THE IMAGINATION. THE imagination is the faculty from which, of all others, we derive the greatest pleasure, and perhaps the greatest pain; it is placed in the medium between reason and the senses, and they all, in different degrees, contribute to our enjoyment. The passions and feelings have their share in our composition, but reason is supreme above them all. Imagination is of two sorts; that which is exercised in the ordinary events of life, and relates to the past and the future, and that which has no concern with things present or to come, but exerts its power in regions of its own creation. By the force of imagination, we transport our minds to past scenes which we have never witnessed, and which now exist only in the pages of the historian or the annalist. We are present at the sedition of the Gracchi, or the murder of Cicero; we glow with fancied enthusiasm at the bravery of Leonidas, the firmness of Regulus, or the self-devoting patriotism of Codrus, Mutius, or the Decii; we live over again the times that are past, and survey the history of the world in minature, by the wonderful faculty of conceiving that which is described, and transferring all our knowledge of the present to the imagination of past events. Reason is thus instructed by a power inferior to herself, and history lends aid to philosophy, by presenting subjects for meditation and improvement, By the power of memory, we recal the events of our own lives, but we have no power to do more. It is imagination alone which enables us to look back for a hundred or a thousand years, and gives us a world," beyond the visible diurnal sphere;" to her alone we are indebted for the varied pleasures and advantages derived from the contemplation of great actions, of glorious sufferings, and of virtue honorably rewarded. Delightful to the imagination is the connection which she forms between local presence and past transactions, between those persons and events which history has recorded in her brightest pages, and the places where they lived, or have rendered illustrious. The man who could visit, without more than common emotion, the glorious straits of Thermopylæ, or the ruins of Crotona, is little to be envied for the regularity of his feelings, and less to be admired for his love of liberty and learning; for he who is not warmed with generous enthusiasm when he feels himself on the very spot where liberty sustained her severest struggles, or philosophy taught her purest lessons, may be an honest man, but he can hardly be either disinterested or amiable. By the power of association, which awakens the fancy and gives birth to a train of corresponding ideas, even the researches of the antiquarian may be rescued from contempt, for a desire to be acquainted with the dress, the manners, the amusements, the taste, and the buildings of our ancestors, when proceeding from a love of former times, and not from mere idle curiosity, becomes a laudable pursuit, and in such a case, a respect for antiquity is a respect for human nature. The imagination of man is never exalted to so high a pitch as in the contemplation of a great first cause; hence it arises, that the most sublime works of art are those which are consecrated to religious worship; a slender foundation, on which however, great buildings have been erected. The temples of Egypt, of Greece, and of modern Europe under popery, are justly considered as the most stupendous monuments of human ingenuity; among the latter, our Gothic cathedrals, as they are vulgarly called, excite in all minds of sensibility and taste, the strongest ideas of grandeur and magnificence, and, independent of any religious feeling, it is impossible to contemplate even their remains, without admiration and wonder. The elegant simplicity of some, the exuberant ornament of others, and the immensity of them all, seem to have engrossed all the taste and labor of the ages in which they were built, and had the priests who now posses them, either zeal or knowledge equal to those who first raised them, they might almost endure to eternity. The power of imagination in recalling the past, is not more wonderful than in anticipating the future, so that it has been said, and I believe with truth, that the greatest part of our enjoyment consists rather in the anticipation of what we expect, than in its actual possession. How many gay and delightful prospects, which fancy had drawn to our view, have vanished, or been darkened, when the hour of fruition arrived! In the bright season of youth, when all is expectation and delight, how anxiously do we look forward to scenes of fancied delight, which, when enjoyed, pall upon the sense, and pre leave us only languor and disappointment! How earnestly do we renew the faded lines of imagination, which becoming more vivid and brighter than ever, still lead only to the repetition of satiety! Must we not acknowledge then, that the future, which is the widest region of imagination, affords us the greatest pleasure, as the past can never be recalled, and the sent is seldom enjoyed? To imagination we are indebted for those pleasing day-dreams, or waking visions, those castles in the air, which, tho' reason will not allow us to rely on, she does not forbid us to indulge; by these we are withdrawn from the tedious or painful sensations of the present, and are soothed or amused, during many a lingering hour of wakefulness, sickness, and sorrow. In these the lover enjoys, with fancied delight, the future converse and company of his mistress, in scenes of happiness which life can never afford; the merchant riots in visionary prospects of gain, which, in the common course of things, he can never acquire; the philosopher indulges in dreams of benevolence, which the cold, rude, coarse selfishness of the world renders for ever impossible; the ambitious man extends his views of gratification beyond the sphere of earthly possibility; and the man who I |