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one day in the mist of his pleading: but he had better have let it alone, for he lost his cause by his jest.

I have all along acknowledged myself to be a dumb man, and therefore may be thought a very improper person to give rules for oratory: but I will believe every one will agree with me in this. that we ought either to lay aside all kinds of gesture (which seems to be very suitable to the genius of our nation), or at least to make use of such only as are graceful and expressive.-O.

No. 408.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 1712.

Decet affectus animi neque se nimium erigere, nec subjacere

serviliter.-TULL. de Finibus.

The affections of the heart ought not to be too much indulged,
nor servilely depressed.
"MR. SPECTATOR,

spirit by an admirable tie, which in him occasions a perpetual war of passions; and as a man inclines to the angelic or brute part of his constitution, he is then denominated good or bad, virtuous or wicked; if love, mercy, and good-nature prevail, they speak him of the angel: if hatred, cruelty, and envy predominate, they declare his kindred to the brute. Hence it was, that some of the ancients imagined, that as men in this life inclined more to the angel or the brute, so after their death they should transmigrate into the one or the other; and it would be no unpleasant notion to consider the several species of brutes, into which we may imagine that tyrants; misers, the proud, malicious, and ill-natured, might be changed.

"As a consequence of this original, all passions are in all men, but all appear not in all; constituand the like causes, may improve or abate the tion, education, custom of the country, reason, strength of them; but still the seeds remain, which are ever ready to sprout forth upon the least "I HAVE always been a very great lover of your encouragement. I have heard a story of a good speculations, as well in regard to the subject as religious man, who, having been bred with the to your manner of treating it. Human nature I milk of a goat, was very modest in public by a always thought the most useful object of human careful reflection he made on his actions: but he reason, and to make the consideration of it plea- frequently had an hour in secret, wherein he had sant and entertaining, I always thought the best his frisks and capers: and if we had an opportu employment of human wit: other parts of philo- nity of examining the retirement of the strictest sophy may perhaps make us wiser, but this not philosophers, no doubt, but we should find perpetonly answers that end, but makes us better too. ual returns of those passions they so artfully conHence it was that the oracle pronounced Socrates ceal from the public. I remember Machiavel ob. the wisest of all men living, because he judicious- serves, that every state should entertain a perpetual ly made choice of human nature for the object of jealousy of its neighbors, that so it should never his thoughts; an inquiry into which as much ex- be unprovided when an emergency happens; in ceeds all other learning, as it is of more conse-like manner, should the reason be perpetually on quence to adjust the true nature and measures of right and wrong, than to settle the distances of the planets, and compute the times of their circumvolutions.

"One good effect that will immediately arise from a near observation of human nature is, that we shall cease to wonder at those actions which men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for, as nothing is produced without a cause, so, by observing the nature and course of the passions, we shall be able to trace every action from its first conception to its death. We shall no more admire at the proceedings of Catiline or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel jealousy, the other by a furious ambition: for the actions of men follow their passions as naturally as light does heat, or as any other effect flows from its cause; reason must be employed in adjusting the passions, but they must ever remain the principles of action.

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The strange and absurd variety that is so apparent in men's actions, shows plainly they can never proceed immediately from reason; so pure a fountain emits no such troubled waters. They raust necessarily arise from the passions, which are to the mind as the winds to a ship; they only can move it, and they too often destroy it; if fair and gentle, they guide it into the harbor: if contrary and furious, they overset it in the waves. In the same manner is the mind assisted or endangered by the passions; reason must then take the place of pilot, and can never fail of securing her charge if she be not wanting to herself. The strength of the passions will never be accepted as an excuse for complying with them: they were designed for subjection; and if a man suffers them to get the upper hand, he then betrays the liberty of his own soul.

"As nature has framed the several species of beings as it were in a chain, so man seems to be placed as the middle link between angels and brutes Hence he participates both of flesh and

its guard against the passions, and never suffer them to carry on any design that may be destructive of its security: yet at the same time it must be careful that it do not so far break their strength as to render them contemptible, and consequently itself unguarded.

"The understanding being of itself too slow and lazy to exert itself into action, it is necessary it should be put in motion by the gentle gales of the passions, which may preserve it from stagnating and corruption; for they are as necessary to the health of the mind, as the circulation of the animal spirits is to the health of the body: they keep it in life, and strength, and vigor: nor is it possible for the mind to perform its offices without their assistance. These motions are given us with our being; they are little spirits that are born and die with us; to some they are mild, easy, and gentle; to others wayward and unruly, yet never too strong for the reins of reason and the guidance of judgment.

