by several considerations, to recommend to Every thing that is new or uncommon raises my reader the pursuit of those pleasures. I a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills shall in my next paper examine the several the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies sources from whence these pleasures are de-its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it rived. No. 412.] Monday, June 23, 1712. PAPER II. 0. is great pleases the imagination. How what is new -Divisum, sic breve het opus.-Mart. Ep. iv. 83. The work, divided aptly, shorter grows. was not before possessed. We are indeed so often conversant with one set of objects, and tired out with so many repeated shows of the same things, that whatever is new or uncom mon contributes a little to vary human life, new, ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. and to divert our minds, for a while, with the strangeness of its appearance. It serves us Contents. Three sources of all the pleasures of the ima- for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from gination, in our survey of outward objects. How what that satiety we are apt to complain of, in our pleases the imagination. How what is beautiful in our usual and ordinary entertainments. It is this own species pleases the imagination. How what is that bestows charms on a monster, and makes beautiful in general pleases the imagination. What oth-even the imperfections of nature please us. er accidental causes may contribute to the heightening It is this that recommends variety, where the of those pleasures. mind is every instant called off to something and the attention not suffered to dwell too long, and waste itself on any particular I SHALL first sonsider those pleasures of the object. It is this, likewise, that improves what imagination which arise from the actual view is great or beautiful, and makes it afford the and survey of outward objects; and these, I mind a double entertainment. Groves, fields, think, all proceed from the sight of what is and meadows, are at any season of the year great, uncommon, or beautiful. There may, pleasant to look upon, but never so much as indeed, be something so terrible or offensive, in the opening of the spring, when they are that the horror or loathsomeness of an object all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon may overbear the pleasure which results from them, and not yet too much accustomed and its greatness, novelty, or beauty; but still familiar to the eye. For this reason there is there will be such a mixture of delight in the nothing that more enlivens a prospect than very disgust it gives us, as any of these three rivers, jetteaus, or falls of water, where the qualifications are most conspicuous, and pre-scene is perpetually shifting, and entertaining vailing. the sight every moment with something that is By greatness, I do not only mean the bulk new. We are quickly tired with looking upon of any single object, but the largeness of a hills and valleys, where every thing conwhole view, considered as one entire piece. tinues fixed and settled in the same place and Such are the prospects of an open champaign posture, but find our thoughts a little agitated country, a vast uncultivated desert, of huge and relieved at the sight of such objects as are heaps of mountains, high rocks and precipices, ever in motion, and sliding away from beor a wide expanse of water, where we are not neath the eye of the beholder. struck with the novelty or beauty of the sight, But there is nothing that makes its way more but with that rude kind of magnificence which directly to the soul than beauty, which immeappears in many of these stupendous works of diately diffuses a secret satisfaction and comNature. Our imagination loves to be filled placency through the imagination, and gives a with an object, or to grasp at any thing that is finishing to any thing that is great or uncom foo big for its capacity. We are flung into mon. The very first discovery of it strikes a pleasing astonishment at such unbounded the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a views, and feel a delightful stillness and amaze- cheerfulness and delight through all its faculment in the soul at the apprehensions of them. ties. There is not perhaps any real beauty or The mind of man naturally hates every deformity more in one piece of matter than thing that looks like a restraint upon it, and another, because we might have been so is apt to fancy itself under a sort of con- made, that whatsoever now appears loathfinement, when the sight is pent up in a nar- some to us might have shown itself agreeaLow compass, and shortened on every side by ble; but we find by experience that there are the neighbourhood of walls or mountains. On several modifications of matter, which the the contrary, a spacious horizon is an image mind, without any previous consideration, of liberty, where the eye has room to range pronounces at first sight beautiful or deformed. abroad, to expatiate at large on the immen-Thus we see that every different species of sity of its views, and to lose itself amidst the sensible creatures has its different notions of variety of objects that offer themselves to its beauty, and that each of them is most affected observation. Such wide and undetermined with the beauties of its own kind. This is no prospects are as pleasing to the fancy as the where more remarkable than in birds of the speculations of eternity or infinitude are to same shape and proportion, where we often the understanding. But if there be a beauty see the mate determined in his courtship by of uncommonness joined with this grandeur, the single grain or tincture of a feather, and as in a troubled ocean, a heaven adorned with never discovering any charms but in the costars and meteors, or a spacious landscape cut lour of its species. out into rivers, woods, rocks, and meadows, the pleasure still grows upon us, as it arises from more than a single principle. 