Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

give the picture of 'a conjunction or an adverb. acquainted with the same language, and know
It would yet be more strange to represent visible
objects by sounds that have no ideas annexed to
them, and to make something like description in
music. Yet it is certain, there may be confused,
imperfect notions of this nature raised in the im-
agination by an artificial composition of notes;
and we find that great masters in the art are
able, sometimes to set their hearers in the heat
and hurry of a battle, to overcast their minds
with melancholy scenes and apprehensions of
deaths and funerals, or to lull them into pleasing
dreams of groves and elysiums.

the meaning of the words they read, should nev
ertheless have a different relish of the same de
scriptions. We find one transported with a pas-
sage, which another runs over with coldness and
indifference; or finding the representation ex-
tremely natural, where another can perceive noth-
ing of likeness and conformity. This different
taste must proceed either from the perfection
of imagination in one more than in another, or
from the different ideas that several readers affix
to the same words. For, to have a true relish and
form a right judgment of a description, a man
In all these instances, this secondary pleasure should be born with a good imagination, and
of the imagination proceeds from that action of must have well weighed the force and energy that
the mind which compares the ideas arising from lie in the several words of a language, so as to be
the original objects with the ideas we receive able to distinguish which are most significant
from the statue, picture, description or sound, and expressive of their proper ideas, and what
that represents them. It is impossible for us.to additional strength and beauty they are capable
give the necessary reason why this operation of of receiving from conjunction with others. The
the mind is attended with so much pleasure, as I fancy must be warm, to retain the print of those
have before observed on the same occasion; but images it hath received from outward objects, and
we find a great variety of entertainments derived the judgment discerning, to know what express-
from this single principle; for it is this that notions are most proper to clothe and adorn them to
nly gives us a relish of statuary, painting, and the best advantage. A man who is deficient in
description, but makes us delight in all the ac either of these respects, though he may receive
tions and arts of mimicry. It is this that makes the general notion of a description, can never see
the several kinds of wit pleasant, which consists, distinctly all its particular beauties; as a person
as I have formerly shown, in the affinity of ideas: with a weak sight may have the confused prospect.
and we may add, it is this also that raises the lit- of a place that lies before him, without entering
tle satisfaction we sometimes find in the different into its several parts, or discerning the variety of
sorts of false wit; whether it consists in the its colors in their full glory and perfection.-O.
affinity of letters, as an anagram, acrostic; or of
syllables, as in doggerel rhymes, echoes; or of
words, as in puns, quibbles; or of a whole sen-
tence or poem, as wings and altars. The final
cause, probably of annexing pleasure to this opera-
tion of the mind, was to quicken and encourage us
in our searches after truth, since the distinguishing
one thing from another, and the right discerning
betwixt our ideas, depend wholly upon our compa-
ring them together, and observing the congruity or
disagreement that appears among the several works
of nature.

But I shall here confine myself to those pleasures of the imagination which proceed from ideas raised by words, because most of the observations that agree with descriptions are equally applicable to painting and statuary.

Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves. The reader finds a scene drawn in stronger colors, and painted more to the life in his imagination, by the help of words, than by an actual survey of the scenes which they describe. In this case, the poet seems to get the better of nature: he takes, indeed, the landscape after her, but gives it more vigorous touches, heightens its beauty, and so enlivens the whole piece, that the images which flow from the objects themselves appear weak and faint, in comparison of those that come from the expressions. The reason, probably, may be, because in the survey of any object, we have only so much of it painted on the imagination as comes in at the eye; but in its description, the poet gives us as free a view of it as he pleases, and discovers to us several parts, that either we did not attend to, or that lay out of our sight when we first beheld it. As we look on any object, our idea of it is, perhaps, made up of two or three simple ideas; but when the poet represents it, he may either give us a more complex idea of it, or only raise in us such ideas as are most apt to affect the imagination.

