374 Phrenology. 



us cheerfulness, in successful action. Yet there are such powers, 

 their object is as beneficent and good as all the other designs of 

 the Creator, and their legitimate gratification is alike due to nature 

 and intimately connected with the advancement of the best inte- 

 rests of humanity. And first there is poetry. ' The poets are 

 born,' is an ancient expression, and the variety manifested by 

 them, in the development of their peculiar faculty, is phrenologi- 

 cally explained by its combination. They evince it in child- 

 hood, and are disappointed to find real life so very different from 

 their fond imaginings. A poetical vein runs through their let- 

 ters, conversation, descriptions, &.c. There are poets among 

 the artists. The painters who are said to flatter their likenesses 

 are poets, they must picture men and things as they should be, 

 and not as they are. Herein, indeed, is the difference between 

 poets and others. The former view nature and society through 

 a lens which robes them in an ideal perfection, while others 

 look on and see the plain, strait-forward, common things and 

 ways of the world. The ancient statues of poets have Ideality 

 large, and Homer excells, in this respect, every representation 

 which has descended to us. 



Some men try to be wits, but they try in vain. Others are so 

 much so, that even the desire to spare their friends will not con- 

 fine the jest. Painters show it by caricature, composers of music 

 throw it into their airs and melodies, actors evince it by ludi- 

 crous mimicry, and those having it greatly manifest it accord- 

 ing to their other faculties. It is frequently the vehicle of ideas, 

 and those who have no ideas, cannot, of course, be witty. Vol- 

 taire had it so much, that even holy things suggested to his mind 

 laughable images. His use of the faculty was evidently a per^ 

 version. 



The faculty called Imitation is peculiarly necessary in the first 

 stages of infant education, and hence we find children largely en- 

 dowed with it. In adults it is comparatively small, but some, as 

 artists, actors, &.c. cultivate it, and therefore have it generally 

 full. It is indeed very requisite in the fine arts, and is an im- 

 portant means of improvement. 



Memory^ according to the metaphysicians, is a fundamental 

 power; the phrenologists, on the contrary, consider it as a state 

 or condition of the several faculties, in the same manner as atten- 

 tion. On this principle, the various manifestations of memory are 

 explicable. We all know that some individuals easily remember 

 the places where they have once been, others the dates of events, 

 and others a different circumstance relating to the same subject. 

 In short one person has a good memory for one thing, and anoth- 



