THE

PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

PART I.

Dolce sentier,

Colle, che mi piacesti,

Ov' ancor per usanza Amor mi mena;
Ben riconosco in voi l' usate forme,

Non, lasso, in me.

PETRARCH.

ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST PART..

THE Poem begins with the description of an obscure village, and of the pleasing melancholy which it excites on being revisited after a long absence. This mixed sensation is an effect of the Memory. From an effect we naturally ascend to the cause; and the subject proposed is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty.

It is evident that our ideas flow in continual succession, and introduce each other with a certain degree of regularity. They are sometimes excited by sensible objects, and sometimes by an internal operation of the mind. Of the former species is most probably the memory of brutes; and its many sources of pleasure to them, as well