light, by overcoming the organs of fight, obliterates all objects, fo as in its effect exactly to resemble darkness. After looking for some time at the fun, two black spots, the impreffion which it leaves, feem to dance before our eyes. Thus are two ideas as oppofite as can be imagined reconciled in the extremes of both; and both in fpite of their opposite nature brought to concur in producing the fublime. And this is not the only inftance wherein the oppofite extremes operate equally in favour of the fublime, which in all things abhors mediocrity. SECT. XV. LIGHT IN BUILDING. AS the management of light is a matter of im portance in architecture, it is worth inquiring, how far this remark is applicable to building. I think then, that all edifices calculated to produce an idea of the fublime, ought rather to be dark and gloomy, and this for two reafons; the first is, that darkness itself on other occafions is known by experience to have a greater effect on the paffions than light. `The second is, that to make an object very ftriking, we fhould make it as different as poffible from the objects with which we have been immediately converfant; when therefore you enter a building, you cannot pafs into a greater greater light than you had in the open air; to go into one fome few degrees lefs luminous, can make only a trifling change; but to make the tranfition thoroughly ftriking, you ought to pass from the greateft light, to as much darknefs as is confiftent with the uses of architecture. At night the contrary rule will hold, but for the very fame reafon; and the more highly a room is then illuminated, the grander will the paffion be. SECT. XVI. COLOUR CONSIDERED AS PRODUCTIVE OF THE SUBLIME. AMONG colours, such as are foft or cheerful (except perhaps a strong red which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense mountain covered with a fhining green turf, is nothing, in this respect, to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue; and night more fublime and folemn than day. Therefore in hiftorical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect:, and in buildings, when the highest degree of the fublime is intended, the materials and ornaments ought neither to be white, nor green, nor yellow, nor blue, nor of a pale red, nor violet, nor fpotted, but of fað and fufcous colours, as black, or brown, or deep purple, and the like. Much of gilding, mosaicks, VOL. I. painting, painting, or ftatues, contribute but little to the fublime. This rule need not be put in practice, except where an uniform degree of the most ftriking fublimity is to be produced, and that in every particular; for it ought to be obferved, that this melancholy kind of greatness, though it be cèrtainly the higheft, ought not to be ftudied in all forts of edifices, where yet grandeur must be fludied in fuch cafes the fublimity must be drawn from the other fources; with a ftrict caution however against any thing light and riant; as nothing fo effectually deadens the whole tafte of the fublime. SECT. XVII. SOUND AND LOUDNESS. THE eye is not the only organ of fenfation, by which a fublime paffion may be produced. Sounds have a 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 terrour. The noife of vast cataracts, raging ftorms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful fenfation in the mind, though we can obferve no nicety or artifice in thofe forts of mufick. The fhouting of multitudes has has a fimilar effect; and, by the fole ftrength of the found, so amazes and confounds the imagination, that, in this ftaggering, and hurry of the mind, the best established tempers can fcarcely forbear being borne down, and joining in the common cry, and common refolution of the crowd. SECT. XVIII, SUDDENNESS. A 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 eafy, causes no terrour, 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 roufes us to guard against it. It may be obferved that a single found of fome ftrength, though but of fhort duration, if repeated after intervals, has a grand effect. Few things are more awful than the ftriking of a great clock, when the filence of the night prevents the attention from being too much diffipated. The fame may be faid of a single stroke on a drum, repeated with paufes; and of the fuccef five firing of cannon at a distance. All the effects mentioned in this fection have caufes very nearly alike. SECT. XIX. * INTERMITTING. A Low, tremulous, intermitting found, though it seems in some respects oppofite to that just mentioned, is productive of the fublime. It is worth while to examine this a little. The fact itself muft be determined by every man's own experience and reflection. I have already obferved, that night increafes our terrour, more perhaps than any thing else; it is our nature, when we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the worst that can happen; and hence it is, that uncertainty is fo terrible, that we often feek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mifchief. 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 |