'Seit thalamo servare fidem, sanctasque veretur Connubii leges; non illum in pectore candor Solicitat niveus; neque pravum accendit amorem Splendida lanugo, vel honesta in vertice crista, The feather'd husband, to his partner true, With cold indifference every charm he sees, The shining down, proud crest, and purple wings: colours and verdure of the landscape appear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter the mind separately; as the different colours of a picture, when they are well disposed, set off one an other and receive an additional beauty from 0. the advantages of their situation. No. 413. Tuesday, June 24, 1712. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. -Causa latet, vis est notissima Ovid. Met. ix. 207. The cause is secret, but th' effect.is known,-Addison. THOUGH in yesterday's paper we considered how every thing that is great, new, or beautiful, is apt to affect the imagination with pleasure, we must own that it is impossible for us There is a second kind of beauty that we to assign the necessary cause of this pleasure, find in the several products of art and nature, because we know neither the nature of an which does not work in the imagination with idea, nor the substance of a human soul, which that warmth and violence as the beauty that might help us to discover the conformity or appears in our proper species, but is apt how-disagreeableness of the one to the other; and ever to raise in us a secret delight, and a kind therefore, for want of such a light, all that of fondness for the places or objects in which we can do in speculations of this kind, is to we discover it. This consists either in the reflect on those operations of the soul that are. gaiety or variety of colours, in the symme- most agreeable, and to range, under their try and proportion of parts, in the arrange- proper heads, what is pleasing or displeasing ment and disposition of bodies, or in a just mixture and concurrence of all together. Among these several kinds of beauty the eye takes most delight in colours. We no where Final causes lie more bare and open to our meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in observation, as there are often a greater varinature, than what appears in the heavens at ety that belong to the same effect; and these the rising and setting of the sun, which is though they are not altogether so satisfactory, wholly made up of those different stains of are generally more useful than the other, light that show themselves in clouds of a differ- as they give us greater occasion of admirent situation. For this reason we find the ing the goodness and wisdom of the first poets, who are always addressing themselves Contriver. to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours than from any other topic. to the mind, without being able to trace out the several necessary and efficient causes from whence the pleasure or displeasure arises. One of the final causes of our delight in any thing that is great may be this. The Su preme Author of our being has so formed the As the fancy delights in every thing that is soul of man, that nothing but himself can be great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more its last, adequate, and proper happiness. pleased the more it finds of these perfections Because, therefore, a great part of our hapin the same object, so it is capable of receiv-piness must arise from the contemplation of ing a new satisfaction by the assistance of his being, that he might give our souls a just another sense. Thus, any continued sound, relish of such a contemplation, he has made as the music of birds, or a fall of water them naturally delight in the apprehension of awakens every moment the mind of the be- what is great or unlimited. Our admiration, holder, and makes him more attentive to the which is a very pleasing motion of the mind several beauties of the place that lie before immediately rises at the consideration of any him. Thus, if there arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasures of the imagination, and make ake even the *It would seem, from his manner of introducing them, that Mr. Addison was himself the author of these fine verses object that takes up a great deal of room in the fancy, and, by consequence, will improve into the highest pitch of astonishment and devotion when we contemplate his nature, that is neither circumscribed by time nor place, nor to be comprehended by the largest capas city of created being. He has annexed a secret pleasure to the quainted with that great modern discovery, idea of any thing that is new or uncommon, which is at present universally acknowledged that he might encourage us in the pursuit af- by all the inquirers into natural philosophy: ter knowledge, and engage us to search into namely, that light and colours, as apprehendthe wonders of his creation; for every new ed by the imagination, are only ideas in the idea brings such a pleasure along with it as re- mind, and not qualities that have any existence wards any