, . .46 



tional notions acquired by the enlargement of literacy know- 

 ledge. 



It may be said, that the mind may be overpowered with 

 the weight of knowledge, if encreased beyond a certain li- 

 mit, and the imagination will be perplexed by the number 

 of ideas and consequent difficulty of choice; thus their mul- 

 tiplicity will prevent their use, and the disappointed scholar 

 will too late find the natural vivacity of his fancy deadened, 

 his original perspicacity clouded and obscured, and will la- 

 ment the loss of that time, which might have been more ad- 

 vantageously employed in the contemplation of the beauty 

 and sublimity of the sensible creation. It may appear a 

 confirmation of this, that the thoughts and sentiments of 

 persons in a state of comparative rudeness, where there is 

 little information beyond that of sense, are generally consi- 

 dered bolder and more poetical than those of other persons ; 

 and that the effusions of youthful poets are supposed to shew 

 an exuberant redundancy of imagery, that is usually much 

 diminished in the days of improved reason and accumulated 

 knowledge. As to the first, however, we should not ascribe 

 it so much to a more vivid force of imagination, as the po- 

 verty of language invariably' attending imperfect civilisation. 

 All languages are in some degree metaphorical, it would be 

 impossible to have distinct appropriate signs for every object 

 of thought, therefore we are constrained to borrow the names 

 properly applied to more familiar ideas, and extend them to 

 others with which we are not so long or so intimately ac- 



