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Thus flies the fimple bird into the fnare.
That skilful fowlers for his life prepare.
But let my fons attend. Attend may they
Whom youthful vigour may to fin betray;
Let them falfe charmers fly, and guard their hearts
Against the wily wanton's pleafing arts;
With care direct their steps, nor turn aftray
To tread the paths of her deceitful way;
Left they too late of her fell power complain,
And fall, where many mightier bave been flain.

N° 411

Saturday, June 21.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius antè
Trita folo: juvat integros accedere fonteis,
Atque haurire:-

Lucr. lib. 1. v. 925.

2 Infpir'd I trace the mufes feats, Untrodden yet: 'tis fweet to visit first

Untouch'd and virgin ftreams, and quench my thirst. CREECH.

UR fight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our fenfes, It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converfes with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or fatiated with its proper enjoyments. The fenfe of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but at the fame time it is very much ftraitned and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and diftance of its particular objects. Our fight feems defigned to fupply all thefe defects, and may be confidered, as a more delicate and diffufive kind of touch, that spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largeft figures, and brings into our reach fome of the most remote parts of the univerfe.

It is this fenfe which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; fo that by the pleasures of the imagination or fancy (which I fhall ufe promifcuoufly) I here mean fuch as arife from vifible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, ftatues, defcriptions, or any the like occafion. We cannot indeed have a fingle image in the fancy that did not make its firft en trance through the fight; but we have the power of retaining, altering and compounding thofe images, which we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vision that are most agreeable to the imagination: for by this faculty a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself with fcenes and landskips more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compafs of nature.

There are few words in the English language which are employed in a more loofe and uncircumfcribed fenfe than thofe of the Fancy and the Imagination.` I therefore thought it neceffary to fix and determine the notion of thefe two words, as I intend to make use of them in the thread of my following fpeculations, that the reader may conceive rightly what is the subject which I proceed upon. I must therefore defire him to remember that, by the pleasures of the imagination, I mean only fuch pleasures as arife originally from fight, and that I divide these pleasures into two kinds: My defign being first of all to difcourfe of thofe primary pleasures of the imagination, which entirely proceed from fuch objects as are before our eyes; and in the next place to speak of thofe fecondary pleasures of the imagination which flow from the ideas of vifible objects, when the objects are not actually before the eye, but are called up into our memories, or formed into agreeable vifions of things that are either abfent or fictitious:

The pleasures of the imagination, taken in the full extent, are not fo grofs as thofe of fenfe, nor fo refined as those of the understanding. The laft are, indeed, more preferable, because they are founded on fome new knowledge or improvement in the mind of man; yet it must be confeft that thofe of the imagination are

as

as great and as tranfporting as the other. A beautiful profpect delights the foul, as much as a demonstration ; and a defcription in Homer has charmed more readers than a chapter in Ariftotle. Befides, the pleafures of the imagination have this advantage, above those of the understanding, that they are more obvious, and more eafy to be acquired. It is but opening the eye and the scene enters. The colours paint themselves on the fancy, with very little attention of thought or application of mind in the beholder. We are ftruck, we know not how, with the fymmetry of any thing we fee, and immediately affent to the beauty of an object, with out inquiring into the particular caufes and occafions

of it.

A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures. that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converfe with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a fecret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater fatisfaction in the profpect of fields and mea-dows, than another does in the poffeffion. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in every thing he fees, and makes the most rude uncultivated parts of nature adminifter to his pleafures: So that he looks upon the world, as it were in another light, and discovers in it a multi-tude of charms, that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind.

There are, indeed, but very few who know how to be idle and innocent, or have a relifh of any pleafures. that are not criminal; every diverfion they take is at the expence of fome one virtue or another, and their very first step out of bufinefs is into vice or folly. A man fhould endeavour, therefore, to make the fphere of his innocent pleafures as wide as poffible, that he may retire into them with fafety, and find in them fuch a fatisfaction as a wife man would not blush to take. this nature are thofe of the imagination, which do not require fuch a bent of thought as is neceffary to our more ferious employments, nor, at the fame time, fuffer the mind to fink into that negligence and remiffness, which are apt to accompany our more fenfual delights, but, like a gentle exercife to the faculties, awaken them

Of

from

from floth and idleness, without putting them upon any labour or difficulty.

We might here add, that the pleasures of the fancy are more conducive to health, than thofe of the underftanding, which are worked out by dint of thinking, and attended with too violent a labour of the brain. Delightful fcenes, whether in nature, painting, or poetry, have a kindly influence on the body, as well as the mind, and not only serve to clear and brighten the imagination, but are able to difperfe grief and melancholy, and to fet the animal fpirits in pleafing and agreeable motions. For this reafon Sir Francis Bacon, in his Effay upon Health, has not thought it improper to prescribe to his reader a poem or a profpect, where he particularly diffuades him from knotty and fubtile difquifitions, and advises him to purfue ftudies that fill the mind with fplendid and illuftrious objects, as hiftories, fables, and contemplations of nature.

I have in this paper, by way of introduction, fettled the notion of thofe pleasures of the imagination which are the fubject of my prefent undertaking, and endeavoured, by feveral confiderations, to recommend to my reader the pursuit of thofe pleasures. I fhall, in my next paper, examine the feveral fources from whence thefe pleasures are derived.

N 412

I

Monday, June 23.

-Divifum fic breve fiet opus. Mart. Ep. 83. lib. 4. The work, divided aptly, fhorter grows.

Shall firft confider thofe pleafures of the imagination, which arife from the actual view and furvey of outward objects: And these, I think, all proceed from the fight of what is great, uncommon, or beautiful. There may, indeed, be fomething fo terrible or offenfive, that the horror or lothfomeness of an object may overbear the pleasure which refults from its greatnefs, novelty, or

beauty:

beauty; but ftill there will be fuch a mixture of delight in the very difguft it give us, as any of these three qualifications are moft confpicuous and prevailing.

By greatness, I do not only, mean the bulk of any fingle object, but the largenefs of a whole view, con fidered as one intire piece. Such are the profpects of an open champain country, a vaft uncultivated defert, of huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and precipices, or a wide expanse of water, where we are not ftruck with the novelty or beauty of the fight, but with that rude kind of magnificence which appears in many of thefe ftupendous works of Nature. Our imagination loves to be filled with an object, or to grafp at any thing that is too big for its capacity. We are flung into a pleafing aftonifhment at fuch unbounded views, and feel a delightful ftilnefs and amazement in the foul at the apprehenfions of them. The mind of man naturally hates every thing that looks like a restraint upon it, and is apt to fancy itself under a fort of confinement, when the fight is pent up in a narrow compafs, and fhortned on every fide by the neighbourhood of walls or mountains. On the contrary, a fpacious horizon is an image of liberty, where the eye has room to range abroad, to expatiate at large on the immenfity of its views, and to lofe itself amidst the variety of objects that offer themselves to its obfervation. Such wide and undeter mined profpects are as pleafing to the fancy, as the fpeculations of eternity or infinitude are to the understanding. But if there be a beauty or uncommonnefs joined with this grandeur, as in a troubled ocean, a heaven adorned with stars and meteors, or a spacious landfkip cut out into rivers, woods, rocks, and meadows, the pleasure ftill grows upon us, as it arises from more than a fingle principle.

Every thing that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the foul with an agreeable furprife, gratifies its curiofity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before poffeft. We are indeed fo often converfant with one fet of objects, and tired out with so many repeated shows of the fame things, that whatever is new or uncommon contributes a little to vary human life, and to divert our minds, for a while,

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