pains we have taken in its acquisi- in matter. As this is a truth which has been tion, and consequently serves as a motive to put proved incontestibly by many modern phius upon fresh discoveries. He has made every thing that is beautiful in our own species pleasant, that all creatures might be tempted to multiply their kind, and fill the world with inhabitants; for it is very remarkable, that wherever nature is crossed in the production of a monster (the result of any unnatural mixture) the breed is incapable of propagating its likeness, and of founding a new order of creatures: so that, unless all animals were allured by the beauty of their own species, generation would be at an end, and the earth unpeopled. losophers, and is indeed one of the finest speculations in that science, if the English reader would see the notion explained at large, he may find it in the eighth chapter of the second book of Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding. The following letter of Steele to Addison is reprinted here from the original edition of the Spectator in folio. 'I would not divert the course of your disIn the last place, he has made every thing courses, when you seem bent upon obliging that is beautiful in all other objects pleasant, the world with a train of thinking, which, or rather has made so many objects appear rightly attended to, may render the life of beautiful, that he might render the whole cre- every man who reads it more easy and happy ation more gay and delightful. He has given for the future. The pleasures of the imaginaalmost every thing about us the power of rais-tion are what bewilder life, when reason and ing an agreeable idea in the imagination: so judgment do not interpose; it is therefore a that it is impossible for us to behold his works worthy action in you to look carefully into the with coldness or indifference, and to survey powers of fancy, that other men, from the so many beauties without a secret satisfaction knowledge of them, may improve their joys, and complacency. Things would make but a and allay their griefs, by a just use of that fapoor appearance to the eye, if we saw them culty. I say, sir, I would not interrupt you only in their proper figures and motions: and in the progress of this discourse; but if you what reason can we assign for their exciting will do me the favour of inserting this letter in in us many of those ideas which are different your next paper, you will do some service to from any thing that exists in the objects them- the public, though not in so noble a way of selves (for such are light and colours), were it obliging, as that of improving their minds. not to add supernumerary ornaments to the Allow me, sir, to acquaint you with a design universe, and make it more agreeable to the (of which I am partly author), though it tends imagination? we are every where entertained to no greater a good than that of getting mowith pleasing shows and apparitions; we dis-ney. I should not hope for the favour of a cover imaginary glories in the heavens, and in philosopher in this matter, if it were not atthe earth, and see some of this visionary beauty tempted under all the restrictions which you poured out upon the whole creation : but what sages put upon private acquisitions. The a rough unsightly sketch of nature should we first purpose which every good man is to probe entertained with, did all her colouring dis- pose to himself, is the service of his prince and appear, and the several distinctions of light country; after that is done, he cannot add to and shade vanish? In short, our souls are at himself, but he must also be beneficial to present delightfully lost and bewildered in a them. This scheme of gain is not only con pleasing delusion, and we walk about like the sistent with that end, but has its very being in enchanted hero in a romance, who sees beau- subordination to it; for no man can be a gaintiful castles, woods, and meadows; and, at er here but at the same time he himself, or the same time, hears the warbling of birds, some other, must succeed in their dealings and the purling of streams; but, upon the with the government. It is called 'The Mulfinishing of some secret spell, the fantastic tiplication Table,' and is so far calculated for scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight the immediate service of her majesty, that the finds himself in a barren heath, or in a soli- same person who is fortunate in the lottery of tary desert. It is not improbable that some- the state may receive yet further advantage in thing like this may be the state of the soul af- this table. And I am sure nothing can be ter its first separation, in respect of the ima- more pleasing to her gracious temper than to ges it will receive from matter; though in- find out additional methods of increasing their deed the ideas of colours are so pleasing and good fortune who adventure any thing in her beautiful in the imagination, that it is possible service, or laying occasions for others to bethe soul will not be deprived of them, but per- come capable of serving their country who are haps find them excited by some other occa- at present in too low circumstances to exert sional cause, as they are at present by the dif- themselves. The manner of executing the deferent impressions of the subtle matter on the sign is by giving out receipts for half guineas organ of sight. received, which shall entitle the fortunate I have here supposed that my reader is ac-bearer to certain sums in the