in his hands, and trace out with his fingers the different furrows and impreffions of the chiffel, and he will early conceive how the fhape of a man, or beaft, may be reprefented by it; but fhould he draw his hand over a picture, where all is smooth and uniform, he would never be able to imagine how the several prominencies and depreffions of a human body could be fhewn on a plain piece of canvas, that has in it no unevenness or irregularity. Defcription runs yet farther from the things it reprefents than painting; for a picture bears a real resemblance to its original, which letters and fyl. lables are wholly void of. Colours speak all languages, but words are understood only by fuch a people or nation. For this reafon, tho' mens neceffities quickly put them on finding out fpeech, writing is probably of a later invention than painting; particularly we are told that in America, when the Spaniards first arrived there, expreffes were fent to the emperor of Mexico in paint, and the news of his country delineated by the ftrokes of a pencil, which was a more natural way than that of writing, tho' at the fame time much more imperfect, because it is impoffible to draw the little connexions of fpeech, or to give the picture of a conjunction or an adverb. It would be yet more ftrange, to reprefent vifible objects by founds that have no ideas annexed to them, and to make fomething like defcription in mufic. Yet it is certain, there may be confufed, imperfect, notions of this nature raised in the imagination by an artificial compofition of notes; and we find that great mafters in the art are able, fometimes, to fet their hearers in the heat and hurry of a battle, to overcaft their minds with melancholy fcenes and apprehenfions of deaths and funerals, or to lull them into pleafing dreams of groves and elyfiums.

C

In all thele inftances, this fecondary pleasure of the imagination, proceeds from that action of the mind, which compares the ideas arifing from the original objects, with the ideas we receive from the ftatue, picture, description, or found that reprefents them. It is impoffible for us to give the neceffary reafon, why this operation of the mind is attended with fo much pleasure, as I have before observed on the fame occa

fion; but we find a great variety of entertainments derived from this fingle principle: For it is this that not only gives us a relish of ftatuary, painting and defcription, but makes us delight in all the actions and arts of mimickry. It is this that makes the feveral kinds of wit pleafant, which confifts, as I have formerly fhewn, in the affinity of ideas: And we may add, it is this alfo that raises the little fatisfaction we fometimes find in the different forts of falfe wit; whether it confifts in the affinity of letters, as an anagram, acroftic; or of fyllables, as in doggerel rhimes, echoes; or of words, as in puns, quibbles; or of a whole fentence or poem, as wings and altars. The final caufe, probably, of annexing pleasure to this operation of the mind, was to quicken and encourage us in our fearches after truth, fince the distinguishing one thing from another, and the right difcerning betwixt our ideas, depends wholly upon Our comparing them together, and obferving the congruity or difagreement that appears among the feveral works of nature.

But I fhall here confine myfelf to thofe pleafures of the imagination, which proceed from ideas raised by words, because most of the observations that agree with defcriptions, are equally applicable to painting and sta

tuary.

Words, when well chofen, have fo great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the fight of things themfelves. The reader finds a scene drawn in ftronger colours, and painted more to the life in his imagination, by the help of words than by an actual furvey of the fcene which they defcribe. In this cafe the poet feems to get the better of nature; he takes, indeed the landskip after her, but gives it more vigorous touches, heightens its beauty, and fo enlivens the whole piece, that the images which flow from the objects themselves appear weak and faint, in comparison of thofe that come from the expreffions. The reafon, probably, may be, because in the furvey of any object, we have only fo much of it painted on the imagination, as comes in at the eye; but in its defcription, the poet gives us as free a view of it as he pleases, and discovers to us feveral parts, that either we

did not attend to, or that lay out of our fight when we first beheld it. As we look on any object, our idea of it is, perhaps, made up of two or three fimple ideas; but when the poet reprefents it, he may either give us a more complex idea of it, or only raise in us fuch ideas as are most apt to affect the imagination.