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We may generally observe a pretty nice proportion between the strength of reason and passion; the greatest geniuses have commonly the strongest affections, as, on the other hand, the weaker understandings have generally the weaker passions; and it is fit the fury of the coursers should not be too great for the strength of the charioteer. Young men, whose passions are not a little unruly, give small hopes of their ever being considerable; the fire of youth will of course abate, and is a fault, if it be a fault, that mends every day; but surely, unless a man has fire in youth, he can hardly have warmth in old age. We must therefore be very cautious, lest, while we think to regulate the passions, we should quite extinguish them, which is putting out the light of the soul; for to be without passion, or to be hur ried away with it, makes a man equally blind. The extraordinary severity used in most of our schools has this fatal effect, it breaks the spring of the mind, and most certainly destroys more

good geniuses than it can possibly improve. And an author with pleasure, and the imperfections surely it is a mighty mistake that the passions with dislike." If a man would know whether he should be so entirely subdued: for little irregula- is possessed of this faculty, I would have him rities are sometimes not only to be borne with, read over the celebrated works of antiquity, which but to be cultivated too, since they are frequently have stood the test of so many different ages and attended with the greatest perfections. All great countries, or those works among the moderns geniuses have faults mixed with their virtues, and which have the sanction of the politer part of our resemble the flaming bush which has thorns among cotemporaries. If, upon the perusal of such writlights. ings, he does not find himself delighted in an extraordinary manner, or if, upon reading the admired passages in such authors, he finds a coldness and indifference in his thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too usual among tasteless readers) that the author wants those perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering them.

"Since, therefore, the passions are the principles of human actions, we must endeavor to manage them so as to retain their vigor, yet keep them under strict command; we must govern them rather like free subjects than slaves, lest, while we intend to make them obedient, they become abject, and unfit for those great purposes to which they were designed. For my part, I must confess, I could never have any regard to that sect of philosophers who so much insisted upon an absolute indifference and vacancy from all passion: for it seems to me a thing very inconsistent, for a man to divest himself of humanity in order to acquire tranquillity of mind; and to eradicate the very principles of action, because it is possible they may produce ill effects.

х

Z.

I am,

Sir, your affectionate Admirer,

"T. B."

No. 409.] THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1712.

-Musao contingere cuncta lepore.-LUCR. i, 933. To grace each subject with enliv'ning wit. GRATIAN Very often recommends fine taste as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man.

As this word arises very often in conversation, I shall endeavor to give some account of it, and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may acquire that fine taste of writing which is so much talked of among the polite world.

Most languages make use of this metaphor, to express that faculty of the mind which distinguishes all the most concealed faults and nicest perfections in writing. We may be sure this metaphor would not have been so general in all tongues, had there not been a very great conformity between that mental taste, which is the subject of this paper, and that sensitive taste, which gives us a relish of every different flavor that affects the palate. Accordingly we find there are as many degrees of refinement in the intellectual faculty as in the sense which is marked out by this common denomination.

I knew a person who possessed the one in so great a perfection, that, after having tasted ten different kinds of tea, he would distinguish, without seeing the color of it, the particular sort which was offered him; and not only so, but any two sorts of them that were mixed together in an equal proportion; nay, he has carried the experiment so far, as, upon tasting the composition of three different sorts, to name the parcels from whence the three several ingredients were taken. (A man of a fine taste in writing will discern, after the same manner, not only the general beauties and imperfections of an author, but discover the several ways of thinking and expressing himself, which diversify him from all other authors, with the several foreign infusions of thought and language, and the particular authors from whom they were bor"owed.

After having thus far explained what is generally meant by a fine taste in writing, and shown the propriety of the metaphor which is used on this occasion, I think I may define it to be "that faculty of the soul, which discerns the beauties of

He should, in the second place, be very careful to observe, whether he tastes the distinguishing perfections, or, if I may be allowed to call them so, the specific qualities of the author whom he peruses whether he is particularly pleased with Livy for his manner of telling a story, with Sallust for his entering into those internal principles of action which arise from the characters and manners of the persons he describes, or with Tacitus for displaying those outward motives of safety and interest which gave birth to the whole series of transactions which he relates.

