Ασεβές μίν ἐσιν ἀνθρώπε τὰς παρὰ τε θεῦ χάρνας ἀτιμάζειν.

EPICT. apud Arrian. II. 23.

Published in the Year M DCC XLIV.

B 3

THE DESIGN.

ΤΗ

HERE are certain powers in human nature which feem to hold a middle place between the organs of bodily fenfe and the faculties of moral perception: They have been called by a very general name, The Powers of Imagination. Like the external fenfes, they relate to matter and motion; and, at the fame time, give the mind ideas analogous to those of moral approbation and dislike. As they are the inlets of fome of the most exquifite pleasures with which we are acquainted, it has naturally happened that men of warm and fenfible tempers have fought means to recall the delightful perceptions which they afford, independent of the object which originally produced them. This gave rife to the imitative or designing arts; fome of which, as painting and fculpture, directly copy the external appearances which were admired in nature; others, as music and poetry, bring them back to remembrance by figns univerfally established and understood.

But these arts, as they grew more correct and deliberate, were of courfe led to extend their imitation beyond the peculiar objects of the imaginative powers; efpecially poetry, which, making ufe of language as the inftrument by which it imitates, it confequently becomes an unlimited reprefentative of every fpecies

and mode of being. Yet, as their intention was only to exprefs the objects of imagination, and as they ftill abound chiefly in ideas of that clafs, they of course retain their original character; and all the different pleafures which they excite, are termed, in general, Pleafures of Imagination.

The defign of the following poem is to give a view of thefe in the largest acceptation of the term; fo that. whatever our imagination feels from the agreeable 'appearances of nature, and all the various entertainment swe meet with either in poetry, painting, music, or any of the elegant arts, might be deducible from one or other of thofe principles in the conflitution of the buman mind, which are here established and explained.

In executing this general plan, it was necessary first of all to distinguish the Imagination from our other faculties; and in the next place to characterize those original forms or properties of being, about which it is converfant, and which are by nature adapted to it, as light is to the eyes, or truth to the understanding. Thefe properties Mr. Addison had reduced to the three general claffes of greatness, novelty, and beauty; and into thefe we may analyfe every object, however complex, which, properly fpeaking, is delightful to the imagination. But fuch an object may also include many other fources of pleafure; and its beauty, or novelty, or grandeur, will make a stronger impreffion by reafon of this concurrence. Befides which, the imitative arts, especially poetry, owe much of their effect to a fimilar exhibition of properties quite foreign to the

imagination, infomuch that in every line of the most applauded poems, we meet with either ideas drawn from the external fenfes, or truths difcovered to the understanding, or illustrations of contrivance and final caufes, or, above all the reft, with circumftances proper to awaken and engage the paffions. It was therefore neceffary to enumerate and exemplify thefe different fpecies of pleafure; efpecially that from the paffions, which, as it is fupreme in the nobleft work of human genius, fo being in fome particulars not a little furprizing, gave an opportunity to enliven the didactic turn of the poem, by introducing an allegory to account for the appearance.

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After these parts of the fubje&t which hold chiefly of admiration, or naturally warm and intereft the mind, a pleasure of a very different nature, that which arifes from ridicule, came next to be confidered. this is the foundation of the comic manner in all the arts, and has been but very imperfectly treated by moral writers, it was thought proper to give it a particular illuftration, and to diftinguish the general fources from which the ridicule of characters is derived. Here too a change of ftile became neceffary; fuch a one as might yet be confiftent, if poffible, with the general tafte of compofition in the ferious parts of the fubjest nor is it an easy task to give any tolerable force to images of this kind, without running either into the gigantic expreffions of the mock heroic, or the familiar and poetical raillery of professed satire; neither of which would have been proper here.

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