It may be here worth our while to examine how it comes to pass that several readers, who are all

No. 417.] SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 1712.

PAPER VII.

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
CONTENTS.

How a whole set of ideas hang together, etc. 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; Oxid in imagining what is new. Our countryman, Milton, very perfect in all these three respects.

Quem tu, Melpomene, semel

Nascentem placido lumine videris,

Non illum labor Isthmius

Clarabit pugilem, non equus impiger, etc.
Sed quæ Tibur aquæ fertile perfluunt,

Et spissæ nemorum comæ,

Fingent Eolio carmine nobilem.-HOR. 4 Od. iii, 1
He on whose birth the lyric queen

Of numbers smil'd, shall never grace
The Isthmian gauntlet, or be seen

First in the fam'd Olympic race.
But him the streams that warbling flow
Rich Tibur's fertile meads along,
And shady groves, his haunts shall know,
The master of th' Eolian song.-ATTERBURY.
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 color is able to fill the mind,
on a sudden, with the picture of the fields or gar-
dens where we first met with it, and to bring up into
view all the variety of images that once attended
it. Our imagination takes the hint, and leads us
unexpectedly into cities or theaters, plains or
meadows. We may further observe, when the
fancy thus reflects on the scenes that have passed
in it formerly, those which were at first pleasant
to behold, appear more so upon reflection, and
that the memory heightens the delightfulness of
the original. A Cartesian would account for both
these instances in the following manner:

The set of ideas which we receive from such a prospect or garden, having entered the mind at the same time, have a set of traces, belonging to them

a-n

in the brain, bordering very near upon one another; when, therefore, any one of these ideas arises in the imagination, and consequently dispatches a flow of animal spirits to its proper trace, these spirits, in the violence of their motion, run not only into the trace to which they were more particularly directed, but into several of those that lie about it. By this means, they awaken other ideas of the same set, which immediately determine a new dispatch of spirits, that in the same manner open other neighboring traces, till at last the whole set of them is blown up, and the whole prospect or garden flourishes in the imagination. But because the pleasure we receive from these places far surmounted, and overcame the little disagreeableness we found in them, for this reason there was at first a wider passage worn in the pleasure traces, and on the contrary, so narrow a one in those which belonged to the disagreeable ideas, that they were quickly stopped 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 of another. But this is certain, that a noble writer should be born with this faculty in its full strength and vigor, so as to be able to receive lively ideas from outward objects, to retain 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.

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. He should be very well versed in everything that is noble and stately in the productions of art, whether it appear in painting or statuary; in the great works of architecture which are in their present glory, or in the ruins of those which flourished in former ages.

Such advantages as these help to open a man's thoughts, and to enlarge his imagination, and will therefore have their influence on all kinds of writing, if the author knows how to make right use of them. And among those of the learned languages who excel in this talent, the most perfect in their several kinds are perhaps Homer, Virgil, and Ovid. The first strikes the imagination wonderfully with what is great, the second with what is beautiful, and the last with what is strange. Reading the Iliad is like traveling through a country uninhabited, where the fancy is entertained with a thousand savage prospects of vast deserts, wide, uncultivated marshes, huge forests, misshapen rocks and precipices. On the contrary, the Eneid is like a well-ordered garden, where it is impossible to find out any part unadorned, or to cast our eyes upon a single spot that does not produce some beautiful plant or flower. But when we are in the Metamorphoses, we are walking on enchanted ground, and see nothing but scenes of magic lying around us.

Homer is in his province when he is describing a battle or a multitude, a hero or a god. Virgil is never better pleased than when he is in his elysium, or copying out an entertaining picture. Homer's epithets generally mark out what is great; Virgil's vhat is agreeable. Nothing can be more

magnificent than the figure Jupiter makes in the first Iliad, nor more charming than that of Venus in the first Æneid.

