THE

PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.

A POEM.

GENERAL ARGUMENT.

THE pleasures of the imagination proceed either from natural objects, as from a flourishing grove, a clear and murmuring fountain, a calm sea by moonlight; or from works of art, such as a noble edifice, a musical tune, a statue, a picture, a poem. In treating of these pleasures, we must begin with the former class, they being original to the other; and nothing more being necessary, in order to explain them, than a view of our natural inclination toward greatness and beauty, and of those appearances, in the world around us, to which that inclination is adapted. This is the subject of the first book of the following poem.

But the pleasures which we receive from the elegant arts, from music, sculpture, painting, and poetry, are much more various and complicated. In them (besides greatness and beauty, or forms proper to the imagination) we find interwoven frequent representations of truth, of virtue and vice, of circumstances proper to move us with laughter, or to excite in us pity, fear, and the other passions. These moral and intellectual objects are described in the second book, to which the third properly belongs as an episode, though too large to have been included in it.

With the above mentioned causes of pleasure, which are universal in the course of human life, and appertain to our higher faculties, many others do generally occur, more limited, in their operation, or of an inferior origin: such are the novelty of objects, the association of ideas, affections of the bodily senses, influences of education, national habits, and the like. To illustrate these, and from the whole to determine the character of a perfect taste, is the argument of the fourth book.

Hitherto the pleasures of the imagination belong to the human species in general. But there are certain particular men, whose imagination is endowed with powers, and susceptible of pleasures, which the generality of mankind never participate. These are the men of genius, destined by nature to excel in one or other of the arts already mentioned. It is proposed, therefore, in the last place, to delineate that genius which in some degrée appears common to them all; yet with a more peculiar consideration of poetry, inasmuch as poetry is the most extensive of those arts, the most philosophical, and the most useful.

BOOK I. 1757.

ARGUMENT.

THE subject proposed. Dedication. The ideas of the Supreme Being the exemplars of all things. The variety of constitution in the minds of men, with its final cause. The general character of a tine imagination. All the immediate pleasures of the human imagination proceed either from Greatness or Beauty in external objects. The pleasure from Greatness, with its final cause. The natural connection of Beauty with truth and good. The different orders of Beauty in different objects. The infinite and all-comprehending form of Beauty, which belongs to the Divine Mind. The partial and artificial forms of Beauty, which belong to inferior intellectual beings. The origin and general conduct of beauty in man. The subordination of local beauties to the beauty of the Universe. Couclusion.

WITH what enchantment Nature's goodly scene
Attracts the sense of mortals; how the mind
For its own eye doth objects nobler still
Prepare; how men by various lessons learn
To judge of Beauty's praise; what raptures fill
The breast with fancy's native arts endow'd,
And what true culture guides it to renown;
My verse unfolds. Ye gods, or godlike powers,
Ye guardians of the sacred task, attend
Propitious. Hand in hand around your bard 10
Move in majestic measures, leading on

Truth is here taken, not in a logical, but in a mixed and popular sense, or for what has been called the truth of things; denoting as well their natural and regular condition, as a prover estimate or judgment concerning them.

His doubtful step through many a solemn path,
Conscious of secrets which to human sight
Ye only can reveal. Be great in him:
And let your favour make him wise to speak
Of all your wondrous empire; with a voice
So temper'd to his theme, that those who hear
May yield perpetual homage to yourselves.
Thou chief, O daughter of eternal Love,
Whate'er thy name; or Muse or Grace, ador'd
By Grecian prophets; to the sons of Heaven
Known, while with deep amazement thou dost there
The perfect counsels read, the ideas old,

Of thine omniscient Father; known on earth

By the still horror and the blissful tear
With which thou seizest on the soul of man;
Thou chief, Poetic Spirit, from the banks
Of Avon, whence thy holy fingers cull
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf
Where Shakespeare lies, be present.
Let Fiction come; on her aërial wings
Wafting ten thousand colours; which in sport,
By the light glances of her magic eye,

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And with

[thee

She blends and shifts at will thro' countless forms,
Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre,
Whose awful tones control the moving sphere,
Wilt thou, eternal Harmony, descend,

And join this happy train? for with thee comes
The guide, the guardian of their mystic rites,
Wise Order; and where Order deigns to come,
Her sister, Liberty, will not be far.

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Be present, all ye Genii, who conduct

Of youthful bards the lonely wandering step
New to your springs and shades; who touch their ear
With finer sounds, and heighten to their eye

The pomp of nature, and before them place
The fairest, loftiest countenance of things.

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Nor thou, my Dyson, to the lay refuse Thy wonted partial audience. What though first In years unseason'd, haply ere the sports Of childhood yet were o'er, the adventurous lay With many splendid prospects, many charms, Allur'd my heart, nor conscious whence they sprung, Nor heedful of their end? yet serious Truth Her empire o'er the calm, sequester'd theme Asserted soon; while Falsehood's evil brood, Vice and deceitful Pleasure, she at once Excluded, and my fancy's careless toil Drew to the better cause. Maturer aid Thy friendship added in the paths of life, The busy paths, my unaccustom'd feet Preserving; nor to Truth's recess divine, Through this wide argument's unbeaten space, Withholding surer guidance; while by turns We trac'd the sages old, or while the queen Of sciences (whom manners and the mind Acknowledge) to my true companion's voice Not unattentive, o'er the wintry lamp

Inclin'd her sceptre, favouring. Now the fates Have other tasks impos'd:-to thee, my friend, The ministry of freedom and the faith