He may likewise consider how differently he is affected by the same thought which presents itself in a great writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a person of an ordinary genius; for there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light of the sun.

It is very difficult to lay down rules for the acquirement of such a taste as that I am here speaking of. The faculty must, in some degree, be born with us: and it very often happens, that those who have other qualities in perfection, are wholly void of this. One of the most eminent mathematicians of the age has assured me, that the greatest pleasure he took in reading Virgil was in examining Eneas's voyage by the map; as I question not but many a modern compiler of history would be delighted with little more in that divine author than the bare matter of fact.

But, notwithstanding this faculty must in some measure be born with us, there are several methods for cultivating and improving it, and without which it will be very uncertain, and of little use to the person that possesses it. The most natural method for this purpose is to be conversant among the writings of the most polite authors. A man who has any relish for fine writing, either discovers new beauties, or receives stronger impressions, from the masterly strokes of a great author, every time he peruses him; beside that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking. >

Conversation with men of a polite genius is another method for improving our natural taste. It is impossible for a man of the greatest parts to consider anything in its whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. Every man, beside those general observations which are to be made upon an author, forms several reflections that are peculiar to his own manner of thinking; so that conversation will naturally furnish us with hints which we did not attend to, and make us enjoy other men's parts and reflections as well as our own. This is the best reason I can give for the observation which several have made, that men of great genius in the same way of writing seldom rise up singly, but at certain periods of time appear together, and in a body; as they did at

It is likewise necessary for a man who would form to himself a finished taste of good writing, to be well versed in the works of the best critics, both ancient and modern. I must confess that I could wish there were authors of this kind, who, beside the mechanical rules, which a man of very little taste may discourse upon, would enter into the very spirit and soul of fine writing, and show us the several sources of that pleasure which rises in the mind upon the perusal of a noble work. Thus, although in poetry it be absolutely necessary that the unities of time, place, and action, with other points of the same nature, should be thoroughly explained and understood, there is still something more essential to the art, something that elevates and astonishes the fancy, and gives a greatness of mind to the reader, which few of the critics beside Longinus have considered.

Rome in the reign of Augustus, and in Greece the Temple cloister, whither had escaped also a
about the age of Socrates. I cannot think that lady most exactly dressed from head to foot.
Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, La Fontaine, Will made no scruple to acquaint us, that she
Bruyere, Bossu, or the Daciers, would have writ- saluted him very familiarly by his name, and
ten so well as they have done, had they not been turning immediately to the knight, she said she
friends and cotemporaries.
supposed that was his good friend Sir Roger de
Coverley: upon which nothing less could follow
than Sir Roger's approach to salutation, with
Madam, the same, at your service." She was
dressed in a black tabby mantua and petticoat,
without ribbons; her linen striped muslin, and
in the whole in an agreeable second mourning;
decent dresses being often affected by the creatures
of the town, at once consulting cheapness and the
pretension to modesty. She went on with a fa-
miliar, easy air, “Your friend, Mr. Honeycomb, is
a little surprised to see a woman here alone and
unattended; but I dismissed my coach at the
gate, and tripped it down to my counsel's cham-
bers; for lawyers' fees take up too much of a
small disputed jointure to admit any other ex-
penses but mere necessaries." Mr. Honeycomb
begged they might have the honor of setting her
down, for Sir Roger's servant was gone to call a
coach. In the interim the footman returned with
Our general taste in England is for epigram, "no coach to be had ;" and there appeared nothing
turns of wit, and forced conceits, which have no to be done but trusting herself with Mr. Honey-
manner of influence either for the bettering or en- comb and his friend, to wait at the tavern at the
larging the mind of him who reads them, and gate for a coach, or be subjected to all the imper-
have been carefully avoided by the greatest writinence she must meet with in that public place.
ters both among the ancients and moderns. I Mr. Honeycomb, being a man of honor, deter-
have endeavored, in several of my speculations, mined the choice of the first, and Sir Roger, as
to banish this Gothic taste which has taken pos- the better man, took the lady by the hand, leading
session among us.
I entertained the town for a her through all the shower, covering her with his
week together with an essay upon wit, in which hat, and gallanting a familiar acquaintance through
I endeavored to detect several of those false kinds rows of young fellows who winked at Sukey in
which have been admired in the different ages of the state she maroked off, Will Honeycomb bring-
the world, and at the same time to show wherein ing up the rear.
the nature of true wit consists. I afterward gave an Much importunity prevailed upon the fair one
instance of the great force which lies in a natural to admit of a collation, where, after declaring she
simplicity of thought to affect the mind of the had no stomach, and having eaten a couple of
reader, from such vulgar pieces as have little else chickens, devoured a truss of salad, and drank a
beside this single qualification to recommend them. full bottle to her share, she sung the Old Man's
I have likewise examined the works of the great-Wish to Sir Roger. The knight left the room for
est poet which our nation, or perhaps any other, some time after supper, and wrote the following
has produced, and particularized most of those billet, which he conveyed to Sukey, and Sukey to
rational and manly beauties which give a value to her friend Will Honeycomb. Will has given it to
that divine work. I shall next Saturday enter Sir Andrew Freeport, who read it last night to the
upon an essay on "The Pleasures of the Imagin-club:-
ation," which, though it shall consider that subject

