AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 161 



** Thus was this place 

 A happy rural seat of various views, 

 Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm. 



Between them, lawns, or level downs, and flocks 

 Grazing the tender herb, were interposed. 

 Or palmy hillock ; or the flowery lap 

 Of some irriguous valley, spread her store, 

 Flowers of all hue, and, without thorn, the rose. 

 Another side, umbrageous grots and caves 

 Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine 

 Lays forth her purple grape and gently creeps 

 Luxuriant. 



The birds their quire apply ; airs, vernal airs. 

 Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune 

 The trembling leaves ; while universal Pan, 

 Knit with the Graces and the Hours, in dance 

 Led on the eternal spring." 



This, as an example of Shakspeare's third illustration of Imagina- 

 tion, is perhaps one of the best that could be adduced. The descrip- 

 tion of the garden as a paradise, or place of unmingled beauty and de- 

 light, is perfect. But the variety of excellence introduced is utterly 

 at variance with all natural scenery. Here we have " the crisped 

 brook rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,'* — the rose without 

 a thorn, — the Hesperian apple in the garden of Eden, and the ex- 

 travagancies of the Roman and Grecian mythology in the paradise 

 of Adam and Eve. Here we have the elements of real scenes form- 

 ed into new combinations, by the fancy of the poet, and constituting 

 pictures which have no real existence. Here, strictly speaking, 



" As imagination bodies forth 

 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

 Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing 

 A local habitation and a name.'* 



Shakspeare's lover furnishes us with another illustration of Ima- 

 gination, equal to that of his poet and his madman. " The lover, all 

 as frantic, sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt." Love is like 

 a false glass, which represents everything fairer than it is. This 



