These remarks are sufficient to show that the emotions of sublimity may exist without any distinguishable connexion with terror. But further,

Secondly. -Terror has an inevitable tendency to stifle all such emotions. "The ideas of pain," Mr. Burke says, are much more powerful than those of pleasure," and, "the strongest emotions of which the mind is capable," are based upon it. But "fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain." We all know, on the other hand, that the emotions of sublimity are connected with high delight, with strong gratification. Objects of terror we avoid; and the disposition which moves us to escape from them is proportional to the degree of that terror; and however small it may be, still while it acts alone, if there be no independent and stronger attraction in the object, we feel an instinctive urgency to fly. When the terror is very strong, and rises into what may be termed horror, it not unfrequently removes the very power of locomotion, freezes up every energy, and, through the despair of escape, produces a species of derangement. When we contemplate an object that inspires us with emotions of the sublime, we contemplate it with a silent but deep felt rapture; we dwell upon it, we study it, we school our conceptions to take in more and more of its dimensions. Instead of flying from it, as from an object of terror, we are pained at its removal. How is it then that terror should at one time produce pain, with a violent repugnance to the object, and at another time pleasure, with as strong an attachment to the object? Not the same antecedent followed by the same consequent, (the necessity of which as a principle, in the regular concatenation of cause and effect, is established in all philosophical speculations;) but the same antecedent followed by consequents so diametrically opposite and opposing as pleasure and pain! As contradictory in terms and in fact, as that a body should be borne by gravitation from its centre, or the earth fly on the centrifugal force to the arms of the sun.

The idea is absurd! Equally so it is absurd to pretend that at certain distances and under certain modifications pain may be pleasure. Pain is always painful; and danger ever produces terror and aversion. When, therefore, they cease to produce these effects, they are no longer the same causes; pain is no longer pain, and terror is no more terror. Yet otherwise says Mr. Burke; "when danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are highly delightful; as we every day experience." He here gets involved and confused in his own subtleties. We repeat, danger is accompanied with terror, and terror with pain, always and at every distance. When danger, therefore, is at such a distance, or so circumstanced as no longer to be accompanied with terror, or this terror with pain and aversion, it can then be no longer danger. The object may still be dangerous to any thing which may be exposed to it. But when we come to contemplate it with pleasure, and would rather approach than avoid it, it is contrary to the constitution of the human mind, that we can regard ourselves as exposed to danger from it, or so far as to suffer fear. In pretending it, we ridiculously contradict ourselves. We evidently feel ourselves in safety.

We may safely conclude then, that we cannot simultaneously contemplate the same object with pleasure and with fear or pain, because this last being the

most vivid and impressive of emotions effectually excludes or prevents us from cherishing, any of an opposite character, which is in its nature less strong. But of this opposite character we have seen the emotions of the sublime to be. It follows then that we cannot experience these emotions while we suffer the sensations of fear.

Again, fear or terror (being the anticipation of pain, the sense in which Mr. Burke uses it,) is not an attribute of the object, but an affection of the mind-the subject. Since then terror does not exist in the object that excites in us emotions of sublimity; and since we do not recognise it, or rather, as we have seen, since it cannot exist in ourself, the subject; how can it have any possible relation to those emotions? unless, indeed, we pretend that it exists neither in the object, nor in the subject, but as a medium through which the attributes of the object act upon the subject; a mode of existence for terror which let the pretender understand!

What, it may occur here, is the direct cause of the emotions of the sublime? It is as satisfactory to say that these emotions are the immediate consequence of the presentation of certain objects or attributes to the mind, as that the mind must first be put in a state termed fear, and this be the antecedent of an after state termed sublimity; because the mind may, with no more mystery, be put in one state by the presentation of a distant object, and that directly and primarily, than in another. There is, as we have seen, in all our ideas of the sublime, something of pleasure; not that the object must necessarily excite the pure sensations of pleasure, the emotions of beauty, as in the succession of melodious sounds upon the ear, or the view of an extended landscape. But there are certain qualities, which, by a mysterious influence, while they fix us in awe and admiration, create an involuntary expansion or swelling of the mind. The immediate antecedent, or if not antecedent, the co-existent, or perhaps identical affection seems to be an impression or idea of infinitude, whether of power, or dimension, or otherwise; as we find the stronger this impression, the greater is the affection of sublimity. It would seem, that as we are the offspring of the Divine mind, and created in His nature, when the soul thus gets a nearer view of that attribute of its original, infinitude, in any of its forms, or beholds in its manifestations the Divinity itself, it is drawn up as by an intellectual gravitation to this centre of its being, and partakes, as far as possible in its confined state, of the highest and proper sensations of its original nature. There may be a foretaste of those emotions, which, when released from the shackles of fleshly sense, if not wholly corrupt by its bondage, it shall experience throughout eternity. Then those attributes, at the bare contemplation of which, in their remote manifestations, the soul expands and glows, she will, being united to the Divine mind, the parent source, immediately partake. They will be imparted to her nature, not by any unnatural and artificial ingrafting, but as the natural and inevitable consequence of her constitution and being.

