PAPER VII. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION Contents-How a whole set of ideas hang together, &c. A natural cause assigned for it. How to perfect the imagination of a writer. Who among the ancient poets had this faculty in its greatest perfection. Homer excelled in imagining what is great; Virgil in imagining what is beautiful; Ovid in imagining what is new. Our own countryman, Milton, very perfect in all these three respects. Quem tu, Melpomene, semel Nascentem placido lumine videris, Illum non labor Isthmius pleasures of the imagination which proceed | No. 417.] Saturday, June 28, 1712. Sed quæ Tibur aquæ Hor. Od. iii. Lib. 4. 1. He on whose birth the lyric queen But him the streams that warbling flow WE may observe, that any single circumstance of what we have formerly seen often raises up a whole scene of imagery, and awakens numberless ideas that before slept in the imagination; such a particular smell or It may here be worth our while to examine colour is able to fill the mind, on a sudden, how it comes to pass that several readers, with the picture of the fields or gardens where who are all acquainted with the same lan-we first met with it, and to bring up into view guage, and know the meaning of the words all the variety of images that once attended it. they read, should nevertheless have a different Our imagination takes the hint, and leads us relish of the same descriptions. We find one unexpectedly into cities or theatres, plains or transported with a passage, which another meadows. We may further observe, when the runs over with coldness and indifference; or fancy thus reflects on the scenes that have pasfinding the representation extremely natural, sed in it formerly, those which were at first where another can perceive nothing of like-pleasant to behold appear more so upon reness and conformity. This different taste flection, and that the memory heightens the demust proceed either from the perfection of lightfulness of the original. A Cartesian would imagination in one more than in another, or account for both these instances in the followfrom the different ideas that several readers ing manner: affix to the same words. For, to have a true The set of ideas which we received from relish, and form a right judgment of a descrip- such a prospect or garden, having entered the tion, a man should be born with a good ima-mind at the same time, have a set of traces begination, and must have well weighed the longing to them in the brain, bordering very force and energy that lie in the several words near upon one another: when, therefore, any of a language, so as to be able to distinguish one of these ideas arises in the imagination, which are most significant and expressive of and consequently despatches a flow of animat their proper ideas, and what additional spirits to its proper trace, these spirits, in the strength and beauty they are capable of re-violence of their motion, run not only into the ceiving from conjunction with others. The trace to which they were more particularly difancy must be warm, to retain the print of rected, but into several of those that lie about those images it hath received from outward it. By this means they awaken other ideas of objects, and the judgment discerning, to know the same set, which immediately determine & what expressions are most proper to clothe new despatch of spirits, that in the same manand adorn them to the best advantage. A ner open other neighbouring traces, till at last man who is deficient in either of these re- the whole set of them is blown up, and the speets, though he may receive the general whole prospect or garden flourishes in the But because the pleasure we notion of a description, can never see dis-imagination tinctly all its particular beauties; as a per- receive from these places far surmounted, and son with a weak sight may have the confused overcame the little disagreeableness we found prospect of a place that lies before him with-in them, for this reason there was at first a out entering into its several parts, or discern-wider passage worn in the pleasure traces, and, a one in those ing the variety of its colours in their full on the contrary, so narrow glory and perfection. which belonged to the disagreeable ideas, that 0. 18 VOL. II. they were quickly stopt up, and rendered incapable of receiving any animal spirits, and consequently of exciting any unpleasant ideas in the memory. It would be in vain to inquire whether the power of imagining things strongly proceeds from any greater perfection in the soul, or from any nicer texture in the brain of one man than another. But this is certain, that a noble writer should be born with this faculty in its full strength and vigour, so as to be able to receive lively ideas from outward objects, to refain them long, and to range them together, upon occasion, in such figures and representations, as are most likely to hit the fancy of the reader. A poet should take as much pains in forming his imagination, as a philosopher in cultivating his understanding. He must gain a due relish of the