all the inward surface. For this reason, the fancy is infinitely more struck with the view of the open air, and sky, that passes through an arch, than what comes through a square, or any other figure. The figure of the rainbow does not contribute less to its magnificence, than the colours to its beauty, as it is very poetically described by the son of Sirach: Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it; very beautiful it is in its brightness; it encompasses the heavens with a glorious circle, and the hands of the most High have bended it.'

Having thus spoken of that greatness which affects the mind in architecture, I might next shew the pleasure that rises in the imagination from what appears new and beautiful in this art; but as every beholder has naturally a greater taste of these two perfections in every building which offers itself to his view, than of that which I have hitherto considered, I shall not trouble my reader with any reflections upon it. It is sufficient for my present purpose, to observe, that there is nothing in this whole art which pleases the imagination, but as it is great, uncommon, or beautiful.

0.

One of the noblest objects I ever saw, was that of the rainbow, which, in the situation I saw it, crossed the channel from Dover to the coast of France. It chanced, too, that a fleet of merchantmen from Deal were then passing under the arch.-H.

No. 416. FRIDAY, JUNE 27.

PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.

'The secondary pleasures of the imagination. The several sources of these pleasures (statuary, painting, description, and music) compared together. The final cause of our receiving pleasure from these several sources. Of descriptions in particular. The power of words over the imagination. Why one reader is more pleased with descriptions than another.'

Quatenus hoc simile est oculis, quod mente videmus.

LUCR. iv. 754.

-Objects still appear the same

To mind and eye, to colour, and in frame.

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I AT first divided the pleasures of the imagination, into such as arise from objects that are actually before our eyes, or that once entered in at our eyes, and are afterwards called up into the mind either barely by its own operations, or on occasion of something without us, as statues or descriptions. We have already considered the first division, and shall therefore enter on the other, which, for distinction sake, I have called the secondary pleasures of the imagination. When I say the ideas we receive from statucs, descriptions, or such like occasions, are the same that were once actually in our view, it must not be understood that we had once seen the very place, action, or person, which are carved or described. It is sufficient, that we have seen places, persons, or actions, in general, which bear a resemblance, or at least some remote analogy with what we find represented. Since it is in the power of the imagination, when it is once stocked with particular ideas, to enlarge, compound, and vary them at her own pleasure.

b

Among the different kinds of representation, statuary is the most natural, and shews us something likest the object that is

Such like, would now be thought redundant and tautologous. We say, such occasions, or, the like occasions, but not such like.-H.

b With. It should be, to -II.

represented. To make use of a common instance, let one who is born blind take an image in his hands, and trace out with his fingers the different furrows and impressions of the chissel, and he will easily conceive how the shape of a man, or beast, may be represented by it; but should he draw his hand over a picture, where all is smooth and uniform, he would never be able to imag ine how the several prominences and depressions of a human body could be shown on a plain piece of canvass, that has in it no unevenness or irregularity. Description runs yet further from the things it represents than painting; for a picture bears a real resemblance to its original, which letters and syllables are wholly void of. Colours speak all languages, but words are understood only by such a people or nation. For this reason, though men's necessities quickly put them on finding out speech, writing is probably of a later invention than painting; particularly we are told, that in America when the Spaniards first arrived there, expresses were sent to the emperor of Mexico in paint, and the news of his country delineated by the strokes of a pencil, which was a more natural way than that of writing, though at the same time much more imperfect, because it is impossible to draw the little connections of speech, or to give the picture of a conjunction or an adverb. It would be yet more strange, to represent visible objects by sounds that have no ideas annexed to them, and to make something like description in music. Yet it is certain, there may be confused imperfect notions of this nature raised in the imagination by an artificial composition of notes; and we find that great masters in the art are able, sometimes, to set their

a The relative which has, for its antecedent, the whole foregoing sentence: a mode of expression common enough in careless or unskilful writers, but altogether unworthy of Mr. Addison. Besides, the period is too long better conclude the sentence at pencil, and proceed thus: "This way of painting our conceptions, is more natural than that of writing them; though. at the same time, it conveys them more imperfectly, because" &c.-H.

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hearers in the heat and hurry of a battle, to overcast their minds with melancholy scenes and apprehensions of deaths and funerals, or to lull them into pleasing dreams of groves and elysiums.

In all these instances, this secondary pleasure of the imagina tion proceeds from that action of the mind, which compares the ideas arising from the original objects, with the ideas we receive from the statue, picture, description, or sound that represents them. It is impossible for us to give the necessary reason, why this operation of the mind is attended with so much pleasure, as I have before observed on the same occasion: but we find a great get pleasure: variety of entertainments derived from this single principle: form 2nd

it is this that not only gives us a relish of statuary, painting, and description, but makes us delight in all the actions and arts of mimicry. It is this that makes the several kinds of wit pleasant, which consists, as I have formerly shewn, in the affinity of ideas: and we may add, it is this also that raises the little satisfaction we sometimes find in the different sorts of false wit; whether it consists in the affinity of letters, as in anagram, acrostic; or of syllables, as in doggerel rhymes, echos; or of words, as in puns, quibbles; or of a whole sentence or poem, to wings and altars. The final cause, probably, of annexing pleasure to this operation of the mind, was to quicken and encourage us in our searches after truth, since the distinguishing one thing from another, and the right discerning betwixt our ideas, depends wholly upon our comparing them together, and observing the congruity or disagreement that appears among the several works of nature.

But I shall here confine myself to those pleasures of the imagination, which proceed from ideas raised by words, because most of the observations that agree with descriptions, are equally applicable to painting and statuary.

To preserve the uniformity of expression, he should have said-in wings and altars.-H.

Words, when well chosen, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves. The reader finds a scene drawn in stronger colours, and painted more to the life in his imagination, by the help of words, than by an actual survey of the scene which they describe. In this case, the poet seems to get the better of nature; he takes, indeed, the landscape after her, but gives it more vigorous touches, heightens its beauty, and so enlivens the whole piece, that the images which flow from the objects themselves appear weak and faint, in comparison of those that come from the expressions. The reason, probably, may be, because in the survey of any object we have only so much of it painted on the imagination, as comes in at the eye; but in its description, the poet gives us as free a view of it as he pleases, and discovers to us several parts, that either we did not attend to, or that lay out of our sight when we first beheld it. As we look on any object, our idea of it is, perhaps, made up of two or three simple ideas; but when the poet represents it, he may either give us a more complex idea of it, or only raise in us such ideas as are most apt to affect the imagination.

It may be here worth our while to examine how it comes to pass that several readers, who are all acquainted with the same language, and know the meaning of the words they read, should nevertheless have a different relish of the same descriptions. We find one transported with a passage which another runs over It would be more exact to say,-"that either did not take our attention, or that lay out of our sight," &c. The same fault in Ovid [Met. III. 446.]

Et placet et video: sed quod videoque placetque,-Non tamen invenio. The relative quod used improperly in this place, because in a different case before video and placet. This fault is very common in English writers, because the relative is the same in all cases, i. e., has no difference of termination-as, the book which I am now reading and pleases me so much.-The mind suffers a kind of violence, and has the customary train of its ideas disturbed, in attending to this double construction, and regulating the grammar of such a sentence.-II.