As we have already seen that the Beautiful is limited to no particular
form, but possesses its power in some mysterious _condition_,
which is applicable to many distinct objects; in like manner does the
Sublime include within its sphere, and subdue to its condition, an
indefinite variety of objects, with their distinctive conditions; and
among them we find that of the Beautiful, as well as, to a _certain
degree_, its reverse, so that, though we may truly recognize their
coexistence in the same object, it is not possible that their effect
upon us should be otherwise than unequal, and that the higher law
should not subordinate the lower. We do not deny that the Beautiful
may, so to speak, mitigate the awful intensity of the Sublime; but it
cannot change its character, much less impart its own; the one will
still be awful, the other, of itself, never.

When at Rome, we once asked a foreigner, who seemed to be talking
somewhat vaguely on the subject, what he understood by the Sublime.
His answer was, "Le plus beau"; making it only a matter of degree. Now
let us only imagine (if we can) a beautiful earthquake, or a beautiful
hurricane. And yet the foreigner is not alone in this. D'Azzara,
the biographer of Mengs, speaking of Beauty, talks of "this sublime
quality," and in another place, for certain reasons assigned, he says,
"The grand style is beautiful." Nay, many writers, otherwise of high
authority, seem to have taken the same view; while others who could
have had no such notion, having used the words Beauty and the
Beautiful in an allegorical or metaphorical sense, have sometimes been
misinterpreted literally. Hence Winckelmann reproaches Michael Angelo
for his continual talk about Beauty, when he showed nothing of it
in his works. But it is very evident that the _Bellà_ and
_Bellezza_ of Michael Angelo were never used by him in a literal
sense, nor intended to be so understood by others: he adopted the