He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows,
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,
The stamp of Fate, and sanction of the god:
High heav'n with trembling the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to the center shook.-POPE.
Dixit: et avertens rosea cervice refulsit
Ambrosiæque comæ divinum vertice odorem
Spiravere; pedes vestis defluxit ad imos,
Et vera incessu patuit dea.-— -VIRG. En. i. 406.
Thus having said, she turn'd and made appear
Her neck refulgent, and dishevel'd hair;
Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach'd the ground,
And widely spread ambrosial scents around:
In length of train descends her sweeping gown.
And by her graceful walk the queen of love is known.

[blocks in formation]

And gave his rolling eyes a sparkling grace, And breath'd a youthful vigor on his face.-DRYDEN. In a word, Homer fills his readers with sublime ideas, and I believe has raised the imagination of all the good poets that have come after him. I shall only instance Horace, who immediately 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 has drawn together into his neid, all the pleasing scenes his subject is capable of admitting, and, in his Georgics, has given us a collection of the most delightful landscapes that can be made out of fields and woods, herds of cattle, and swarms of bees.

Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, has shown us how the imagination may be affected by what is strange. He describes a miracle in every story, and always gives us the sight of some new creature at the end of it. His art consists chiefly in well-timing his description, before the first shape is quite worn off, and the new one perfectly finished; so that he everywhere entertains us with something wo never saw before, and shows us monster after monster to the end of the Metamorphoses.

If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for one; and if his Paradise Lost falls short of the Eneid or Iliad in this respect, it proceeds rather from the fault of the language in which it is written, than from any defect of genius in the author, So divine a poem in English is like a stately palace built of brick, where one may see architecture in as great a perfection as one of marble, though the materials are of a coarser nature. But to consider it only as it regards our present subject; what can be conceived greater than the battle of angels, the majesty of Messiah, the stature and behavior of Satan and his peers? What more beautiful 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 surprising adventures their leader meets with in his search after Paradise? No other subject could have furnished a poet with scenes so proper to strike the imagination, as no other poet could have painted those scenes in more strong and lively colors.-O.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

No 418.] MONDAY, JUNE 30, 1712.

PAPER VIII.

ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
CONTENTS.

uneasiness in the fear or grief which we receive from any other occasion?

If we consider, therefore, the nature of this pleasure, we shall find that it does not arise so properly from the description of what is terrible, as from the reflection we make on ourselves at the time of readWhy anything that is unpleasant to behold pleases the im- ing it. When we look on such hideous objects, we agination when well described. Why the imagination reare not a little pleased to think we are in no danceives a more exquisite pleasure from the description of what is great, new, or beautiful. The pleasure still height-ger of them. We consider them, at the same time, ened if what is described raises passion in the mind. Disagreeable passions pleasing when raised by apt descriptions. Why terror and grief are pleasing to the mind when excited

by description. A particular advantage the writers in poetry

and fiction have to please the imagination. What liberties
are allowed them.

-Ferat et rubus asper amonum.-VIRG. Ecl. iii. 89.
The rugged thorn shall bear the fragrant rose.

THE pleasures of these secondary views of the
imagination are of a wider and more universal
nature than those it has when joined with sight;
for not only what is great, strange, or beautiful,
but anything that is disagreeable when looked upon
pleases us in an apt description. Here, therefore,
we must inquire after a new principle of pleasure,
which is nothing else but the action of the mind,
which compares the ideas that arise from words
with the ideas that arise from the objects them
selves; and why this operation of the mind is at-
tended with so much pleasure, we have before con-
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 ex-
pressions; though, perhaps, this may be more
properly called the pleasure of the understanding
than of the fancy, because we are not so much de-
lighted with the image that is contained in the
description, as with the aptness of the description
to excite the image.