at large, will perhaps suggest to the reader what "MADAM,
it is that gives a beauty to many passages of the
finest writers both in prose and verse. As an
undertaking of this nature is entirely new,
question not but it will be received with candor.

No. 410.] FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1712.

0.

-Dum foris sunt, nihil videtur mundius,
Nec magis compositum quidquam, nec magis elegans:
Quæ, cum amatore suo cum coenant, liguriunt.
Harum videre ingluviem sordes, inopiam:
Quam inhonesta solæ sint domi, atque avidæ cibi:
Quo pacto ex jure hesterno panem atrum vorent:
Nosse omnia hæc, salus est adolescentulis.

I

TER. Eun. act v, sc. 4. When they are abroad, nothing so clean and nicely dressed, and when at supper with a gallant, they do but piddle, and pick the choicest bits: but to see their nastiness and poverty at home, their gluttony, and how they devour black crusts dipped in yesterday's broth, is a perfect antidote agains wenching.

WILL HONEYCOMB, who disguises his present decay by visiting the wenches of the town only by way of humor, told us, that the last rainy night, he with Sir Roger de Coverley, was driven into

"I am not so mere a country gentleman, but I can guess at the law business you had at the and leave off all your vanities but your singing, Temple. If you would go down to the country, let me know at my lodgings in Bow-street, Covent-garden, and you shall be encouraged by your humble servant, 64 ROGER DE COVERLEY."

My good friend could not well stand the raillery which was rising upon him; but to put a stop to it, I delivered Will Honeycomb the following letter, and desired him to read it to the board:

MR. SPECTATOR,

"Having seen a translation of one of the chap-
ters in the Canticles into English verse inserted
among your late papers, I have ventured to send
you the seventh chapter of the Proverbs in a
poetical dress. If you think it worthy appearing
reward for the trouble of
among your speculations, it will be a sufficient

"Your constant Reader,
"A. B."

"secondary

My son, th' instruction that my words impart,
Grave on the living tablet of thy heart:
And all the wholesome precepts that I give,
Observe with strictest reverence, and live.

Let all thy homage be to Wisdom paid,
Seek her protection, and implore her aid;
That she may keep thy soul from harm secure,
And turn thy footsteps from the harlot's door,
Who with curs'd charms lures the unwary in,
And soothes with flattery their souls to sin.

Once from my window, as I cast mine eye
On those that passed in giddy numbers by,
A youth among the foolish youths I spied,
Who took not sacred wisdom for his guide.

Just as the sun withdrew his cooler light,
And evening soft led on the shades of night,
He stole in covert twilight to his fate,

And passed the corner near the harlot's gate,
When lo! a woman comes!

Loose her attire, and such her glaring dress,
So aptly did the harlot's mind express:
Subtile she is, and practic'd in the arts
By which the wanton conquers heedless hearts:
Stubborn and loud she is; she hates her home;
Varying her place and form, she loves to roam:
Now she's within, now in the street doth stray,
Now at each corner stands and waits her prey.
The youth she seiz'd; and laying now aside
All modesty, the female's justest pride,
She said, with an embrace, "Here at my house
Poace-offerings are, this day I paid my vows.
I therefore came abroad to meet my dear,
And, lo! in happy hour, I find thee here.
My chamber I've adorn'd, and o'er my bed
Are cov'rings of the richest tap'stry spread;
With linen it is deck'd from Egypt brought,
And carvings by the curious artist wrought;
It wants no glad perfume Arabia yields
In all her citron groves and spicy fields;
Here all her store of richest odors meets,
I'll lay thee in a wilderness of sweets;
Whatever to the sense can grateful be

I have collected there I want but thee.