table, as is set 'Here easy quiet, a secure retreat, A harmless life that knows not how to cheat, forth at large in the proposals printed the twenty-third instant. There is another circumstance in this design,which gives me hopes of your favour to it, and that is what Tully advises, to wit, that the benefit is made as diffusive as possible. Every one that has half a guinea is put into the possibility, from that small sum, to raise himself an easy fortune: when these little parcels of wealth are, as it were, thus thrown back again into the redonation of providence, we are to expect that some who live under hardships or obscurity may be produced to the world in the figure they deserve by this means. I doubt not but this last argument will have force with you; and I cannot add another to it, but what your sever-ness of the objects to the eye, and from their ity will, I fear, very little regard, which is, that I am, Sir, your greatest admirer, No. 414.] Wednesday, June 25, 1712. PAPER IV. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. Contents. The works of nature more pleasant to the imagination than those of art. The works of nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art. The works of art more pleasant, the more they resemble those of nature. Our English plantations and gardens considered in the foregoing light. -Alterius sic Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amicè. But mutually they need each other's help. Roscommon. If we consider the works of nature and art as they are qualified to entertain the imagination, we shall find the last very defective, in comparison of the former; for though they may sometimes appear as beautiful or strange, they can have nothing in them of that vastness and immensity, which afford so great an entertainment to the mind of the beholder. The one may be as polite and delicate as the other, but can never show herself so august and magnificent in the design. There is something more bold and masterly in the rough careless strokes of nature, than in the nice touches and embellishments of art. scenes, that are more delightful than any artiBut though there are several of those wild ficial shows, yet we find the works of nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art: for in this case our pleasure rises from a double principle; from the agreeable similitude to other objects. We are pleased as well with comparing their beauties, as with surveying them, and can represent them to our minds, either as copies or originals. Hence it is that we take delight in a prospect which is well laid out, and diversified with fields and meadows, woods and rivers; in those accidenare sometimes found in the veins of marble; tal landscapes of trees, clouds, and cities, that in the curious fret-work of rocks and grottos; and, in a word, in any thing that hath such a variety or regularity as may seem the effect of design in what we call the works of chance. If the products of nature rise in value according as they more or less resemble those of art, we may be sure that artificial works reHor. Ars Poet. v. 414. ceive a greater advantage from their resemblance of such as are natural; because here the similitude is not only pleasant, but the pattern more perfect. The prettiest landscape I ever saw, was one drawn on the walls of a dark room, which stood opposite on one side to a navigable river, and on the other to a park The experiment is very common in optics. Here you might discover the waves and Aluctuations of the water in strong and proper colours, with a picture of a ship entering at one end, and sailing by degrees through the whole piece. On another there appeared the green shadows of trees, waving to and fro with the wind, and herds of deer among them in miniature leaping about upon the wall. I must confess the novelty of such a sight may beauties of the most stately garden or palace be one occasion of its pleasantness to the imalie in a narrow compass, the imagination im-gination; but certainly its chief reason is its mediately runs them over, and requires some- nearest resemblance to natnre, as it does not thing else to gratify her; but in the wide fields only, like other pictures give the colour and of nature, the sight wanders up and down figure, but the motions of the things it reprewithout confinement, and is fed with an infinite variety of images, without any certain stint or number. For this reason we always find the poet in love with the country life, where nature appears in the greatest perfection, and furnishes out all those scenes that are most apt to delight the imagination. The sents. We have before observed, that there is generally in nature something more grand and august than what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, therefore, we see this and more exalted kind of pleasure than what imitated in any measure, it gives us a nobler we receive from the nicer and more accurate productions of art. On this account our English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in France and Italy, where we see a large extent of ground covered over with an agreeable mixture of garden and forest, which represent every where an artificial rudeness, much more charming than that neatness and elegancy which we meet with in those of our own country. It might indeed be of ill consequence to the public, as well as unprofitable to private persons, to alienate so much ground from pasturage and the plough, in many parts of a country that is so well peopled. and cultivated