vincla recufantum, et fera fub nocte rudentum ; It might seem that these modulations of found carry fome connection with the nature of the things they reprefent, and are not merely arbitrary; because the natu ral |