means of fictitious history, displays of character may be most successfully given, and the various weaknesses of the heart exposed. I only mean to insinuate, that a taste for them may be carried too far; that the sensibility which terminates in imagination, is but a refined and selfish luxury; and that nothing can effectually advance our moral improvement, but an attention to the active duties which belong to our stations.*

VI. Important uses to which the power of imagination is subservient. The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement. As it delights in presenting to the mind scenes and characters more perfect than those which we are acquainted with, it prevents us from ever being completely satisfied with our present condition, or with our past attainments; and engages us continually in the pursuit of some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal excellence. Hence the ardor of the selfish to better their fortunes, and to add to their personal accomplishments; and hence the zeal of the patriot and the philosopher to advance the virtue and the happiness of the human race. Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes.

When the notions of enjoyment or of excellence which imagination has formed, are greatly raised above the ordinary standard, they interest the passions too deeply to leave us at all times the cool exercise of reason, and produce that state of the mind which is commonly known by the name of enthusiasm ; a temper

* After all the concessions I have here made in favor of such fictitious histories as our modern novels, I must acknowledge my own partiality for those performances of an earlier date, which describe the adventures of imaginary orders of being. [The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, Fairy Tales, etc.] Many of them afford lessons of morality not less instructive than those in our most unexceptionable novels; and they possess, over and above, the important advantage of giving to the imagination of young per sons a much more vigorous exercise, while they have no such tendency as novels have to mislead them in their views of human life. In most cases, it may be laid down as a rule, that fictitious histories are dangerous, in proportion as the manners they exhibit profess to approach to those which we expect to meet with in the world.

which is one of the most fruitful sources of error and disappointment; but which is a source, at the same time, of heroic actions and of exalted characters. To the exaggerated conceptions of eloquence which perpetually revolved in the mind of Cicero; to that idea which haunted his thoughts of aliquid immensum infinitumque, we are indebted for some of the most splendid displays of human genius; and it is probable that something of the same kind has been felt by every man who has risen much above the level of humanity, either in speculation or in action. It is happy for the individual, when these enthusiastic desires are directed to events which do not depend on the caprice of fortune.

Why the higher kinds of poetry please. The pleasure we receive from the higher kinds of poetry takes rise, in part, from that dissatisfaction which the objects of imagination inspire us with, for the scenes, the events, and the characters, with which our senses are conversant. Tired and disgusted with this world of imperfection, we delight to escape to another of the poet's creation, where the charms of nature wear an eternal bloom, and where sources of enjoyment are opened to us, suited to the vast capacities of the human mind.* On this natural love of poetical fiction, Lord Bacon has founded a very ingenious argument for the soul's immortality; and, indeed, one of the most important purposes to which it is subservient, is to elevate the mind above the pursuits of our present condition, and to direct the views to higher objects. In the mean time, it is rendered

*[Poetry, says Lord Bacon, "is nothing else but feigned history, which may be styled [written] as well in prose as in verse. The use of this feigned history hath been, to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof, there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice,

subservient also, in an eminent degree, to the improvement and happiness of mankind, by the tendency which it has to accelerate the progress of society.

Good effects of a taste for poetry. As the pictures which the poet presents to us are never (even in works of pure description) faithful copies from nature, but are always meant to be improvements on the original she affords, it cannot be doubted that they must have some effect in refining and exalting our taste, both with respect to material beauty, and to the objects of our pursuit in life. It has been alleged, that the works of our descriptive poets have contributed to diffuse that taste for picturesque beauty which is so prevalent in England, and to recall the public admiration from the fantastic decorations of art, to the more powerful and permanent charms of cultivated nature; and it is certain, that the first ardors of many an illustrious character have been kindled by the compositions of Homer and Virgil. It is difficult to say, to what a degree, in the earlier periods of society, the rude compositions of the bard and the minstrel may have been instrumental in humanizing the minds of savage warriors, and in accelerating the growth of cultivated manners. Among the Scandinavians and the Celta, we know that this order of men was held in very peculiar veneration; and, accordingly, it would appear, from the monuments which remain of these nations, that they were distinguished by a delicacy in the passion of love, and by a humanity and generos

therefore pocsy feigneth them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence: because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary, and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative variations: so as it appeareth, poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things. And we see, that by these insinuations and congruities with man's nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded."]— Advancement of Learning. Book ii.

ity to the vanquished in war, which seldom appear among barbarous tribes; and with which it is hardly possible to conceive how men in such a state of society could have been inspired, but by a separate class of individuals in the community, who devoted themselves to the pacific profession of poetry, and to the cultivation of that creative power of the mind, which anticipates the course of human affairs, and presents, in prophetic vision, to the poet and the philosopher, the blessings which accompany the progress of reason and refinement.

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Imagination multiplies our innocent enjoyments. Nor must we omit to mention the important effects of imagination, in multiplying the sources of innocent enjoyment beyond what this limited scene affords. Not to insist on the noble efforts of ius, which have rendered this part of our constitution subservient to moral improvement, how much has the sphere of our happiness been extended, by those agreeable fictions which introduce us to new worlds, and make us acquainted with new orders of being! What a fund of amusement, through life, is prepared for one who reads in his childhood the fables of ancient Greece! They dwell habitually on the memory, and are ready, at all times, to fill up the intervals of business, or of serious reflection; and in his hours of rural retirement and leisure, they warm his mind with the fire of ancient genius, and animate every scene he enters, with the offspring of classical fancy.

Happy effect of agreeable anticipations of the future. — It is, however, chiefly in painting future scenes, that imagination loves to indulge herself, and her prophetic dreams are almost always favorable to happiness. By an erroneous education, indeed, it is possible to render this faculty an instrument of constant and of exquisite distress; but, in such cases, (abstracting from the influence of a constitutional melancholy,) the distresses of a gloomy imagination are to be ascribed, not to nature, but to the force of early impressions.

The common bias of the mind undoubtedly is, (such is the benevolent appointment of Providence,) to think favorably of the future; to overvalue the chances of possible good, and to

underrate the risk of possible evil; and, in the case of some fortunate individuals, this disposition remains after a thousand disappointments. To what this bias of our nature is owing, it is not material for us to inquire; the fact is certain, and it is an important one to our happiness. It supports us under the real distresses of life, and cheers and animates all our labors; and although it is sometimes apt to produce, in a weak and indolent mind, those deceitful suggestions of ambition and vanity, which lead us to sacrifice the duties and the comforts of the present moment to romantic hopes and expectations; yet, it must be acknowledged, when connected with habits of activity, and regulated by a solid judgment, to have a favorable effect on the character, by inspiring that ardor and enthusiasm which both prompt to great enterprises, and are necessary to insure their success. When such a temper is united (as it commonly is) with pleasing notions concerning the order of the universe, and, in particular, concerning the condition and the prospects of man, it places our happiness, in a great measure, beyond the power of fortune. While it adds a double relish to every enjoyment, it blunts the edge of all our sufferings; and, even when human life presents to us no object on which our hopes can rest, it invites the imagination beyond the dark and troubled horizon, which terminates all our earthly prospects, to wander unconfined in the regions of futurity. A man of benevolence, whose mind is enlarged by philosophy, will indulge the same agreeable anticipations with respect to society; will view all the different improvements in arts, in commerce, and in the sciences, as coöperating to promote the union, the happiness, and the virtue of mankind; and amidst the political disorders resulting from the prejudices and follies of his own times, will look forward with transport to the blessings which are reserved for posterity in a more enlightened age.