works of nature, and be thoroughly conversant in the various scenery of a country life. Thus having said, she turn'd and made appear Homer's persons are most of them godlike and -Lumenque juventæ When he is stored with country images, if he would go beyond pastoral, and the lower kinds of poetry, he ought to acquaint himself with the pomp and magnificence of courts. In a word, Homer fills his readers with sublime He should be very well versed in every thing ideas, and, I believe, has raised the imagination that is noble and stately in the productions of of all the good poets that have come after him. art, whether it appear in painting or statuary, I shall only instance Horace, who immediately in the great works of architecture, which are in their present glory; or in the ruins of those which flourished in former ages. takes fire at the first hint of any passage in the Iliad or Odyssey, and always rises above himself when he has Homer in his view. Virgil Such advantages as these help to open a has drawn together, into his Eneid, all the man's thoughts, and to enlarge his imagination, pleasing scenes his subject is capable of admitand will therefore have their influence on all ting, and in his Georgics has given us a colleckinds of writing, if the author knows how to tion of the most delightful landscapes that can make right use of them. And among those of be made out of fields and woods, herds of catthe learned languages who excel in this talent, tle, and swarms of bees. the most perfect in their several kind are Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, has shown us perhaps Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. The first how the imagination may be affected by what strikes the imagination wonderfully with what is strange. He describes a miracle in every is great, the second with what is beautiful, and story, and always gives us the sight of some the last with what is strange. Reading the new creature at the end of it, His art consists Iliad, is like travelling through a country un-chiefly in well-timing his description, before inhabited, where the fancy is entertained with the first shape is quite worn off, and the new a thousand savage prospects of vast deserts, one perfectly finished; so that he every where wide uncultivated marshes, huge forests, mis- entertains us with something we never saw beshapen rocks and pcecipices. On the contra-fore, and shews us monster after monster to ry, the Eneid is like a well-ordered garden, the end of the Metamorphoses. where it is impossible to find out any part una- If I were to name a poet that is a perfect dorned, or to cast our eyes upon a single spot master in all these arts of working on the imathat does not produce some beautiful plant or gination, I think Milton may pass for one: flower. But when we are in the Metamor- and if his Paradise Lost falls short of the Enephoses, we are walking on enchanted ground, id or Iliad in this respect, it proceeds rather and see nothing but scenes of magie lying round from the fault of the language in which it is written, than from any defect of genius in the Homer is in his province, when he is de-author. So divine a poem in English, is like a scribing a battle or a multitude, a hero or a stately palace built of brick, where one may god. Virgil is never better pleased than when see architecture in as great a perfection as one he is in his elysium, or copying out an enter- of marble, though the materials are of a coartaining picture, Homer's epithets generally ser nature. But to consider it only as regards mark out what is great; Virgil's what is agree-our present subject; What can be conceived able. Nothing can be more magnificent than greater than the battle of angels, the mathe figure Jupiter makes in the first Iliad, nor jesty of Mesiah, the statue and behaviour of mo charming than that of Venus in the first Satan and his peers? What more beautiful Eneid. us. than Pandæmonium. Paradise, Heaven, Angels, Adam and Eve? What more strange than the creation of the world, the several metamorphoses of the fallen angels, and the Η καὶ κυανέησιν ἐπ' ἐΦρύσ' τες σε Κρυνίων, could have furnished a poet with scenes so of any face where the resemblance is hit; proper to strike the imagination, as no other but the pleasure increases if it be the picture poet could have painted those scenes in more strong and lively colours. No. 418.] Monday, June 30, 1712. PAPER VIII. 0. of a face that is beautiful; and is still greater, if the beauty be softened with an air of melancholy or sorrow. The two leading passions which the more serious parts of poetry endeavour to stir up in us, are terror and pity. And here, by the way one would wonder how it comes to pass that such pasON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. sions as are very unpleasant at all other times, Contents. Why any thing that is unpleasant to behold are very agreeable when excited by proper depleases the imagination when well described. Why scriptions. It is not strange, that we should the imagination receives a more exquisite pleasure take delight in such