may not be room in the brain for such a variety of impressions, or the animal spirits may be incapable of figuring them in such a manner, as is necessary to excite so very large or very minute ideas. However it be, we may well suppose, that beings of a higher nature very much excel us in this respect, as it is probable the soul of man will be infinitely more perfect hereafter iu this faculty, as well as in all the rest; insomuch that, perhaps, the imagination will be able to keep pace with the understanding, and to form iD itself distinct ideas of all the different modes and quantities of space. ADDISON. O. No. 421. THURSDAY, JULY 8, 171a. PAPER XI. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. CONTENTS. How those please the imagination, who treat of subjects abstracted from matter, by allusions taken from it. What allusions most pleasing to the imagination. Great writers how faulty in this respect. Of the art of imagination in general. The imagination capable of pain as well as pleasure. In what degree the imagination is capable either of pain or pleasure. Ignotis errare locis, ignota videre Flnmina gaudebat: studio minuente laborem. OVID. >i Kt. Iv. 294. He sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil 1 The pleasure lessen'd the attending toil. Addison. The pleasures of the imagination are not wholly confined to such particular authors as are conversant iu material objects, but are often to be met with among the polite masters of morality, critirism, and other speculations abstracted from matter, who, though they do not directly treat of the visible parts of nature, often draw from them their similitudes, metaphors, and allegories. By these illusions, a truth in the understanding is, as it were, reflected by the imagination; we are able to see something like colour and shape in a notion, and to discover a scheme of thoughts traced out upon matter. And here the mind receives a great deal of satisfaction, and has two of its faculties gratified at the same time, while the fancy is busy in copying after the understanding, and transcribing ideas out of the intellectual world into the material. The great art of a writer shows itself in the choice of pleasing allusions, which are generally to be taken from the great or beautit'nl works of art or nature; for though whatever is new or uncommon is apt to delight the imagination, the chief design of an allusion being to illustrate and explain the passages of an author, it should be always borrowed from what is more known and common, than the passages which are to be explained. Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. A noble metaphor, when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory round it, and darts a lustre through a whole sentence. These different kinds of allusion are but so many different manners of similitude ; and, that they may please the imagination, the likeness ought to be very exact, or very agreeable, as we love to see a picture where the resemblance is just, or the posture and air graceful. But we often find eminent writers very faulty in this respect: #reat scholars are apt to fetch their comparisons and allusions from the sciences in which they are most conversant, so that a man may see the compass of their learning in a treatise on the most indifferent subject. I have read a discourse upon love, which none but a profound chemist could understand, and have beard many a sermon that should only have been preached before a congregation of Cartesians. On the contrary, your men of business usually have recourse to such instances as are too mean and familiar. They are for drawing the reader into a game of chess or tennis, or for leading him from shop to shop, in the cant of particular trades and employments. It is certain, there may be found an infinite variety of very agreeable allusions in both these kinds; but, for the generality, the most entertaining ones lie in the works of nature, which are obvious to all capacities, and more delightful than what is to be found in arts and sciences. It is this talent of affecting the imagination, that gives an embellishment to good sense, and makes one man's compositions more agreeable than another's. It sets oft' all writings in general, but it is the very life and highest perfection of poetry: where it shines in an eminent degree, it has preserved several poems for many ages, that have nothing else to recommend them; and where all the other beauties are present, the work appears dry and insipid, if this single one be wanting. It has something in it like creation. It bestows a kind of existence, and draws up to the reader's view several objects which are not to be found in being. It makes additions to nature, and gives greater variety to God's works. In a word, it is able to beautify and adorn the most illustrious scenes in the universe, or to fill the mind with more glorious shows and apparitions, than can be found in any part of it. We have now discovered the several originals of those pleasures that gratify the fancy; and here, perhaps, it would not be very difficult to cast under their proper heads those contrary objects, which are apt to fill it with distaste and terror; for the imagination is as liable to pain as pleasure. When the brain is hurt by an accident, or the mind disordered by dreams or sickness, the fancy is overrun with wild dismal ideas, and terrified with a thousand hideous monsters of its own framing. " Eumenidum velnti demens videt agmina Penthetts, TIRO. -EN. It. 469. " Like Pentheus, when distracted with his fear, DBIDEIT. There is not a sight in nature so mortifying as that of a 'distracted person, when his imagination is troubled, and his whole Mul disordered and confused. Babylon in ruins is not so melancholy a spectacle. But to quit so disagreeable a subject, I shall only*consider, by way of conclusion, what an infinite advantage this faculty gives an Almighty Being over the soul of man, and how great a measure of happiness or misery we are capable of rewiring from the imagination only. We have already seen the influence that one man has over the fancy of another, and with what ease he conveys into it a variety of imagery: bow great a power then may we suppose lodged in him, who knows all the ways of affecting the