126 M. de Polier on the Pleafures of the Mind 
all the pleafure fuch a reprefentation is able to 
produce. 
The pleafure we receive from a good painting, 
is alfo chiefly owing to this fubordination of 
parts, and reference of them to the principal 
object. Painters call it compofition and thofe 
mafters have obtained the firft rank among them, 
who have been moft attentive to it. It was 
Raphael's, and Ruben s forte; and, being the happy 
relult of great genius, combined with a well 
cultivated tafte, is always lure of caufing the 
molt agreeable fenfations to the mind, that con¬ 
templates the effects of it. 
In poetry, but particularly in epic and dra¬ 
matic performances, the obfervation or negled 
of this rule becomes, likewife, the teft of the 
pleafure they afford to a perfon of tafte. The 
different adors that appear in the narration, or 
on the fcene, mud all concur in their different 
ftations to fet off the main object, and keep the 
attention fixed upon it, or elfe, the mind, dif- 
traded with a multiplicity of objeds, that feem 
to lay an equal claim to its notice, and perhaps 
to its feelings, grows weary, difgufted, and in¬ 
different to them all. Unity of action, in paint¬ 
ing and in poetry, is another confequence of the 
attention of artifts to the principle L meant to 
iiluftrate. For nothing can be more fatisfadory 
to the mind, than to take in, as it were, with a 
glance, a multitude of fads connected together, 
bv 