But if the description of what is little, common, or deformed, be acceptable to the imagination, the description of what is great, surprising, or beautiful, is much more so; because here we are not only delighted with comparing the representation with the original, but are highly pleased with the original itself. Most readers, I believe, are more charmed with Milton's description of paradise, than of hell; they are both, perhaps, equally perfect in their kind; but in the one, the brimstone and sulphur are not so refreshing to the imagination, as the beds of flowers and the wilderness of sweets in the other.

as dreadful and harmless; so that, the more frightful appearance they make, the greater is the pleasure we receive from the sense of our own safety. In short, we look upon the terrors of a description with the same curiosity and satisfaction that we survey a dead monster.

-Informe cadave

Protrahitur: nequeunt expleri corda tuendo
Terribiles oculos, vultum, villosaque setis
Pectori semiferi, atque extinctos saucibus ignes.
VIRG. n. viii. 264

-They drag him from his den.
The wond'ring neighborhood, with glad surprise,
Behold his shagged breast, his giant size,
His mouth that flames no more, and his extinguish'd eyes.
DRYDEN.

It is for the same reason that we are delighted with
the reflecting upon dangers that are past, or in
looking on a precipice at a distance, which would
fill us with a different kind of horror if we saw it
hanging over our heads.

In the like manner, when we read of torments, wounds, deaths, and the like dismal accidents, our pleasure does not flow so properly from the grief which such melancholy descriptions give us, as from the secret comparison which we make between ourselves and the person who suffers. Such representations teach us to set a just value upon our own condition, and make us prize our good fortune, which exempts us from the like calamities. This is, howev, such a kind of pleasure as we are not capable of receiving, when we see a person actually lying under the tortures that we meet with in a description; because, in this case, the object presses 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 af flicted.

But because the mind of man requires something more perfect in matter than what it finds there, and can never meet with any sight in nature which sufficiently answers its highest ideas of pleasantness; or, in other words, because the imagination can fancy to itself things more great, strange, or beautiful, than the eye ever saw, and is still sensible of some defect in what it has seen; on this account, it is the part of a poet to humor the imagination in our own notions, by mending and perfecting nature where he describes a reality, and by adding greater beauties than are put together in nature, where he describes a fiction.

There is yet another circumstance which recommends a description more than all the rest; and that is, if it represents to us such objects as are apt to raise a secret ferment in the mind of the reader, and to work with violence upon his passions. For, in this case, we are at once warned and enlightened, so that the pleasure becomes more universal, and is several ways qualified to entertain us. Thus in painting, it is pleasant to look on the picture of any face where the resemblance is hit; but the pleasure increases if it be the picture 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 endeavor to stir up in us are terror and pity. And here, by the way, one would wonder how it comes to pass that such passions as are He is not obliged to attend her in the slow advery unpleasant at all other times, are very agree-vances which she makes from one season to an able when excited by proper descriptions. It is not other or to observe her conduct in the successive strange that we should take delight in such pas- production of plants and flowers. He may draw sages as are apt to produce hope, joy, admiration, into his description all the beauties of the spring love, or the like emotions, in us, because they ne- and autumn, and make the whole year contribute ver rise in the mind without an inward pleasure something to render it the more ageeeable. His which attends them. But how comes it to pass that we should take delight in being terrified or dejected by a description, when we find so much

*Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis, etc.

[ocr errors]

1

[ocr errors][ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

rose-trees, woodbines, and jessamines, may flower together, and his beds 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 command sun enough to raise it. If all this will not furnish out an agreeable scene, he can make several new species of flowers, with richer scents and higher colors than any that grow in the gardens of nature. His concerts of birds may be as full and harmonious, and his woods as thick and gloomy as he pleases. He is at no more expense in a long vista than a short one, and can as easily throw his cascades from a precipice of half a mile high, as 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 modeling of Nature in his own hands, and may give her what charms he pleases, provided he does not reform her too much, and run into absurdities by endeavoring to excel.-O.

No. 419.] TUESDAY, JULY 1, 1712.

PAPER IX.

