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of expreffion. This leads painters capriciously to create imaginary decorations, instead of inventing natural and confiftent embellishments. Imagination must fet all the ideas and all the analogies of things, which it collects, before the difcerning eye of reason, and submit them absolutely to its fovereign decifion. It is justly observed by Quintilian, that fiction of the human fancy is ap

every

proved in the moment of its production (6). The exertion of the mind which is requifite in forming it, is agreeable; and the face of novelty which infant conceptions wear, failsnot to recommend them promifcuously, till reafon has had time to furvey and examine, them. Were reafon never to fcrutinize them, all our ideas would be retained indifcrimi-i nately, and the productions of fancy wouldi be perfectly monstrous. While a man is en-i gaged in compofition or investigation, hei often seems to himself to be fired with hist fubject, and to teem with ideas; but on revifing the work, finds that his judgment is ` offended, and his time loft. An idea that fparkled in the eye of fancy, is often condemned by judgment as false and unsubstantial. A more rigid exercife of this latter.

(b) Omnia nostra, dum nafcuntur, placent, Inf, Orat. lib. x. cap. 3.

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faculty,

faculty, would have preferved Tasso from introducing fentiments which have show without juftness, and figures which surprise and dazzle, but are unfuitable to the purpose to which they ought to have been fubfervient; and would have enabled him to escape the censure of having overfpread his work with tinfel, and thus fullied the luftre of the pure gold which it contains (c).

A FERTILE imagination is apt to overload a work with a superfluity of ideas: an accurate judgment rejects all that are unnecessary. Shakespear was not always able to keep the richness of his fancy from displaying itself in cafes where judgment would have directed him to control it. That very exuberance of imagination which commands our admiration, is fometimes indulged fo far as neceffarily to incur our cenfure. We need not be at a lofs for an example. In the Midfummer Night's Dream (d), Helena upbraiding Hermia, de

(c) An ingenious critic, fpeaking of the rich poetic vein of Ariotto, fays, Elle l'emporte véritablement fur la poëfie de la Jerufalem délivrée, dont les figures ne font pas fouvent conve•nables à l'endroit où le Poëte les met en œuvre. Il y a fouvent encore plus de brillant et d'éclat dans ces figures que de verité. Je veux dire qu'elles furprennent et qu'elles éblouiffent l'imagination, mais qu'elles n'y peignent pas diftinctment des images propres à nous intereffer. Voila ce que M. Despreaux a defni, le clinquant du Taffe, Reflex. Crit. fur la poefie es fur la peinture, tome i. fect, 34(d) A&t 3. fcene 8.

fcribes

scribes the closeness of their early friendship in the most natural manner, by expreffive circumstances suited to the state of childhood;

Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
The fifters vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hafty-footed time
For parting us; O! and is all forgot?
All school-days friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Created with our needles both one flower,
Both on one sampler, fitting on one cushion;
Both warbling of one fong, both in one key;
As if our hands, our fides, voices and minds
Had been incorp'rate.

But here the Poet's own imagination takes fire, and he goes on:

So we grew together

Like to a double cherry, feeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
Or with two seeming bodies, but one heart,
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one creft.

And his imagination has crouded together more images than would have been proper though he had been defcribing infant friendthip in his own perfon, not to mention that fome of them are frigid and far-fetched.

But

But the redundance is the more faulty, as the description is put into the mouth of Helena, who was too little at ease, too much distracted with vexation, to be at leisure to search for a multitude of fimilitudes.

IMAGINATION will be often led by flight and incidental affociations, to fuggest ideas which, when canvaffed by judgment, are difcovered to be foreign and improper. When a man is no longer affected by the affociation which conducted him to them, he wonders how he ever could have thought that pertinent, which he once admired. Painters of confiderable rank have represented friars in the habit of their order, as present at some of our Saviour's miracles. Judgment must perceive this to be totally abfurd; but their religion prevented their exercifing judgment in the cafe. No less an artist than Michael Angelo introduces Charon and his boat into the folemnities of the future judgment painted according to the Chriftian revelation. The slightest exertion of judgment, would have made him fenfible of fo great' an incongruity. An idea may often likewise, in one point of view, be adapted to a work, which, if fet in another light, would be unsuitable, or lefs appofite. While fancy conceives the

various

various attitudes in which the idea may be placed, judgment is wakeful and obfervant, that it may chufe the propereft.

REGULARITY of imagination, which is of the greatest importance in genius, could never be acquired without the aid of judgment. It is only judgment conftantly exerting itself along with fancy, and often checking it and examining its ideas, that produces by degrees a habit of correctness in thinking, and enures the mind to move ftraight forward to the end propofed, without declining into the byepaths which run off on both fides. Imagination is a faculty fo wild in its own nature, that it must be accustomed to the discipline of reafon before it can become tame and manageable enough for a correct production. Nor will it be capable of this even after it has acquired the greatest poffible regularity, except judgment attend it and perpetually curb its motions. The most regular imagination will fometimes make an unnatural excursion, and · present improper ideas; judgment must therefore be ready to review its work, and to reject fuch ideas. Many of Bacon's conjectures concerning fubjects which he had not opportunity to examine perfectly, are falfe though they be ingenious, and would have been dif avowed

G.

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