118 M. de Voiler on the Pleafures of the Mind 
memory a feries of ideas, of fentiments, of 
expreffions ■, and there are none of his verfes 
which he would not be glad to engrave, with 
indelible characters, on the hearts of all mankind. 
He avails himfelf, therefore, of the rhyme which 
modern languages offer him, as the moft favour¬ 
able help towards the attaining of his purpofe. 
But to return to our fubjet, from which I 
mud beg pardon for having wandered lo far. 
Imitation, which is the principle of all the fine 
arts, is another fpecies of fymmetry, whether it 
aits by means of colour, of founds, of geftures, 
or of words. The objets it prefents, eafily take 
/A hold of our imagination, by the comparifon 
we make of them with objets already known 
to us. 
Ariflotle and his followers have maintained, that 
the pleafure produced in the mind, by the repre- 
fentation of any objet, was owing to its acquiring, 
by that means, a new degree of knowledge. This 
opinion feems wrong, becaufe it allows no differ¬ 
ence between a juft, and an unfair reprefentation j 
nor any gradation of pleafure, from the different 
degrees of execution. The mind every way makes 
a new acquifition of knowledge, and muft, there¬ 
fore, receive agreeable fenfations alike, from the 
Iliad of Homer , and the Thebaid of Statius ; the 
pitures of Raphael , and thofe of a fign-painter j 
the mufic of Handel, and the uncouth notes of an 
Irifh piper. 
Other 
