LECTURE XVIII. A general Account of the Pleasure we receive from Objects that occafion a moderate Exertion of our Faculties. A LL beauties, and admired strokes in compofition, derive their excellence and fine effect, either from drawing out and exercifing our faculties, by the views they present to our minds; or elfe transferring from foreign objects, by the principle of affociation, ideas which tend to improve the fenfe of a paffage. In what cafes the effect of compofition is heightened by each of these means, and in what manner it is done, will be the subject of the following Lectures to explain. One property effential to every thing that gives us pleasure is, that it occafions a moderate exercife of our faculties. Pleasure confifts of fenfations moderately vigorous. It is, therefore, capable of exifting in any degree between the two extremes of perfect languor and tranquillity of mind on the one hand, and actual pain and uneafinefs on the other. It is obfervable, likewise, that the more moderate any pleasure is, the longer continuance it is capable of; and that the more intense any pleafurable fenfation is, or the more nearly it approaches to a state of pain, the lefs capable it is of a long duration. Immoderate pleafure, as it were, oppreffes, fatigues, and exhausts the mind. Nothing 137 Nothing can be more evident than the truth of these principles, when applied to our external or corporeal fenfes. Warmth, for inftance, is a fenfation increasing in pleafure in all its gradations, from the torpid and benumbed ftate of the body, till it become actually hot and painful. Likewife a moderate and barely fenfible degree of warmth is agreeable through the whole course of our lives; but we foon grow impatient of greater degrees of warmth, though for a time they may produce a more grateful fenfation. In like manner, the limits of the pleasures of taste are, the infipid on the one hand, and the acrid and pungent on the other. Also the moderate pleasure which we receive from our common aliments, is always grateful; whereas viands of a high flavour, abounding with falts, which act forcibly upon the nerves appropriated to the sense of taste, though they yield a more exquifite relish for the time, foon cloy and disgust the palate. The fame things may be observed concerning the remaining fenfes of smelling, feeing, and hearing. To these affections of the external and corporeal fenfes, thofe of the internal and intellectual are ftrictly analogous. Indeed, it is impoffible they should not be fo, if the former be the only fources of the latter; that is, if, as was hinted before, all our intellectual pleasures and pains confift of nothing but the fimple pleasures and pains of sense, commixed and combined together in infinitely-various degrees and proportions, fo as to be separately indistinguishable, and transferred upon foreign objects, by the principle of association. It is obfervable, likewise, that a moderate exertion of our active powers is attended with a continued perception of moderate pleasure, both as it quickens the perceptive powers, and exposes us to the influence of objects that are adapted to affect our fenses; T but but that a violent exertion is, for fimilar reafons, attended with pain and uneasiness. That this is equally true with respect both to the powers of our bodies and the faculties of our minds, is too obvious to require illuftration. Indeed, it is wifely provided by Divine Providence, that both our minds and bodies are equally impatient of a state of rest and inactivity. Hence we are conftantly impelled to exert ourselves with vigour in the station in which we are placed; and we can never be happy, and enjoy our being, unless we fulfil the great ends of it. All perfons, indeed, have not an equal relish for the fame exercises, but in all minds there is an appetite for some or other species. of it; and when once, by addicting ourselves to any kind of ex-ercife, we have acquired a habit of it, from that time it becomes, in a manner, neceffary to our happiness. That the preceding account of the general affections of the mind with respect to pleasure, and the various degrees and grada-tions of it, are applicable to those which we receive from the polite arts, cannot but be obvious to all perfons of reading, study,. and reflection. No mind can long bear a very rapid succession of those scenes which, fingly, give it the moft exquifite pleasure.. A judicious compofer, therefore, is fenfible that the most exqui-fite beauties in compofition may be thrown away and loft, as it were, when they are placed too near together.. Besides, in a very quick fucceffion of objects, the mind hath not leisure to perceive and attend to all their powers and relations.. They lose therefore, of course, a great part of their full effect.. Perhaps the finest circumstances belonging to fome of the thoughts and expreffions in a work of genius, may not be thofe which prefent themselves to view at the first hearing or reading. If, there therefore, the mind be immediately, and without any respite, hurried to other objects equally ftriking, it can only be affected with the groffer fenfations they convey. There could have been no leifure or opportunity for its perceiving those more delicate beauties, which conftitute the chief merit of works of taste and imagination. In like manner, the grand and exquisite strokes of expreffion in music are always preceded by fuch strains as only prepare the mind for them, and are alfo followed by fuch as do not wholly take off the attention from them. Moreover, all compofitions which are intended to engage our attention a confiderable time, fhould correfpond pretty nearly to the general and natural courfe of our own ideas and fenfations. A writer may be as witty, or as fublime, as he can, and he may crowd these graces of compofition as close as he pleases; his readers cannot follow him but at a certain pace. There is a degree beyond which no person can accelerate the fucceffion of his ideas. If, therefore, a writer wish to take his reader along with him, he must, of neceffity, as we may fay, flacken his pace. On these accounts, the more exquisite strokes of genius should either be confined to fhort compofitions, be fparingly introduced into works of length, or be crowded in places where the mind may take an attentive furvey of them, without drawing off its attention from objects of more importance. An epigram may contain as much wit as the writer can crowd into it, and the ode may be as full of the fublime as his imagination is capable of making it, and without any inconvenience; because the whole compofition having very moderate bounds, and the attention not being folicited farther, we may attend to any part of it as long as we please, and enjoy it at our leifure: but a great number of what are called the graces and masterly ftrokes of compofition are loft in a history, in a heroic poem, or an interesting scene in a tragedy. If these works be compofed in a good tafte, the attention of the reader is fixed upon the incidents; he is haftening to the cataftrophe, and will not ftop to examine all the beauties of the composition that were an object quite foreign to the views of a person whose mind was properly engroffed by the subject of the work. It is abfolutely impoffible to be properly impreffed with, and to keep in view, the greater fentiments with which the mind is inspired by fuch works as the Iliad, the Odyffee, and the Æneid, and at the fame time give any attention to fuch minute criticisms as fome commentators have defcended to, and taken the pains to make upon them. It is a fundamental rule in all kinds of compofition, that they ought to be more or less elaborate, according as they are longer or fhorter; or, rather, according to the opportunity they give the mind to attend to all the beauties of them. In these cases, however, regard must be had, if poffible, to the perfons for whofe ufe any kind of compofition is made, and even to the temper of mind in which it is moft likely to be perufed. For it is certain that the fucceffion of ideas, to which the tenor of a. compofition. should correfpond, is very different in different per-. fons, and in different fituations of mind. A ftyle adapted to the vulgar, whose minds are wholly uncultivated, whofe apprehenfions are confequently flow, and whose feelings are strong, would by no means fuit perfons whose apprehenfions have been quickened, and whose sensations have been refined, by education and reflection: nor would that style, which was proper to be perufed by persons in a tranquil and composed state of mind, suit the fame |