of the speaker seems to have been too seriously engaged to be at liberty for fo long an excurfion of fancy.

We are often offended with a personification, when it is not merely the perfonification that occafions our disgust, but the extravagance of the fentiment conveyed by it. We are not fo much offended that the air is perfonified, or that actions are ascribed to it in confequence of the personification, in the following passage ; as that the air in the market-place should be in love with Cleopatra, and be restrained from quitting its place to go to her, by the dread of a vacuum.

The city caft

Its people out upon her, and Antony

Inthroned i' the market-place did fit alone,
Whistling to them; which, but for vacancy,

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, Act II. Scene 3.

So natural is this figure of fpeech, that it requires but little elevation of fancy to admit it even very near the beginning of a work. In fome compofitions it is quite eafy in the very first fentence. No perfon can be fuppofed to fit down to write or read a poem upon the Seafons, with lefs elevation of fancy than is fufficient to make him relish Thompson's invocation of them at the opening of each:

Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bofom of yon dropping cloud,
While mufic wakes around, veil'd in a cloud
Of fhad'wing rofes, on our plains defcend,

From bright'ning fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the fun, refulgent Summer comes.

Crown'd with the fickle and the wheaten fheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plains,
Comes jovial on, the Doric reed, once more,
Well-pleased, I tune.

See Winter comes to rule the vary'd year,
Sullen, and fad, with all his rifing train,
Vapours, and clouds, and ftorms.

I shall only add one remark more on this fubject of personification, which is, that no object personified ought to have attributes afcribed to it unfuitable to its nature, confidered as not perfonified. Thus it feems to be abfurd in Mr. Pope to reprefent any perfans worshipping the goddess Dullness; since dulness is a thing which all perfons, not excepting the dulleft, profess a contempt for.

I cannot conclude this article without obferving, that the ftructure of the English language is peculiarly favourable to distinct perfonification. In languages in which every thing is male or female, there can be no distinction between what hath real fex and what hath none: fo that, in fuch language, it will not appear when a writer means to perfonify, and when he doth not. Whereas in English, the words he or she, being appropriated to things which have fex, immediately intimate when a writer paffes from plain language to the perfonification of things without life.

LECTURE

LECTURE XXX.

Of IMITATION, and the Satisfaction we receive from the Completeness of things.

O the account of the pleasures we receive from the introduction of human fentiments into compofition, we may conveniently subjoin an account of those we receive from a perception of the effects of the human understanding; a species of pleasure nearly related to the former, but fomething different from it.

The idea we univerfally conceive of the excellency of reason, of the innumerable advantages of it, and the sense of honour and dignity which from hence attends the consciousness of it, furnish a fource of pleasing ideas, which are excited by the perception of the marks of design in human works. Moreover, the greater the defign, and the more difficult we imagine the execution of it to be, the greater pleasure we receive from feeing the perform

ance.

This is the principal fource of the pleasures we universally receive from imitations of all kinds; in all which there is defign and execution manifeft. The pleasure we receive from the view of a happy imitation, is clearly diftinguishable from the pleasure which the object itself is qualified to give us, notwithstanding it be ne

ceffarily

ceffarily mixed with it. Were they of the fame nature, the pleasure we receive from the original would always exceed, however, it would never fall short of, that we receive from the copy, because no copy can do more than exactly refemble the original. But we find that an imitation generally gives a more fenfible pleasure to the imagination than an original. The pleasure must, therefore, be of a different kind. It could take from the original no more, nor other qualities than it was itself poffeffed of. Who is not fenfible that a good picture gives more exquifite entertainment, particularly to a connoiffeur, than the scene from which it was drawn? A fine landscape, particularly when it opens all at once, ftrikes the mind with a lively fense of pleasure; a good drawing of the fame landfcape, as far it fuggefts the fame pleasurable fenfation, doth the fame, but must do it fainter. The reason then why we can take equal pleasure in gazing upon it, is, that amends is more than made for that faintnefs, by the additional pleasure it fuggefts, from prefenting a view of the effects of buman genius in executing the imitation.

We may perceive more clearly the nature of this additional pleasure, if we confider how it increases with every circumftance attending the imitation that increases the difficulty of it. All imitations please more upon our being informed that they were executed with inconvenient materials and utenfils, by perfons who were very young, or who had little or no inftruction, &c. Of two pieces of painting, equally good, one faid to be done by the mafter, and the other by the fcholar, that done by the scholar would be the moft gazed at. What else but ideas derived from these principles could have induced Ketel to throw aside his pencil, and paint with his fingers; and afterwards, thinking that practice too eafy, and not fufficiently wonderful, to confine himfelf to the use of his tocs? Though

A

Though common sense is far from juftifying this extravagance, it could not have exifted without fome foundation in nature. landscape in needle-work engages the attention more than the fame landscape, much better executed, in drawing or painting. It is well known that in mufic, the difficulty of execution gives a pleasure which often bears away the mind from attending to the excellence of the compofition. And the fame discourse, delivered extempore, will always be heard with more pleasure than if it were pre-compofed; or, fuppofing it to be pre-compofed, it will give more pleasure delivered from the memory than from notes. In most of these cafes we clearly perceive that it is our admiration of the effects of human genius (which are more wonderful in proportion to the disadvantages it labours under, and the impediments it hath to remove) that gives the pleasure which imitation conveys, additional to what it can derive from the object itself; because this pleasure manifeftly increases with the admiration.

We may perceive this fpecies of pleafure in the purest kind, and freest from all foreign mixture, in the imitation of objects which are in themselves not in the leaft pleafing, or even difagreeable, and therefore have no agreeable qualities to communicate, such as are met with in pictures of toads, and various kinds of infects; of scenes in very low life, as perfons of a mean appearance; beggars, for inftance, clothed in rags, in a sorry house, with wretched furniture, and in every refpect fo circumstanced and employed, that no perfon could look upon the scene itself with any pleasure. A picture of fuch a scene as this, well imagined, and drawn to the life, would be valued. In these cafes, the difguft with which the objects themselves would naturally inspire us, is lost in the pleasure we receive from the powers of imitation.