Operations, or on occafion of fomething without us, as Statues, or Defcriptions. We have already confidered the first Division, and fhall therefore enter on the other, which, for Distinction fake, I have called the Secondary Pleafures of the Imagination. When I fay the Ideas we receive from Statues, Defcriptions, or fuch like Occasions, are the fame that were once actually in our View, it muft not be understood that we had once feen the very Place, Action, or Perfon which are carved or defcribed. It is fufficient, that we have feen Places, Perfons, or AЯtions, in general, which bear a Refemblance, or at least fome remote Analogy with what we find reprefented. Since it is in the Power of the Imagination, when it is once Stocked with particular Ideas, to enlarge, compound, and vary them at her own Pleasure.

AMONG the different Kinds of Reprefentation, Statuary is the moft natural, and fhews us fomething likeft the Object that is reprefented. To make use of a common Inftance, let one who is born Blind take an Image in his Hands, and trace out with his Fingers the different Furrows and Impreffions of the Chiffel, and he will eafily conceive how the Shape of a Man, or Beaft, may be reprefented by it; but fhould he draw his Hand over a Picture, where all is fmooth and uniform, he would never be able to imagine how the feveral Prominencies and Depreffions of a human Body could be fhewn on a plain Piece of Canvas, that has in it no Unevennefs or Irregularity. Defcription runs yet further from the Things it reprefents than Painting; for a Picture bears a real Refemblance to its Original, which Letters and Syllables are wholly void of. Colours fpeak all Languages, but Words are understood only by fuch a People or Nation. For this Reason, tho' Mens Neceffities quickly put them on finding out Speech, Writing is probably of a later Invention than Painting; particularly we are told, that in 4merica when the Spaniards firft arrived there Expreffes were fent to the Emperor of Mexico in Paint, and the News of his Country delineated by the Strokes 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 Speech, or to give the Picture of a Conjunction or an Adverb. It

would

would be yet more ftrange, to reprefent visible Objects by Sounds that have no Ideas annexed to them, and to make fomething like Defcription in Mufick. 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 Battel, to overcaft their Minds with melancholy Scenes and Apprehenfions of Deaths and Funerals, or to lull them into pleasing Dreams of Groves and Elifiums.

IN all these Inftances, this Secondary 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 Statue, Picture, Description, or Sound that reprefents them. It is impoffible for us to give the neceffary Reason, why this Operation of the Mind is attended with fo much Pleafure, as I have before obferved on the fame Occafien; but we find a great Variety of Entertainments desived from this fingle Principle: For it is this that not only gives us a Relifh of Statuary, Painting and Defcrip tion, 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 Satisfaction we fometimes find in the different Sorts of falfe Wit; whether it consists in the Affinity of Letters, as in Anagram, Acroftick; or of SyllaBles, as in Doggerel Rhimes, Echos; or of Words, as in Punns, Quibbles; or of a whole Sentence or Poem, to Wings, and Altars. The final Caufe, probably, of an nexing Pleasure to this Operation of the Mind, was to quicken and encourage us in our Searches after Truth, fince the diftinguifhing 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 my felf to thofe Pleasures of the Imagination, which proceed from Ideas raised by Words, because most of the Obfervations that agree with Deferiptions

Descriptions, are equally Applicable to Painting and Statuary.

WORDS, when well chofen, have fo great a Force in them, that a Defcription often gives us more lively Ideas than the Sight of Things themselves. 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 Survey of the Scene which they describe. 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 Survey of any Object we have only fo much of it painted on the Imagination, as comes in at the Eye; but in its Description, the Poet gives us as free a View of it as he pleafes it, and difcovers to us feveral Parts, that either we did not attend to, or that lay out of our Sight when we firft 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 raife 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 pass that several Readers, who are all acquainted with the fame Language, and know the Meaning of the Words they read, fhould nevertheless have a different Relifh of the fame Defcriptions. We find one transported with a Paffage, which another runs over with Coldness and Indifference, or finding the Representation extreamly natural, where another can perceive nothing of Likeness and Conformity. This different Tafte muft proceed, either from the Perfection of Imagination in one more than in another, or from the different Ideas that feveral 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 must have well weighed the Force and Energy that lye in the feveral Words of a Language, fo as to be able to diftinguish which are most fignificant and expreffive of their proper Ideas, and what additional

additional Strength and Beauty they are capable of recei ving from Conjunction with others. The Fancy must be warm to retain the Print of thofe Images it hath received from outward Objects; and the Judgment difcerning, to know what Expreffions are moft proper to cloath and adorn them to the beft Advantage. A Man who is deficient in either of thefe Refpects, tho' he may receive the general Notion of a Description, can never fee diftin&tly all its particular Beauties: As a Perfon, with a weak Sight, may have the confufed Profpect of a Place that lyes before him, without entring into its feveral Parts, or difcerning the variety of its Colours in their full Glory and Per-fection.

No

417.

Saturday, June 28.

W

Quem tu Melpomene femel

Nafcentem placido lumine videris,
Non illum labor Ifthmius

Clarabit pugilem, non equus impiger, &c.
Sed qua Tibur aqua fertile perfluunt,
Et Spiffe nemorum come

Fingent Eolio carmine nobilem.

Hor.

E may obferve, that any fingle Circumstance of what we have formerly feen often raises up a whole Scene of Imagery, and awakens numberlefs Ideas that before flept 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 observe, when the Fancy thus reflects on the Scenes that have paft in it formerly, those which were at firft pleasant to behold, appear more fo upon Reflection, and that the Memory

Memory heightens the Delightfulness of the Original. A Cartefian would account for both thefe Inftances in the following Manner.

THE Sett of Ideas, which we received from fuch a Profpect or Garden, having entered the Mind at the fame time, have a Sett of Traces belonging to them in the Brain, bordering very near upon one another; when, >therefore, any one of these Ideas arifes in the Imagination, and confequently dispatches a flow of Animal Spirits to its proper Trace, thefe Spirits, 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 lye about it: By this means they awaken other Ideas of the fame Sett, which immediately determine a new Difpatch of Spirits, that in the fame manner open other Neighbouring Traces, till at last the whole Sett of them is blown up, and the whole Profpect or Garden flourishes in the Imagination. But because the Pleasure we received from thefe Places far furmounted, and overcame the little Difagreeablenefs we found in them; for this Reason there was at firft a wider Paffage worn in the Pleasure Traces, and, on the contrary, fo narrow a one in thofe which belonged to the difagreeable Ideas, that they were quickly ftopt up, and rendered incapable of receiving any Animal Spirits, and confequently of exciting any unpleafant Ideas in the Memory.

IT would be in vain to enquire, whether the Power of imaginary Things ftrongly proceeds from any greater Perfection in the Soul, 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 Strength 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 Scenary of a Country Life.

WHEN he is ftored with Country Images, if he would go beyond Paftoral, and the lower kinds of Poetry,

he