passages as are apt to profrom the description of what is great, new, or beautiful. The pleasure still heightened, if what is described rais-duce hope, joy, admiration, love, or the like es passion in the mind. Disagreeable passions pleasing emotions, in us, because they never rise in the when raised by apt descriptions. Why terror and grief mind without an inward pleasure which attends are pleasing to the mind when excited by description. them. But how comes it to pass, that we A particular advantage the writers in poetry and fiction have to please the imagination. What liberties are al- should take delight in being terrified or dejected by a description, when we find so much uneasiness in the fear or grief which we receive from any other occasion? lowed them. -ferat et rubus asper amomum. Virg. Ecl. iii. 89. The rugged thorn shall bear the fragrant rose. If we consider, therefore, the nature of this pleasure, we shall find that it does not arise so THE pleasures of these secondary views of properly from the description of what is terthe imagination are of a wider and more uni-rible, as from the reflection we make on ourWhen we versal nature than those it has when joined selves at the time of reading it. with sight; for not only what is great, strange, look on such hideous objects, we are not or beautiful, but any thing that is disagreea- a little pleased to think we are in no danger We consider them at the same ble when looked upon, pleases us in an apt of them.* description. Here, therefore, we must inquire time, as dreadful and harmless: so that the after a new principle of pleasure, which is more frightful appearance they make, the nothing else but the action of the mind, which greater is the pleasure we receive from the compares the ideas that arise from words with sense of our own safety. In short, we look the ideas that arise from objects themselves; upon the terrors of a description with the same and why this operation of the mind is attend- curiosity and satisfaction that we survey a ed with so much pleasure, we have before con- dead monster. sidered. For this reason, therefore, the description of a dunghill is pleasing to the imagination, if the image be represented to our minds by suitable expressions; though, perhaps, this may be more properly called the pleasure of the understanding than of the fancy, because we are not so much delighted with the image that is contained in the description, as with the aptness of the description to excite the image. Informe cadaver Protrahitur: nequeunt expleri corda tuendo Virg. En. viii. 264 -They drag him from his den. The wond'ring neighbourhood, with glad surprise, It is for the same reason that we are de But if the description of what is little, common, or deformed, be acceptable to the imagi-lighted with the reflecting upon dangers that nation, the description of what is great, surare past, or in looking on a precipice at a prising or beautiful, is much more so; because distance, which would fill us with a different here we are not only delighted with compar- kind of horror, if we saw it hanging over ing the representation with the original, but our heads. are highly pleased with the original itself. In the like manner, when we read of torMost readers, I believe, are more charmed with Milton's description of Paradise, than of ments, wounds, deaths, and the like dismal accidents, our pleasure does not flow so properly hell; they are both, perhaps, equally perfect from the grief which such melancholy descripin their kind; but in the one the brimstone and tions give us, as from the secret comparison sulphur are not so refreshing to the imagina- which we make between ourselves and the pertion, as the beds of flowers and the wilderness son who suffers. Such representations teach us to set a just value upon our own condition, There is yet another circumstance which reand make us prize our good fortune, which excommends a description more than all the rest; and that is, if it represents to us such ob-empts us from the like calamities. This is, jects as are apt to raise a secret ferment in the however, such a kind of pleasure as we are not mind of the reader, and to work with violence capable of reciving, when we see a person actually lying under the tortures that we meet with in a description; because, in this case, of sweets in the other. upon his passions. For, in this case, we are at ibe object presse's too close upon our senses, and bears so hard upon us, that it does not give us time or leisure to reflect on ourselves. Our thoughts are so intent upon the miseries of the sufferer, that we cannot turn them upon our own happiness. Whereas, on the contrary, we consider the misfortunes we read in history or poetry, either as past, or as fictitious; so that the reflection upon ourselves rises in us insensibly, and overbears the sorrow we conceive for the sufferings of the qualified for it. The pleasures of the imagination that arise from it. In this respect why the moderns excel the ancients. Why the English excel the moderns. Who the best among the English. Of emblematical persons. Mentis gratissimus error. Hor. 2. Ep. ii. Lib. 2. 