My husband's gone a journey far away,
Much gold he took abroad, and long will stay,
He named for his return a distant day."

Upon her tongue did such smooth mischief dwell,
And from her lips such welcome flatt'ry fell,
Th'unguarded youth, in silken fetters tied,
Resign'd his reason, and with ease complied.
Thus does the ox to his own slaughter go,
And thus is senseless of th' impending blow;
Thus flies the simple bird into the snare,
That skillful fowlers for his life prepare.
But let my sons attend. Attend may they
Whom youthful vigor may to sin betray;

Let them false charmers fly. and guard their hearts
Against the wily wanton's pleasing arts;
With care direct their steps, nor turn astray
To tread the paths of her deceitful way;
Lest they too late of her fell pow'r complain,
And fall, where many mightier have been slain.

No. 411. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1712.

PAPER I.

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.

CONTENTS.

The

The perfection of our sight above our other senses. pleasures of the imagination arise originally from sight. The pleasures of the imagination divided under two heads. The pleasures of the imagination in some respects equal to those of the understanding. The extent of the pleasures of the imagination. The advantages a man receives from a relish of these pleasures. In what respect they are pre

ferable to those of the understanding.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo: juvat integros accedere fontes,
Atque haurire
LUCR. i. 925.

In wild unclear'd, to Muses a retreat,
O'er ground untrod before. I devious roam,
And deep enamor'd into latent springs
Presume to peep at coy virgin Naiads.

OUR sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can

indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colors;: but at the same time it is very much straitened. and confined in its operations to the number,. bulk, and distance of its particular objects. Ou sight seems designed to supply all these defects,. and may be considered as a more delicate and diffusive kind of touch, that spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach some of the most remote parts of the universe.

(It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by "the pleasures of the imagination," or " fancy" (which I shall use promiscuously), I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by painting, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion. We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those 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 scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature.

There are few words in the English language which are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than those of the fancy and the imagination. I therefore thought it necessary to fix and determine the notion of these two words, as I intend to make use of them in the thread of my following speculations, that the reader may conceive rightly what is the subject which I proceed upon. I must therefore desire him to remember, that by "the pleasures of the imagination," I mean only such pleasures as arise originally from sight, and that I divide these pleasures into two kinds: my design being first of all to discourse of those primary pleasures of the imagination, which entirely proceed from such objects as are before our eyes; and in the next place to speak of those secondary pleasures of the imagination which flow from the ideas of visible objects, when the objects are not actually before the eye, but are called up into our memories, or formed into agreeable visions of things that are either absent or fictitious.

The pleasures of the imagination, taken in their full extent, are not so gross as those of sense, nor so refined as those of the understanding. The last are indeed more preferable, because they are founded on some new knowledge or improvement in the mind of man; yet it must be confessed, that those of the imagination are as great and as transporting as the other. A beautiful prospect delights the soul as much as a demonstration; and a description in Homer has charmed more readers than a chapter in Aristotle. Beside, the pleasures those of the understanding, that they are more of the imagination have this advantage above obvious and more easy to be acquired. It is but opening the eye, and the scene enters. The colors paint themselves on the fancy, with very little attention of thought or application of mind in the beholder. We are struck, we know not how, with the symmetry of anything we see, and immediately assent to the beauty of an object, without inquiring into the particular causes and occasions 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 converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets

sublimity

>

with a secret refreshment in a description, and or beautiful. There may, indeed, be something
often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of terrible or offensive, that the horror or loathsome
fields and meadows, than another does in the pos-ness of an object may overbear the pleasure which
session. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property results from its greatness, novelty, or beauty; but
in everything he sees, and makes the most rude still there will be such a mixture of delight in the
ur.cultivated parts of nature administer to his very disgust it gives us, as any of these three
pleasures; so that he looks upon the world as it qualifications are most conspicuous and prevail-
were in another light, and discovers in it a multi-ing.
tude of charms, that conceal themselves from the By greatness, I do not only mean the bulk of
generality of mankind.

