CANTO in. PROGRESS OF THE MIND. ill 



The Monarch's stately step, and tragic pause, 

 The Hero bleeding in his country's cause, 

 O'er her fond child the dying Mother's tears, 

 The Lover's ardor, and the Virgin's fears; 

 The tittering Nymph, that tries her comic task, 

 Bounds on the scene, and peeps behind her mask, 

 The Punch and Harlequin, and graver throng, 

 That shake the theatre with dance and song, 

 With endless trains of Angers, Loves, and Mirths, 

 Owe to the Muse of Mimicry their births. 330 



" Hence to clear images of form belong 

 The sculptor's statue, and the poet's song, 

 The painter's landscape, and the builder's plan, 

 And IMITATION marks the mind of Man. 



Imitation marks, 1. 334. Many other curious instances of one part 

 of the animal system imitating another part of it, as in some con- 

 tagious diseases; and also of some animals imitating each other, are 

 given in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXII. 3. To which may be added, 

 that this propensity to imitation not only appears in the actions of 

 children, but in all the customs and fashions of the world; many 

 thousands tread in the beaten paths of others, who precede or accom- 

 pany them, for one who traverses regions of his own discovery. 