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 be 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. 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 and actions of such persons as have many of them no existence but what he bestows on them. Such are fairies, witches, magicians, demons, and departed spirits. This Mr. Dryden calls "the fairy way of writing," which is indeed more difficult than any other that depends on the poet's fancy, because he has no pattern to follow in it, and must work altogether out of his own invention.

There is a very odd turn of thought required for this sort of writing; and it is impossible for a poet to succeed in it, who has not a particular cast of fancy, and an imagination, naturally fruitful and superstitious. Beside this, he ought to be very well versed in legends and fables, antiquated romances, and the traditions of nurses and old women, that he may fall in with our natural prejudices, and humor those notions which we have imbibed in our infancy. For otherwise he will be apt to make his fairies talk like people of his own species, and not like other sets of beings, who converse with different objects, and think in a different manner from that of mankind.

Sylvis deducti caveant, me judice, fauni,
Ne velut inati triviis, ac pene forenses,
Aut nimium teneris juvenentur versibus-
HOR. Ars. Poet. v. 244.

Let not the wood-born satyr fondly sport
With am'rous verses, as if bred at court.-FRANCIS.

I do not say, with Mr. Bays, in the Rehearsal, that spirits must not be confined to speak sense: but it

is certain their sense ought to be a little discolored that it may seem particular, and proper to the person and condition of the speaker.

These descriptions raise a pleasing kind of horror in the mind of the reader, aud amuse his ima gination 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 favor those secret terrors and apprehensions to which the mind of man is naturally subject. We are pleased with surveying the different habits and behaviors 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 beside ourselves, and several species 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, nay, many are prepossessed with such false opinions, as dispose them to believe these particular delusions; at least we have all heard so many pleasing relations in favor of them, that we do not care for seeing through the falsehood, and willingly give ourselves up to so agreeable an imposture.

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 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 churchyards 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.

Among all the poets of this kind our English are much the best, by what I have yet seen; whether it be that we abound with more stories of this nature, or that the genius of our country is fitter for this sort of poetry. For the English are naturally fanciful, and very often disposed, by that gloominess and melancholy of temper, which is so frequent in our nation, to many wild notions and visions, to which others are not so liable.

Among the English, Shakspeare has incomparably excelled all others. That noble extravagance of fancy, which he had in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified him to touch this weak, superstitious part of his reader's imagination; and made him capable of succeeding, where he had nothing to support him beside the strength of his own genius. There is something so wild, and yet so solemn, in the speeches of his ghosts, fairies, witches, and the like imaginary persons, that we cannot forbear thinking them natural, though we have no rule by which to judge of them, and must confess, if there are such beings in the world, it looks highly probable they should talk and act as he has represented them.

There is another sort of imaginary beings, that we sometimes meet among the poets, when the author represents any passion, appetite, virtue, or vice, under a visible shape, and makes it a person or an actor in his poem. Of this nature are the

Ak

descriptions of Hunger and Envy in Ovid, of Fame in Virgil, and of Sin and Death in Milton. We find a whole creation of the like shadowy persons in Spenser, who had an admirable talent in representations of this kind. I have discoursed of these emblematical persons in former papers, and shall therefore only mention them in this place. Thus we see how many ways poetry addresses itself to the imagination, as it has not only the whole circle of nature for its province, but makes new worlds of its own, shows us persons who are not to be found in being, and represents even the faculties of the soul, with the several virtues and vices, in a sensible shape and character.

I shall, in my two following papers, consider, in general, how other kinds of writing are qualified to please the imagination; with which I intend to conclude this essay.-0.

No. 420.] WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1712.

PAPER X.

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 volent, animum 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 outward objects, and join them together at their own pleasure, there are others who are obliged to follow nature more closely, and to take entire scenes out of her. Such are historians, natural philosophers, travelers, geographers, and in a word, all who describe visible objects of a real existence.

