A

PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

INTO THE

ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS

OF THE

SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL;

WITH AN

INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

TASTE.

BY THE

RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE.

ADAPTED TO POPULAR USE

BY

ABRAHAM MILLS, A.M.,

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES.

NEW-YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF STREET.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by HARPER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

THE high estimation in which the following treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful is uniformly held, removes from the editor of the present edition the necessity of attempting to set forth its peculiar merits. Its utility and importance in forming the taste of the scholar, and in giving a proper direction to his mind, are universally admitted. Without enlarging, therefore, the editor proceeds to assign his reasons for offering the present volume to the public.

In the editions of the work hitherto published, there are some passages which violate that delicacy of expression that should peculiarly characterize the language of books designed for the use of schools.

From this edition those passages are carefully expunged, without interrupting, in the smallest degree, the chain of the author's reasoning; it may, theref now be used with perfect propriety.

In order to facilitate the study of the work, all the Latin and Greek quotations, made by the author, have been clothed in a free translation; so that the scholar will not be perplexed in his studies, as is often the case, by repeatedly meeting with illustrations which he does not understand.

The present edition is also accompanied with inter