leave off all your vanities but your singing, let me know at my lodgings in Bow-street, Covent-garden, and you shall be encouraged by Your humble servant, ROGER DE COVERLEY.' My good friend could not well stand the raillery which was rising upon him; but to put a stop to it, I delivered Will Honeycomb the following letter, and desired him to read it to the board. Mr. SPECTATOR, 'HAVING seen a translation of one of the chapters in the Canticles into English verse inserted among your late papers, I have ventured to send you the viith chapter of the Proverbs in a poetical dress. If you think it worthy appearing among your speculations, it will be a sufficient reward for the trouble of Your constant reader, "My son, th' instruction that my words impart, And all the wholesome precepts that I give, "Let all thy homage be to Wisdom paid, "Once from my window as I cast mine eye "Just as the sun withdrew his cooler light, And pass'd the corner near the harlot's gate! A. B.' When lo, a woman comes! Loose her attire, and such her glaring dress, By which the wanton conquer heedless hearts: I have collected there-I want but thee. "Upon her tongue did such smooth mischief dwell, T. } No 411. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1712. PAPER I, ON THE PLEASURES OF THE CONTENTS, The perfection of our sight above our other senses. The pleasures of the imagination arise originally from sight. The pleasures of the imagination divided under two heads. The pleasures of the imagination in some respects equal to those of the understanding. The extent of the pleasures of the imagi nation. The advantages a man receives from a relish of these pleasures. In what respect they are preferable to those of the understanding. Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius antè In wild unclear'd, to Muses a retreat, LUCR. i. 925, give OUR sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in ac tion without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but at the same time it is very much strained and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and distance of its particular objects. Our sight seems designed to supply all these defects, and may be considered as more delicate and diffusive kind of touch, that spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach some of the most remote parts of the universe. It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasures of the imagination,' or 'fancy,' (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion. We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images, which we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vision that are most agreeable to the imagination for by this faculty a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself with scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature. There are few words in the English language which are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than those of the fancy and the imagination. I therefore thought it necessary to fix and determine the notion of these two words, as I intend to make use of them in the thread of my following speculations, that the reader may conceive rightly what is the subject which I proceed upon. I must therefore desire him to remember, that by the pleasures of the imagination,' I mean only such pleasures as arise originally from sight, and that I divide these pleasures into two kinds : my design being first of all to discourse of those primary pleasures of the imagination, which entirely proceed from such objects as are before our eyes; and in the next place to speak of those secondary plea sion, I think I may define it to be that faculty of the soul, which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.' If a man would know whether he is possessed of this faculty, I would have him read over the cele brated works of antiquity, which have stood the test of so many different ages and countries, or those works among the moderns which have the sanction of the politer part of our contemporaries. If, upon the perusal of such writings, he does not find himself delighted in an extraordinary manner, or if, upon reading the admired passages in such authors," he finds a coldness and indifference in his thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too usual among tasteless readers) that the author wants those perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering them. He should, in the second place, be very careful to observe, whether he tastes the distinguishing perfections, or, if I may be allowed to call them so, the specific qualities of the author whom he peruses; whether he is particularly pleased with Livy for his manner of telling a story, with Sallust for entering into those internal principles of action which arise from the characters and manners of the person he describes, or with Tacitus for displaying those outward motives of safety and interest which gave birth to the whole series of transactions which he relates. He may likewise consider, how differently he is affected by the same thought which presents itself in a great writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a person of an ordinary genius; for there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light of the sun. |