It is the most agreeable talent of a historian to be able to draw up his armies and fight his battles in proper expressions, to set before out eyes the divisions, cabals, and jealousies of great men, to lead us step by step into the several actions and events of his history. We love to see the subject unfolding itself by just degrees, and breaking upon us insensibly, that so we may be kept in a pleasing suspense, and have time given us to raise our expectations, and to side with one of the parties concerned in the relation. I confess this shows more the art than the veracity of the historian; but I am only to speak of him as he is qualified to please the imagination, and in this respect Livy has, perhaps, excelled all who ever went before him or have written since his time. He describes everything in so lively a manner, that his whole history is an admirable picture, and touches on such proper circumstances in every story, that his reader becomes a kind of Spectator, and feels in himself all the variety of passions which are correspondent to the several parts of the relation.

But among this set of writers there are none who more gratify and enlarge the imagination than the authors of the new philosophy, whether we consider their theories of the earth or heavens, the discoveries they have made by glasses, or any other of their contemplations on nature. We are not a little pleased to find every green leaf swarm with millions of animals, that at their largest growth are not visible to the naked eye. There is something very engaging to the fancy, as well as

to our reason, in the treatises of metals, minerals, plants, and meteors. But when we survey the whole earth at once, and the several planets that lie within its neighborhood, we are filled with a pleasing astonishment, to see so many worlds, hanging one above another, and sliding round their axles in such an amazing pomp and solemnity If, after this, we contemplate those wild fields of ether, that reach in height as far as from Saturn to the fixed stars, and run abroad almost to an infinitude, our imagination finds its capacity filled with so immense a prospect, and puts itself upon the stretch to comprehend it. But if we yet rise higher, and consider the fixed stars as so many vast oceans of flame, that are each of them attended with a different set of planets, and still discover new firmaments and new lights that are sunk further into those unfathoniless depths of ether, so as not to be seen by the strongest of our telescopes, we are lost in such a labyrinth of suns and worlds, and confounded with the immensity and magnificence of nature.

Nothing is more pleasant to the fancy, than to enlarge itself by degrees, in its contemplation of the various proportions which its several objects bear to each other, when it compares the body of man to the bulk of the whole earth, the earth to the circle it describes round the sun, that circle to the sphere of the fixed stars, the sphere of the fixed stars to the circuit of the whole creation, the whole creation itself to the infinite space that is everywhere diffused about it; or when the imagination works downward, and considers the bulk of a human body in respect of an animal a hundred times less than a inite, the particular limbs of such an animal, the different springs that actuate the limbs, the spirits which set the springs a-going, and the proportionable minuteness of these several parts, before they have arrived at their full growth and perfection; but if, after all this, we take the least part of these animal spi rits, and consider its capacity of being wrought into a world that shall contain within those narrow dimensions a heaven and earth, stars and planets, and every different species of living creatures, in the same analogy and proportion they bear to each other in our own universe; such a speculation, by reason of its nicety, appears ridiculous to those who have not turned their thoughts that way, though at the same time it is founded on no less than the evidence of a demonstration. Nay, we may yet carry it further, and discover in the smallest particle of this little world, a new, inexhausted fund of matter, capable of being spun out into another universe.

I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because I think it may show us the proper limits, as well as the defectiveness of our imagination; how it is confined to a very small quantity of space, and immediately stopped in its operation, when it endeavors to take in anything that is very great or very little. Let a man try to conceive the different bulk of an animal which is twenty, from another which is a hundred times less than a mite, or to compare in his thoughts a length of a thousand diameters of the earth with that of a million; and he will quickly find that he has no different measures in his mind, adjusted to such extraordinary degrees of grandeur or minuteness. The understanding, indeed, opens an infinite space on every side of us; but the imagination, after a few faint efforts, is immediately at a stand, and finds her. self swallowed up in the immensity of the void that surrounds it: our reason can pursue a par

* Vide ed. in folio.

1

[ocr errors]
« PředchozíPokračovat »