It may be here worth our while to examine how it comes to pafs that feveral readers, who are all acquainted with the fame language, and know the meaning of the words they read, fhould nevertheless have a different relish of the fame defcriptions. We find one transported with a paffage, which another runs over with coldness and indifference, or finding the reprefentation extremely natural, where another can perceive nothing of likeness and conformity. This different tafte muft proceed either froin the prfection of imagination in one more than in another, or from the different ideas that several readers affix to the fame words. For, to have a true relish, and form a right judgment of a defcription, a man fhould be born with a good imagination, and muft have well weighed the force and energy that lie in the feveral words of a language, fo as to be able to distinguish which are moft fignificant and expreffive of their proper ideas, and what additional ftrength and beauty they are capable of receiving from conjunction with others. The fancy must be warm, to retain the print of those images it hath received from outward objects, and the judgment difcerning, to know what expreffions are moft proper to clothe and adorn them to the best advantage. A man who is deficient in either of thefe refpects, tho' he may receive the general notion of a defcription, can never fee diftinctly all its particular beauties: As a perfon with a weak fight may have the confufed profpect of a place that lies before him, without entring into its feveral parts, or difcerning the variety of its colours in their full glory and perfection.

Saturday,

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N° 417

Saturday, June 28.

Quem tu, Melpomine, femel

Nafcentem placido lumine videris,
Non illum labor Ifthmius

Clarabit pugilem, non equus impiger, &c.
Sed que Tibur aque fertile perfluunt,
Et fpiffe nemorum come

Fingent olio carmine nobilem.

Hor. Od. 3 1. 4. V. Ia

At whose bleft birth propitious rays

The mufes fhed, on whom they smile,
No dufky Ifthmian game

Shall ftouteft of the ring proclaim,

Or, to reward his toil,

Wreath ivy crowns, and grace his head with bays.

But fruitful Tibur's fhady groves,

Its pleasant springs, and purling streams,

Shall raise a lafting name,

And fet him high in founding fame
For Lyric verie.

W

CREECH.

E may obferve, that any fingle circumftance of what we have formely feen often raises up a whole fcene of imagery, and awakens numberlefs ideas that before slept in the imagination; fuch a particular smell or colour is able to fill the mind, on a fudden, with the picture of the fields or gardens where we first met with it, and to bring up into view all the variety of images that once attended it. Our imagination takes the hint, and leads us unexpectedly into cities or theatres, plains or meadows. We may further obferve, when the fancy thus reflects on the fcenes that have paft in it formerly, thofe, which were at firft pleafant to behold, appear more fo upon reflexion, and that the memory heightens the delightfulness of the original. A Cartefian would account for both these inftances in the following manner.

The

The fet of ideas which we received from fuch a profpect or garden, having entred the mind at the fame time, have a fet of traces belonging to them in the brain, bordering very near upon one another; when, therefore, any one of thefe ideas arifes in the imagination, and confequently difpatches a flow of animal fpirits to its proper trace, thefe fpirits, in the violence of their motion, run not only into the trace, to which they were more particularly directed, but into feveral of thofe that lie about it: By this means they awaken other ideas of the fame fet, which immediately determine a new difpatch of fpirits, that in the fame manner open other neighbouring traces, till at laft the whole fet of them is blown up, and the whole profpect or garden flourishes in the imagination. But because the pleasure we received from these places far furmounted, and overcame the little difagreeablenefs we found in them; for this reafon there was at first a wider paffage worn in the pleafure traces, and on the contrary, fo narrow a one in those which belonged to the difagreeable ideas, that they were quickly ftopt up, and render'd incapable of receiving any animal fpirits, and confequently of exciting any unpleafant ideas in the memory.

It would be in vain to inquire, whether the power of imagining things ftrongly proceeds from any greater perfection in the foul, or from any nicer texture in the brain of one man than of another. But this is certain," that a noble writer fhould be born with this faculty in its full ftrength and vigour, fo as to be able to receive lively ideas from outward objects, to retain them long, and to range them together, upon occafion, in fuch figures and reprefentations, as are most likely to hit the fancy of the reader. A poet fhould take as much pains in forming his imagination, as a philofopher in cultivating his understanding. He muft gain a due relifh of the. works of nature, and be thoroughly converfant in the various fcenery of a country life.

When he is stored with country images, if he would go beyond pastoral, and the lower kinds of poetry, he ought to acquaint himself with the pomp and magnificence of courts. He fhould be very well verfed in every thing that is noble and ftately in the productions

of