NATION: its nature may be variously explained by different metaphysicians; but, in the present instance, it is enough to refer to those characteristics of it, which reflection must admit to be true. Nice distinctions, and subtle refinements, are not on this occasion the subjects of enquiry.

The nature of the faculty in question is perhaps best seen in its operation. The fabled Centaur is a plain and intelligible instance. A peculiar people in Thessaly were famous for training the war-horse; the noble animal and his skilful master were identified: the images of the two were combined in one; and poets, sculptors, and painters, have exhibited a form that had no existence but in the brain of fancy.

This was the combination of mere bodily figures. There are also productions of a more abstract nature, and a more intellectual stamp; they consist of associations of dissimilar or different properties and qualities.

We have many fine instances from Shakspeare, which combine the qualities of different objects, in order to heighten the impression. There is no necessary, or even obvious relation between sweetness, moonlight, and sleep; and yet how appropriately are they blended in these familiar expressions

"How sweet the MOON-LIGHT sleeps upon this bank;
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony."

:

There is no strict analogy between the southern breeze, or the odours of the violet, and the sounds of music; yet how much is the sensation increased by the beautiful associations which are here assembled:

"That strain again--it had a dying fall;

O, it came o'er the ear like the sweet South,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour.'

We perceive, then, that there is a faculty of imagining objects and relations which we have never seen,-of uniting what has always been disjoined; and that this power extends, not merely to the coalition of tangible objects, but also to the transfer of the properties of one object to illustrate or embellish another.

The brilliancy of the Imagination stands contrasted with its ordinary nature. There are few who do not possess the capacity of receiving and comprehending the inventions of OTHER minds; yet there are many who have no power to form them in their own. The faculty is here in its passive state. The first mind which fashioned the palpable presence

11.

Down the beach, and in the sea

Dives the desperate maid- and now,
Defies her memory,

Goddess-virgin of the bow!

12.

Who may then defy thy power?
Mightiest Love! since Minos, held
Wisest, mightiest, in one hour,
By a single shaft was quelled!

III.

The lyrist ceased: -Now cleared the monarch's brow,
And with his eye his aspect brightened now;
And round the board he turns his doubtful view,
As on strange quest, and strict enquiry too.
Anon, it glanced upon the nearest guest,
That courtier on his right-and fixed to rest-
Of courtiers he the chief, the slave of gold,
By whom his sovereign's smile was basely sold.
Well was he skilled in every quaint deceit,
To make a bad deed to the conscience sweet;
His master's favourite-but of every peer
MENESTHUS was at once the scorn and fear,
Apart with him the monarch communed-" Well-
Think'st thou, my friend, that Fame, who loves to swell
Each object of her blazon, and for sport

Confound distinction in her vague report,
Exalt the humble, and abase the high,
Beauty denude, and gloss deformity,
Hath not more lavish in her lustre been,

Than what the subject warrants, were it seen?"

"My sovereign, were she seen, would soon confess
Fame hath no power to paint her loveliness,
More bright, more varied, less to be pourtrayed
Than Iris' own inimitable braid.

ARISTES' humble bed enjoys the dame

Whom Nature never meant for mortal flame;
But for the starry court of heaven designed

Such beauty, virtue, majesty combined.

Some with these spells would challenge wealth and power,
She finds content within the fragrant bower;
Their greatest wealth is in their blissful lot,
And mutual love reigns-revels in their cot.
No woman e'er was found so fair and true,
One thought of change her bosom never knew;
And aye, wherever nuptial faith is famed,
There, as a proverb, is Sabina named."

of an APPARITION, exhibited Fancy in its active condition. Those to whom it was related, would probably have never conceived the idea; but the phantom, once described, all could comprehend its general nature, and many, no doubt, improved its peculiar features: so the descriptions of Milton are readily painted even upon an ordinary fancy; but how few could have formed them in all their sublime and beautiful originality!