140. The sweet delusion of a raptur'd mind. THERE is a kind of writing wherein the poet quite loses sight of nature, and entertains his reader's imagination with the characters afflicted. and actions of such persons as have many of But because the mind of man requires some-them no existence but what he bestows on thing more perfect in matter than what it finds them. Such are fairies, witches, magicians, there, and can never meet with any sight in demons, and departed spirits. This Mr. Drynature which sufficiently answers its highest den calls the fairy way of writing,' which ideas of pleasantness; or, in other words, be- is indeed more difficult than any other that cause the imagination can fancy to itself things depends on the poet's' fancy, because he has more great, strange, or beautiful than the no pattern to follow in it, and must work altoeye ever saw, and is still sensible of some gether out of his own invention. defect in what it has seen; on this account There is a very odd turn of thought required it is the part of a poet to humour the ima- for this sort of writing; and it is impossible for gination in our own notions, by mending and a poet to succeed in it, who has not a particuperfecting nature where he describes a reali-lar cast of fancy, and an imagination naturally ty, and by adding greater beauties than are fruitful and superstitious. Besides this, he put together in nature, where he describes a fiction. ought to be very well versed in legends and fables, antiquated romances, and the tradiHe is not obliged to attend her in the slow tions of nurses and old women, that he may advances which she makes from one season to fall in with our natural prejudices, and huanother, or to observe her conduct in the suc mour those notions which we have imbibed cessive production of plants and flowers. He in our infancy. For otherwise he will be apt may draw into his description all the beauties to make his fairies talk like people of his of the spring and autumn, and make the whole own species, and not like other sects of beyear contribute something to render it the ings, who converse with different objects, more agreeable. His rose-trees, woodbines, and and think in a different manner from that of jasmines, may flower together, and his beds mankind. be covered at the same time with lilies, violets and amaranths. His soil is not restrained to any particular set of plants, but is proper either for oaks or myrtles, and adapts itself to the products of every climate. Oranges may grow wild in it: myrrh may be met with in every hedge; and if he thinks it proper to have a grove of spices, he can quickly com I do not say, with Mr. Bays in the Rehearsal mand sun enough to raise it. If all this will that spirits must not be confined to speak not furnish out an agreeable scene, he can sense but it is certain their sense ought to be make several new species of flowers, with rich- a little discoloured, that it may seem particuer scents and higher colours than any that lar, and proper to the person and condition of grow in the gardens of nature. His concerts the speaker. Sylvis deducti caveant, me judice, fauni, Hor. Ars Poct. v. 244. Let not the wood-born satyr fondly sport of birds may be as full and harmonious, and These descriptions raise a pleasing kind of his woods as thick and gloomy as he pleases.horror in the mind of the reader, and amuse He is at no more expense in a long vista than his imagination with the strangeness and noa short one, and can as easily throw his cas- velty of the persons who are represented to cades from a precipice of half a mile high, as them. They bring up into our memory the from one of twenty yards. He has his choice of the winds, and can turn the course of his rivers in all the variety of meanders that are most delightful to the reader's imagination. In a word, he has the modelling of nature in his own hands, and may give her what charms he pleases, provided he does not reform her foo much, and run into absurdities by endea vouring to excel. No. 419.] Tuesday, July 1, 1712 PAPER IX. 0. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION Contents. Of that kind of poetry which Mr. Dryden calls 'the fairy way of writing. How a poet should bo stories we have heard in our childhood, and favour those secret terrors and apprehensions to which the mind of man is naturally subject. We are pleased with surveying the different habits and behaviours of foreign countries: how much more must we be delighted and surprised when we are led, as it were, into a new creation, and see the persons and manners of another species! 