INVOCATION. OH! could my mind, unfolded in my page, Oh! could it still, through each succeeding year, Or flush one faded cheek with honest joy; Blest were my lines, though limited there sphere, Though short their date, as him who traced them here. B ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST PART. THE poem begins with the description of an obscure village and of the pleasing melancholy which it excite on being revisited after a long absence. This mixed sensation is an effect of the memory. From an effect we naturally ascend to the cause; and the subject proposed is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty. It is evident that there is a continued succession of ideas in the mind, and that they introduce each other with a certain degree of regularity. Their complexion depends greatly on the different perceptions of pleasure and pain which we receive through the medium of sense; and, in return, they have a considerable influence on the animal economy. They are sometimes excited by sensible objects, and sometimes by an internal operation of the mind. Of the |