field where imagination exerts her powers. All the objects of human knowledge supply materials to her forming hand: diversifying infinitely the works she produces, while the mode of her operation remains essentially uniform. As it is the same power of reasoning which enables us to carry on our investigations, with respect to individual objects, and with respect to classes or genera; so it was by the same processes of analysis and combination, that the genius of Milton produced the Garden of Eden; that of Harrington, the Commonwealth of Oceana; and that of Shakspeare, the characters of Hamlet and Falstaff. The difference between these several efforts of invention consists only in the manner in which the original materials were acquired; as far as the power of imagination is concerned, the processes are perfectly analogous.

"The attempts of Mr. Addison and of Dr. Reid to limit the province of imagination to objects of sight, have plainly proceeded from a very important fact, which it may be worth while to illus→ trate more particularly; that the mind has a greater facility, and, of consequence, a greater delight, in recalling the perceptions of this sense, than those of any of the others; while, at the same time, the variety of qualities perceived by it is incomparably greater. It is this sense,

In

accordingly, which supplies the painter and the statuary with all the subjects on which their genius is exercised; and which furnishes to the descriptive poet the largest and the most valuable portion of the materials which he combines. that absurd species of prose composition, too, which borders on poetry, nothing is more remarkable than the predominance of phrases that recal to the memory glaring colours, and those splendid appearances of nature, which make a strong impression on the eye. It has been mentioned by different writers, as a characteristical circumstance in the Oriental or Asiatic style, that the greater part of the metaphors are taken from the celestial luminaries. The works of the Persians,' (says M. de Voltaire,) are like the titles of their kings, in which we are perpetually dazzled with the sun and the moon. Sir William Jones, in a short Essay on the Poetry of Eastern Nations, has endeavoured to shew, that this is not owing to the bad taste of the Asiatics, but to the old language and popular religion of their country. But the truth is, that the very same criticism will be found to apply to the juvenile productions of every author possessed of a warm imagination; and to the compositions of every people, among whom a cultivated and philosophical taste has not established

a sufficiently marked distinction between the appropriate styles of poetry and of prose.-The account given by the Abbé Girard of the meaning of the word Phébus, as employed by the French critics, confirms strongly this observation; Le Phebus a un brillant qui signifie, ou semble signifier, quelque chose: le soleil y entre d'ordinaire; & c'est peut-etre ce qui, en notre langue, a donné lieu au nom de Phebus.' *

"Agreeably to these principles, Gray, in describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed, with exquisite judgment, on this class of our conceptions:

Yet oft before his infant eye would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray
With orient hues-

"From these remarks it may be easily understood, why the word imagination, in its most ordinary acceptation, should be applied to cases where our conceptions are derived from the sense of sight: although the province of this power be, in fact, as unlimited as the sphere of human enjoyment and of human thought. Hence, the origin of those partial definitions which I have been attempting to correct; and hence too, the origin of the word Imagination; the etymology

Synonyines Francois.

of which implies manifestly a reference to visible objects."*

1

With this exception, the papers on the Pleasures of the Imagination exhibit the genius and philosophical spirit of Addison to considerable advantage. The illustrations of the three sources that he has enumerated are conceived with great richness of fancy and purity of taste; and the ninth and tenth numbers, on the literature calculated to feed the imagination, and especially on the wild and terrific in poetry, are singularly pleasing.

"These descriptions," he observes, "raise a pleasing kind of horror in the mind of the reader, and amuse his imagination with the strangeness and novelty of the persons who are represented in them. They bring up into our memory the -stories we have heard in our childhood, and favour those secret terrors and apprehensions to which the mind of man is naturally subject.Men of cold fancies and philosophical dispositions object to this kind of poetry, that it has not probability enough to affect the imagination. But to this it may be answered, that we are sure, in general, there are many intellectual beings in the world besides ourselves, and several species.

* Vide Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, P. 484, to 487.

of spirits, who are subject to different laws and economies from those of mankind: when we see, therefore, any of these represented naturally, we cannot look upon the representation as altogether impossible....

"The ancients have not much of this poetry among them; for, indeed, almost the whole substance of it owes its original to the darkness and superstition of latter ages, when pious frauds were made use of to amuse mankind, and frighten them into a sense of their duty. Our forefathers looked upon nature, with more reverence and horror, before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy, and loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and inchantments. There was not a village in England that had not a ghost in it; the church-yards were all haunted: every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it; and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit."

It is somewhat remarkable, and a strong proof of an inherent love in human nature for the vast, the awful, and the strange, that in an age of refinement such as the present, the taste for fictions of this supernatural cast should gain ground, and that to the highly cultivated as well as to the half-informed mind they should, if emanating