IMAGINATION. 15 



the poet. But we must not conceive, merely because they 

 are sublime, that they comprehend the whole ojQice of ima* 

 gination, or even its most important uses. It is of far more 

 importance to mankind, as it operates in the common offices 

 of life, — in the familiar feelings of every hour. What are 

 all those pictures of the future, which are ever before our 

 eyes, in the successive hopes, and fears, and designs of life, 

 but imaginations, in which circumstances are combined that 

 never perhaps, in the same forms and proportions, have ex- 

 isted in reality, and which, very probably, are never to exist 

 but in those very hopes and fears which we have formed ? 

 The writer of romance gives secret motions and passions to 

 the characters which he invents, and adds incident to inci- 

 dent in the long series of complicated action which he de- 

 velopes. What he does, we, too, are doing every hour ; — ' 

 contriving events that never are to happen, — imagining mo- 

 tives and passions, and thinking our little romances, of which 

 ourselves, perhaps, are the primary heroes, but in the plot 

 of which there is a sufficient complication of adventures of 

 those whom we love, and those whom we dislike. Our ro- 

 mances of real life, though founded upon facts, are, in their 

 principal circumstances, fictions still ; and, though the fancy 

 which they display may not be as brilliant, it is still the same 

 in kind with that which forms and fills the history of imagi- 

 nary heroes and heroines. 



It is well known, from experience, that the activity and 

 consequent improvement of imagination, depend not a little 

 upon the character of the objects with which it is first occu- 

 pied. The great, the sublime, the beautiful, the new, and 

 the uncommon, in external nature, are not only striking and 

 agreeable in themselves, but, by association, these qualities 

 powerfully awaken the sensibilities of the heart, and kindle 

 the fires of youthful imagination. If the student permit 

 objects which are mean, low, or sensual, to usurp possession 

 of his mind ; if the books which he reads, and the studies 

 that he pursues, are contaminated with gross ideas, he has 

 no right to expect that this omnipotent faculty shall ever 

 draw from the polluted treasures of his memory, any thing 

 noble, useful, or praiseworthy ; or that his name shall ever 

 be enrolled among those who have delighted, instructed, and 

 honoured their native land and the world at large. 



By an excessive indulgence in the pleasures of imagina- 



