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object. The victim of lassitude and ennui maj' indeed pant 

 after novelty for its own sake; but he is a singular instance. 

 The infant does not throw away his rattle until some other 

 attraction presents itself; the boy does not long for a glimpse 

 of the metropolis until he has heard of its splendours. It is 

 the same in manhood. Johnson did not seek the Hebrides 

 until he had warmed his imagination with the view of primi- 

 tive and uncultivated society which he expected to enjoy 

 there. The fancy of Columbus dwelt only on a new track 

 through the ocean, when he discovered a new world. And 

 the galaxy and nebula were already in the eye of Hcrschel 

 before he ascertained them to be clusters of stars^ and found 

 a new universe in every assemblage. 



Every organ of sense rs long under the tuition of habit, 

 and by its means attains no small degree of perfection, before 

 the mind is affected by a desire of novelty with respect to the 

 objects of that particular sense. 



Hearing, for example, must long be exercised, before it 

 arrives at the power of distinguishing the variety of noises, 

 that first excite its attention, and the multiplicity of sounds 

 conveyed in the simplest air of music, or the narrowest com- 

 pass of language. Pleasing sounds, by being new, are ren- 

 dered more pleasing; but until the ear is habitually ac- 

 quainted with some arrangement of sounds, it can scarcely 

 be subservient to the love of novelty; because the imagina- 

 tion cannot form a preconception of a simple sound to which 

 the mind is a stranger; and we have seen that without some 



