AN0 IMAGINATION. 



to make them, possess, perhaps without an exception, a sanguineous or 

 irritable temperament, the nature of which I explained in a late lecture of 

 the {Present series,* they are also made with peculiar liveHness and rapidity, 

 and 1 have hence defined the imagination to be that faculty of the mind 

 which calls forth and combines ideas with great rapidity and vivacity, 

 Whether congruous or incongruous. 



This, however, is pure or simple imagination, and to observe it in its 

 fall force we must select and attend to those states of the mind in which 

 it is altogether set at liberty from the control of the judgmient ; we must 

 follow it up into the airy visions of sleep, the wild phantasms of delirium, 

 the extravagant fictions of madness, or the dark reveries of melancholy. 

 In all these states it has full play and revels with unbounded career. And 

 it shows us distinctly the error of those psychologists who have regarded 

 irfiagination, genius, and fine taste, as one and the same attribute. For 

 here we behold the restless power of imagination enthroned without a 

 rival in the centre of the intellectual empire, and yet unaccompanied, ex- 

 cept perhaps in a few anomalous cases, with taste or genius of any kind. 

 A long habit of association, in the case of dreaming and delirium, or some 

 predominant feeling in the case of madness or melancholy, may occasion- 

 ally give a certain degree of consistency or natural colouring to the ideas 

 as they are successively embodied ; and I have hence described the ideas 

 of imagination as characterized by rapid and vivacious combinations, 

 whether congruous or incongruous ; but for the most part the consistency 

 is only occasional and momentary ; or of permanent, hmited to a sinjle 

 subject. 



Tried by this test, I am afraid Dr. Akenside, among others, will be 

 found to have fallen into some slight confusion in his idea of imagination 

 • or fancy (for he uses the terms synonymously) as collected from his well- 

 known and very admirable poem — a poem in a few places, perhaps, ob- 

 scure to general readers from their unacquaintance with the Platonic phi- 

 losophers, but combining as much fire, and feeling, and classical elegance, 

 and rich imagery, and sweetness of versification, as any didactic poem of 

 the same extent in the English tongue. This poem he entitles "The 

 Pleasures of Imagination and the direct scope of it is to prove, firstly, 

 that the highest pleasures of the mind are those furnished by the imagina- 

 tion ; and secondly, that they are derived from th6 three sources of the 

 Fair, the Wonderful, and the Sublime, as they are discoverable in the 

 kingdoms of art and nature, and are chiefly collected and represented to 

 Us by poets and painters : 



Enow, then, whate'er of nature's pregnant stores, 

 Whate'er of mimic Art's reflected forms, 

 With love and admiration thus inflame 



The powers of Fancy, her delighted sons ^ 



To three illustrious orders have referred 



Three sister-graces — whom the painter's hand. 



The poet's tongue confesses : the Sublime, 



The Wonderful, the Fair.— I see them dawn ! 



I see the radiant visions where they rise, 



More lovely than when Lucifer displays 



His beaming forehead through the gates of morn. 



To lead the train of Phcebus and the iSpring. 



Who does not see that, through the whole of this the poet is speakmg,, 

 * Ser. III. Lect, XI, 