The qualities of a brilliant Imagination are beautiful and sublime associations of a moral and intellectual nature, and combinations of a novel and striking description.

The imagination assembles a variety of objects in order to produce emotion; it heightens every property which belongs to those objects, in order to increase the impression, and to raise and expand the conceptions: it associates and combines every moral and intellectual quality that can add to the general effect: it seeks to present every thing in a bright and dazzling light; its purpose is to enchant,-to elevate,-to touch with pathos, or arouse to sensibility: its object is to exalt every sentiment, and to conduct us from reality to romance. All that is bright is not true. It looks with a prophet's eye; and, from the summit of its mount, views Life as promised, rather than as enjoyed. Either the sunny regions beyond Pisgah lie before it, or the black waste of the Wilderness. It advances the exception into the rule,-what is peculiar becomes general. Man appears to be both better and worse than he actually is, and his destiny exhibits the opposite extremes of complete perfection and utter depravity.

JUDGMENT appears to be that power by which we can compare either different or similar objects, one with another, and so connect the two, as to deduce a conclusion either affirming or denying the truth of some proposition: it is employed both on certainties and probabilities; its object is to instruct, to convince, and to establish, and make truth apparent; its business is with facts in detail, and principles in general; it is opposed to conjecture; it is the opposite of fancy and imagination; it separates, instead of combining; it analyzes, instead of associating; it investigates each component part, and ascertains their relative and specific character; it resembles the judge, in office, as in name; it weighs the evidence of each witness, and the details of each individual testimony; it scrutinizes with the keen glance of penetration, and, after balancing each particle, it weighs the whole; its view comprehends equally the minute and the vast, the remote and the proximate; it is telescopic and microscopic.

Sometimes it estimates probabilities; yet even here it proceeds upon known facts, and established principles: what has

happened may occur again. Its office, then, is to ascertain that the circumstances are similar, the conclusion follows.

The aspect of the one is severe, scrutinizing, and inflexible; it "seems to look quite through the thoughts of men;" it is acute and penetrating; its glance is quick, yet searching; it exhibits an energy and determination of purpose, that can alone be inspired by the love of truth;-Minerva is its tutelary deity.

The countenance of the other is full of fire and animation,— its eye "in a fine phrenzy rolling" it searches not for the true, but for the beautiful,-not for the profound, but for the sublime; the tuneful Nine are alone the deitesses of its adoration.

The influence which Imagination necessarily has upon the Judgment, will perhaps best be examined by an appeal to different objects on which they are exercised. The Judgment is employed in the analysis or comparison of ascertained facts; the furniture of its laboratory is real and tangible. The materials with which the Imagination constructs its fabrics may, indeed, individually or separately, exist; but, in its inventive or creative power, it exhausts these materials, and embodies new. In the higher flights of its career, it grasps at fiction, as well as reality, and presents images far too enchanting, and far too beautiful, for the cool and dispassionate qualities of a correct and solid Judgment. The ordinary excursions of a brilliant Imagination are directed to regions where the sober wing of reason cannot soar; it arrays every thing in a visionary garb, and decorates with hyperbole every idea.

It may be possible that some peculiar instances may exist where Imagination and Judgment are eminently combined; there is, perhaps, no natural and totally insurmountable barrier against their unity and co-operation; but, as a general proposition, they are, in the great majority of instances, wholly incompatible.

That Judgment, to a certain extent of accuracy, may inhabit a mind endowed with a brilliant Imagination, we may readily admit; we observe it in the most resplendent examples of poets and orators. Without travelling far back, let us view the instance of Edmund Burke. The judgment of this distinguished individual was in many respects correct; and, upon subjects where his imagination did not pervert his understanding, his conclusions were accurate: but, will the impartial historian appeal either for his facts or his conclusions to the authority of Burke? Shall we look for accuracy of circumstance, or truth of principle, in that torrens eloquentia which rushed from the fountains of his imagination