There are indeed but very few who know how to be idle and innocent, or have a relish of any pleasures that are not criminal; every diversion they take is at the expense of some one virtue or another, and their very first step out of business is into vice or folly. A man should endeavor, therefore, to make the sphere of his innocent pleasures as wide as possible, that he may retire into them with safety, and find in them such a satisfaction as a wise man would not blush to take. Of this nature are those of the imagination, which do not require such a bent of thought as is neces sary to our more serious employments, nor, at the same time, suffer the mind to sink into that negligence and remissness, which are apt to accompany our more sensual delights, but, like a gentle exercise to the faculties, awaken them from sloth and idleness, without putting them upon any labor or difficulty.

any single object, but the largeness of a whole view, considered as one entire piece. Such are the prospects of an open champaign country, a vast uncultivated desert, of huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and precipices, or a wide expanse of waters, where we are not struck with the novelty or beauty of the sight, but with that rude kind of magnificence which appears in many of these stupendous works of nature. Our imagination loves to be filled with an object, or to grasp at anything that is too big for its capacity. We are flung into a pleasing astonishment at such unbounded views, and feel a delightful stillness and amazement in the soul at the apprehension of them. The mind of man naturally hates everything that looks like a restraint upon it, and is apt to fancy itself under a sort of confinement, when the sight is pent up in a narrow compass, and shortened on every side by the neighborhood of walls or mountains. On the contrary, a spaWe might here add, that, the pleasures of the cious horizon is an image of liberty, where the fancy are more conducive to health than those of eye has room to range abroad, to expatiate at large the understanding, which are worked out by dint on the immensity of its views, and to lose itself of thinking, and attended with too violent a labor amid the variety of objects that offer themselves of the brain. Delightful scenes, whether in na- to its observation. Such wide and undetermined ture, painting, or poetry, have a kindly influence prospects are as pleasing to the fancy as the speon the body as well as the mind: and not only culations of eternity or infinitude are to the underserve to clear and brighten the imagination, but standing. But if there be a beauty or uncommonare able to disperse grief and melancholy, and to ness joined with this grandeur, as in a troubled set the animal spirits in pleasing and agreeable | ocean, a heaven adorned with stars and meteors, motions. For this reason, Sir Francis Bacon, in or a spacious landscape cut out into rivers, woods, his Essay upon Health, has not thought it impro- rocks, and meadows, the pleasure still grows upon per to prescribe to his reader a poem or a prospect, us, as it arises from more than a single principle. where he particularly dissuades him from knotty Everything that is new or uncommon raises a and subtile disquisitions, and advises him to pur-pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the sue studies that fill the mind with splendid and soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curi illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contem-osity, and gives it an idea of which it was not beplations of nature.

I have in this paper, by way of introduction, settled the notion of those pleasures of the imagination which are the subject of my present undertaking, and endeavored, by several considerations, to recommend to my reader the pursuit of those pleasures. I shall in my next paper examine the several sources from whence these pleasures are derived -0.

No. 412.] MONDAY, JUNE 23, 1712.

PAPER II.

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
CONTENTS.

Three sources of all the pleasures of the imagination, in our
survey of outward objects. How what is great pleases the
imagination. How what is new pleases the imagination.

How what is beautiful in our species pleases the imagination. How what is beautiful in general pleases the imagination. What other accidental causes may contribute to the heightening of those pleasures.

-Divisum sic breve fiet opus.-MART. Ep. iv, 83. The work, divided aptly, shorter grows. I SHALL first consider those pleasures of the imagination which arise from the actual view and survey of outward objects: and these, I think, all proceed from the sight of what is great, uncommon,

fore 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 uncommon contributes a little to vary human life, and to divert our minds for a while with the strangeness of its appearance. It serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of, in our usual and ordinary entertainments. It is this that bestows charms on a monster, and makes even the imperfections of nature please us. It is this that recommends variety, where the mind is every instant called off to something new, and the attention not suffered to dwell too long, and waste itself on any particular object. It is this, likewise, that improves what is great or beautiful, and makes it afford the mind a double entertainment. Groves, fields, and meadows, are at any season of the year pleasant to look upon, but never so much as in the opening of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the eye. For this reason there is nothing that more enlivens a prospect than rivers, jetteaus, or falls of water, where the scene is perpetually shifting, and entertaining the sight every moment with something that is new. We are quickly tired with looking upon hills and valleys, where everything continues fixed and settled ir the same place and posture, but find our thoughts a little agitated and relieved at the sight of such objects as are

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