imagination, who can infuse what ideas he pleases, and fill those ideas with terror and delight to what degree he thinks fit! He can excite images in the mind without the help of words, and make scenes rise up before us, and seem present to the eye, without the assistance of bodies or exterior objects. He can transport the imagination with such beautiful and glorious visions, as cannot possibly enter into our present conceptions, or haunt it with such ghastly spectres and apparitions, as would make us hope for annihilation, and think existence no better than a curse. In short, he can so exquisitely ravish or torture the soul through this single faculty, as might suffice to make up the whole heaven or bell of any finite being. ADDISON". O. No. 422. FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1712. Ham scripsi non otii abundantia, sed nmoris erga te. TULL. EPIST I have written this, not out of abundance of leisure, but of my atiection towards you. I no not know anything which gives greater disturbance to oonversation, than the alse notion some people have of raillery. lt ought, certainly, to be the first ploint to be aimed at in society, to gain the good will of those wit whom you converse: the way to that is, to show you are well inclined towards them: what then can be more absurd than to set up for being extremely sharp and biting, as the term is, in your expressions to your familiars? A man who has no good quality but courage, is in a very ill way towards making an agreeable figure in the world, because that which he has superior to othpr people cannot be exerted, without raising himself an enemy. our gentleman of a satirical vein is in the like condition. To sais thing which pcrplexes the heart of him ou speak to, or brings lushes into his face, is a degree of murder; and it is, I tlgnk, an unpardonable offence to show a man you do not care whet er he is p eased or displeased. But won't you then take ajest ?-Yes~ but pray let it be ajest. It is no jest to put me, who am so un appy as to have an utter aversion to speaking to more than one man at a time, under u necessity to explain myself in much company, and reducing me to shame and derision, except I perform what my infirmity of silence disables me to do. Callisthenes has at wit, accom anied with that ualit , with 87° _ P ‘I Y out which a man can have no wit at all, a sound judgment, This gentleman rallies the best of any man I know, for he forms his ridicule upon a circumstance which you are in your heart not unwilling to grant him ; to wit, that you are guilty of an excess in some thing which is in itself laudable. He very well understands what you would be, and needs not fear your anger for declarin you are a little too much that thing. The generous will bear icing reproached as lavish, and the valiant as rash, without being provoked to resentment against their monitor. What has been said to be a mark of a ood writer will fall in with the character of a good companion. §`he good writer makes his reader better pleased with himself, and the agreeable man makes his friends enjoy themselves, rather than him, while he is in their company. Callisthenes does this with inimitable leasantry. He whispered a friend the other day, so as to be overlieard by a young otlicer, who gave symptoms of cooking upon the company, “That gentleman bts very much the air of a general officer." The youth immediately put on a composed behaviour, and behaved himself suitably to the conceptions he believed the company had of him. It is to be allowed that Callisthenes will make a man run into impertinent relations, to bis own advantage, and express the satisfartion he has in his own dear self till he is very ridiculous; but in this case tie man is made a fool by bis own consent, and not exposed as such whether he will or no. I take it therefore, that, to make raillery agreeable, a man must either not know he is rallied, or think never the worse of himself if he sees he is. Acetus is of a quite contrary genius, and is more generally admired than Callisthenes, but not with justice. Acetus has no regard to the modesty or weakness of the person he rallies; but if his quality or humility gives him any superiority to the man he would fall upon, he has no mercy in making the onset. He can be pleased to see his best friend out of countenance, while the laugh is loud in his own npplause. His raillery always puts the company into little divisions and separate interests, while that of Callisthenes cements it, and makes every man not only better pleased with himself, but also with all the rest in the conversation. To rally well, it is absolutely necessary that kindness must run through all you say: and you must ever preserve the character of a friend to support your pretensions to be free with a man. Acetus ought to be banished human society, because he raises his mirth upon giving pain to the person upon whom he is pleasant. Nothing but the malevolenco which is too general towards those who cseei, could make his company tolerated; but they with whom he onserses are sure to see some man sacrificed wherever he is admitted; and all the credit he has for wit, is owing to the gratification it gives to other men's ill nature. Minutius has a wit that conciliates a man's love at the same time that it is exerted against his faults. He has an art in keeping the person he rallies in countenance, by insinuating that he Himself is guilty of the same imperfection. This he does with so much address, that he seems rather to bewail himself, than fall upon his friend. It is really monstrous to see how unaccountably it prevails iuiong men, to take the liberty of displeasing each other. One *ould think sometimes that the contention is, who shall be most Hsagrceable. Allusions to past follies, hints which revive what a man has a mind to forget for ever, and desires that all the rest if the world should, are commonly brought forth even in company of men of distinction. They do not thrust with the skill of fencers, '■tit cut up with the barbarity of butchers. It is, methinks, below the character of men of humanity and good manners, to be capable of mirth while there is any one of the company in pain aud disorder. They who have the true taste of conversation, enjoy tbem Vol. in. x |