to a far greater advantage. But why may not a whole estate be thrown into a kind of garden by frequent plantations, that may turn as much to the profit as the pleasure of the owner? A marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain shaded with oaks, are not only more beautiful but more beneficial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields of corn make a pleasant prospect; and if the walks were a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural embroidery of the meadows were helped and improved by some small additions of art, and the several rows of hedges set off by trees and flowers that the soil was capable of receiving, a man might make a pretty landscape of his own possessions. A French author's observations on this subject. Why concave and convex figures give a greatness of manner to works of architecture. Every thing that pleases the imagination in architecture, is either great, beautiful, or new. Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem. Witness our cities of illustrious name, Dryden. HAVING already shown how the fancy is af fected by the works of nature, and afterwards considered in general both the works of nature and of art, how they mutually assist and complete each other in forming such scenes and prospects as are most apt to delight the mind of the beholder, I shall in this paper throw together some reflections on that particular art, which has a more immediate tendency, than any other, to produce those primary pleasures of the imagination which have hitherto been the subject of this discourse. The art I mean Greatness, in the works of architecture, may be considered as relating to the bulk and body of the structure, or to the manner in which it is built. As for the first, we find tions of the world, infinitely superior to the the ancients, especially among the eastern na is that of architecture, which I shall consider Writers, who have given us an account of only with regard to the light in which the foreChina, tell us the inhabitants of that country going speculations have placed it, without enlaugh at the plantations of our Europeans, which are laid out by the rule and line; betering into those rules and maxims which the cause they say, any one may place trees in great masters of architecture have laid down, equal rows and uniform figures. They choose and explained at large in numberless treatises upon that subject. rather to show a genius in works of this nature, and therefore always conceal the art by which they direct themselves. They have a word, it seems, in their language, by which they express the particular beauty of a plantation that thus strikes the imagination at first sight, without discovering what it is that has so agreeable an effect. Our British gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible.. Our trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissars upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in may opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a moderns. Not to mention the tower of Babel, of which an old author says, there were the foundations cious mountain; what could be more noble to be seen in his time, which looked like a spathan the walls of Babylon, its hanging gardens, and its temple to Jupiter Belus, that rose a mile high by eight several stories, each story a furlong in height, and on the top of which was the Babylonian observatory? I might here, likewise, take notice of the huge rock that was cut into the figure of Semiramis, with the smaller rocks that lay by it in the shape of tributary kings: the prodigious basin, or artificial lake, which took in the whole Euphrates, till such time as a new canal was formed for its reception, with the several trenches through which that river was conveyed. I know there are persons who look upon some of these wonders of art as fabulous; but I cannot find any ground for such a suspicion; unless it be that we have no such works among us at present. There were indeed many greater advantages for building in those times, and in that part of the world, than have been met with ever since. The earth was extremely fruitful; men lived generally on pasturage, which requires a ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. much smaller number of hands than agriculture. There were few trades to employ the Contents. Of architecture, as it affects the imagination. busy part of mankind, and fewer arts and sci mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre. But, as our great modellers of gardens have their magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very natural for them to tear up all the beautiful plantations of fruit-trees, and contrive a plan that may most turn to their own profit, in taking off their ever-greens, and the like moveable plants, with which their shops are plentifully stocked. No. 415.] Thursday, June 26, 1712. PAPER V. 0. Greatness in architecture relates either to the bulk or to the manner. Greatness of bulk in the ancient oriental ences to give work to men of speculative tembuildings. The ancient accounts of these buildings con- pers; and what is more than all the rest, the firmed. 1. From the advantages for raising such works, prince was absolute; so that, when we went to in the first ages of the world, and in eastern climates. 2 From several of them which are still extant. Instan- war, he put himself at the head of the whole ces how greatnes of manner affects the imagination. people; so we find Semiramis leading her three |