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 specics of spirits, who are subject to different laws and econo mies from those of mankind; when we see, of nature for its province, but makes new therefore, any of these represented naturally, worlds of its own, shows us persons who are we cannot look upon the representation as not to be found in being, and represents even altogether impossible; nay, many are pre- the faculties of the soul, with the several virpossest with such false opinions, as dispose tues and vices, in a sensible shape and chathem to believe these particular delusions; racter. at least we have all heard so many pleasing I shall, in my two following papers, conrelations in favour of them, that we do not sider, in general, how other kinds of writing care for seeing through the falsehood, and wil- are qualified to please the imagination, with lingly give ourselves up to so agreeable an which I intend to conclude this essay. imposture. PAPER X. 0. The ancients have not much of this poetry No. 420.] Wednesday, July 2, 1712. among them; for, indeed, almost the whole substance of it owes its original to the darkness and superstition of later 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 enchantments. 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. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. Contents.-What authors please the imagination. Who have nothing to do with fiction. How history pleases the imagination. How the authors of the new philosophy please the imagination. The bounds and defects of the imagination. Whether these defects are essential to the imagination. Quocunque volunt mentem auditoris agunto. Hor. Ars Poet. v. 100. And raise men's passions to what height they will. Roscommon. As the writers in poetry and fiction borrow their several materials from the outward obAmong all the poets of this kind our English jects, and join them togther at their own are much the best, by what I have yet seen; pleasure, there are others who are obliged to whether it be that we abound with more stories follow nature more closely, and to take entire of this nature, or that the genius of our coun- scenes out of her. Such are historians, natutry is fitter for this sort of poetry. For the ral philosophers, travellers, geographers, and, English are naturally fanciful, and very often in a word, all who describe visible objects of a disposed, by that gloominess and melancholy real existence. of temper which is so frequent in our nation, It is the most agreeable talent of an historian to many wild notions and visions, to which to be able to draw up his armies and fight his others are not so liable. battles in proper expressions, to set before Among the English, Shakespeare has incom- our eyes the divisions, cabals, and jealousies parably excelled all others. That noble ex- of great men, to lead us step by step into the travagance of fancy, which he had in so great several actions and events of his history. We perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch love to see the subject unfolding itself by just this weak superstitious part of the reader's degrees, and breaking upon us insensibly, that imagination; and made him capable of suc- so we may be kept in a pleasing suspense, and ceeding, where he had nothing to support have time given us to raise our expectations, bim besides the strength of his own genius. and to side with one of the parties concerned There is something so wild, and yet so so- in the relation. I confess this shows more the lemn, in the speeches of his ghosts, fairies, art than the veracity of the historian; but I witches, and the like imaginary persons, am only to speak of him as he is qualified to that we cannot forbear thinking them natu- please the imagination; and in this respect ral, though we have no rule by which to Livy has, perhaps, excelled all who went bejudge of them, and must confess, if there are fore him, or have written since his time. He such beings in the world, it looks highly pro- describes every thing in so lively a manner, bable they should talk and act as he has re- that his whole history is an admirable picpresented them. ture, and touches on such proper circumstanThere is another sort of imaginary beings, ces in every story, that his reader becomes a that we sometimes meet with among the poets, kind of spectator, and feels in himself all the when the author represents any passion, appe-variety of passions which are correspondent tite, virtue or vice, under a visible shape, and to the several parts of the relations. makes it a person or an actor in his poem. Of But among this set of writers there are this nature are the descriptions of Hunger and none who more gratify and enlarge the imaEnvy in Ovid, of Fame in Virgil, and of Sin and gination than the authors of the new philoDeath in Milton. We find a whole creation of sophy, whether we consider their theories of the like shadowy persons in Spenser, who had the earth or heavens, the discoveries they have an admirable talent in representations of this made by glasses, or any other of their conWe are not a little kind. I have discoursed of these emblematical templations on nature. persons in former papers, and shall therefore pleased to find every green leaf swarm with only mention them in this place. Thus we see millions of animals, that at their largest how many ways poetry addresses itself to the growth are not visible to the naked eye. imagination, as it has not only the whole circle There is something very engaging to the fans |