A. G. I.

THE DYING GIRL'S REQUEST.

Oh! bear me to my early rest,
When breaks the morning light;
When dew upon the flow'ret's breast
In morning's ray is bright.

Not when the night is closing round,
In darkness and in gloom,

And shades the sad and silent ground,

Above my early tomb.

But when the birds have woke to song,
And when the earth is gay,
Then bear my lifeless form along,
From love and joy away.

And, mother, when the shades of eve,

Close o'er my youthful bed,
Then come, and let thy spirit grieve,

Where evening's gloom is shed.

B

A TRAVELLER'S TALE;

OR

TWO STORIES IN ONE.

BY MR. SMITH.

It was about four in the afternoon, of one of the most villanous rainy days with which the March of 1830 was diversified, that three gentlemen, the host and two friends, were discovered in a certain house, not far from street, sitting in silence over

a dinner table, from which the cloth had been removed. There was a dead silence; the spirit of dullness seemed to be presiding over the scene, and though they, one and all, again and again resorted to the only remedy they seemed to have left, desperate as the expedient doubtless was, their copious libations failed to rouse them from their lethargy. If every drop of wine had been so much laudanum, they could not have been more inclined to sleep than they apparently were.

It was a fearful sight to behold, to see three sensible, agreeable people, reduced to such extremities. The host himself was far from a silent man in ordinary-on the contrary, he could talk on every subject, with equal fluency, when he did come out; though it was so difficult for him to find listeners, that he had latterly got somewhat out of practice. The younger of the guests, was a lively, rattling sort of young man, who could laugh equally well at a good or a bad joke, but rather preferred the latter, for then he could laugh both at the jest, and the jester. The third man, was a trim, well-favored, bachelor-looking person, of about forty-five, who was a marvellous good story teller, and had travelled in the four quarters of the globe, and seen and heard more than any one traveller, ancient or modern. His great delight was in telling rare and curious stories, which he had heard from this and that great man of his acquaintance; and his great skill was in introducing them so. that you could hardly help asking him to tell them.

* Whether, the "Mr. Smith," who has kindly transmitted us this story, through the post-office, be the author of Rosine Laval, we will not take upon us to say. Those, however, who have perused that amusing production will be able, doubtless, to assign the paternity without any difficulty.-ED.

The younger guest whom we have mentioned, after having contemplated the fire in the grate, for some minutes, as if the process of ignition of Schuylkill coal was a phenomenon he had never before witnessed, suddenly looked through the window, and broke out into this pithy and sententious exclamation:

"What horrible weather! I wonder, when it has rained enough, why the deuce it don't stop! Do you understand the reason, Doctor?"

Our friend the traveller, who was one of the forty doctors who turned round in Broadway, some years ago, when some one called out "Doctor,"-now looked up-and yawned to this effect.

"Yaw-mynheer-but I should like to know whether I am asleep or awake. Was I dreaming at that instant of that good story I heard at the Duke de V.'s table, or was I really think-· ing of it?"

"Ah!" cried the young man-" stop there-Doctor-you have told me a hundred and fifty times that you knew the Duke de V., but let me tell you, that this is the very first time you ever hinted

that you had dined with his grace!"

"And what do you infer-what do you wish us to understand by that observation?" said he, with the most imperturbable, civil, kindest tone in the world.

"Why!" replied the other, "I infer that there is some mistake!"

My dear friend," mildly replied the Doctor, "there can be no mistake; my recollection is positive-though I must admit, I might not have thought of the particular occasion I refer to, and of story of the Vicomte de C., if I had not this very morning, met, among some old letters, with the note of invitation, in the Duke's own hand writing, and that reminded me of the story-of which I was either thinking or dreaming, when you observedwhat was it you observed ?""

Doctor," said the host, now rubbing his eyes to be sure that he was awake, "I should like very much to see that note. Why didn't you put it in your pocket for me-you know I am curious in autographs

My dear friend," quoth the Doctor, "that is precisely the very idea that struck me when I came across it, and I put it in my pocketbook, on purpose for your collection."

The younger gentleman gave a moderate shrug, as much as to "On purpose to introduce a story which some duke, or count at least, related to him, for our benefit," but he said nothing.

say,

The autograph was produced, and bore such marks of authenticity, that even the younger gentleman, who was a little sceptical in his disposition, did not presume to question it. It was in sub

stance this: