light which he himself experienced, when he first looked at the rainbow, after studying the Newtonian theory of light and colours: "Nor ever yet "The melting rainbow's vermeil-tinctur'd hues, "The hand of Science pointed out the path But waving all these considerations, and granting Mr. Burke's general doctrine to be true, that the pleasures of imagination are enjoyed with the most exquisite delight, when they are altogether uncontrouled by the reasoning faculty, the practical lesson will still be found, on either supposition, to be exactly the same; for it is only by combining the pleasures arising from both parts of our frame, that the duration of the former can be prolonged beyond the thoughtless period of youth; or that they can be enjoyed even then, for any length of time, without ending in satiety and languor. The activity which always accompanies the exercise of our reasoning powers seems, in fact, to be a zest essentially necessary, for enlivening the comparatively indolent state of mind, which the pleasures of imagination and of taste have a tendency to en courage. I will venture to add, however contrary to the prevailing opinion on this subject, that by a judicious combination of the pleasures of reason with those of the imagination, the vigour of the latter faculty may be preserved, *Note (R r). in a great measure, unimpaired, even to the more advanced periods of life. According to the common doctrine, its gradual decline, after the short season of youth, is not merely the natural consequence of growing reason and experience, but the necessary effect of our physical or ganization: And yet, numberless examples, in direct opposition to this conclusion, must immediately occur to every person, at all acquainted with literary history. But as I must not enter here into details with respect to these, I shall content myself with a short quotation from Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose opinion on this point, I am happy to find, coincides entirely with my own; and whose judgment, concerning a matter of fact, so intimately connected with his ordinary habits of observation and of thought, is justly entitled to much deference. His opinion too, it is to be remarked, is not only stated with perfect confidence; but the prejudice, to which it stands opposed, is treated with contempt and ridicule, as not entitled to a serious refutation. "We will allow a poet to express his meaning, when "his meaning is not well known to himself, with a cer"tain degree of obscurity, as it is one source of the sub"lime. But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of at"tending to times and seasons when the imagination "shoots with the greatest vigour; whether at the summer "solstice or the equinox; sagaciously observing, how "much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination is "cramped by attention to vulgar rules; and how this same "imagination begins to grow dim in advanced age, "smothered and deadened by too much judgment:"when we talk such language, and entertain such senti "ments as these, we generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions, not only groundless, "but pernicious." "I can believe, that a man, eminent when young "for possessing poetical imagination, may, from having "taken another road, so neglect its cultivation as to shew "less of its powers in his latter life. But I am persuaded, "that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to "Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, "and continued practising his profession to the very last, "whose latter works are not as replete with the fire of 'imagination, as those which were produced in his more "youthful days."* After all, however, it cannot be denied, that the differences among individuals, in the natural history of this power, are immense; and that instances very frequently occur, from which the prejudice now under consideration seems, on a superficial view, to receive no small countenance. If examples have now and then appeared of old men continuing to display it in its full perfection, how many are the cases, in which, after a short promise of uncommon exuberance, the sources of nourishment have seemed all at once to dry up, and the plant to wither to its very roots, without the hope or the possibility of a revival?-In instances of this last description, I could almost venture to assert, that if circumstances be accurately examined, it will invariably be found, that a lively imagination is united with a weak judgment; with scanty stores of acquired knowledge, and with little industry to supply the defect. The consequence is, that the materials, * Discourse delivered 10th Dec. 1776. which it is the province of imagination to modify and to combine, are soon exhausted; the internal resources of reason and meditation are wanting; and the imagination either disappears altogether, or degenerates into childishness and folly. In those poets and other artists, on the contrary, who have retained to the last all the powers of their genius, Imagination will be found to be one only of the many endowments and habits, which constituted their intellectual superiority;—an understanding enriched every moment by a new accession of information from without, and fed by a perennial spring of new ideas from within;-a systematical pursuit of the same object through the whole of life, profiting, at every step, by the lessons of its own experience, and the recollection of its own errors;-above all, the steady exercise of reason and good sense in controuling, guiding, and stimulating this important, but subordinate faculty; subjecting it betimes to the wholesome discipline of rules, and, by a constant application of it to its destined purposes, preserving to it entire, all the advantages which it received from the hand of nature. CHAPTER SECOND. CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT.REPLY TO AN OBJECTION FOUNDED ON THE SUPPOSED VIGOUR OF IMAGINATION IN THE EARLIER PERIODS OF SOCIETY. IT now only remains for me, before I conclude these speculations, to obviate an objection against a supposition, involved in many of the preceding reasonings, and more especially in the remarks which have been just stated, on the possibility of prolonging the pleasures of Imagination, after the enthusiasm of youth has subsided. The objection I allude to, is founded on a doctrine which has been commonly, or rather universally taught of late; according to which Imagination is represented as in its state of highest perfection in those rude periods of society, when the faculties shoot up wild and free. If imagination require culture for its development; and if, in the mind of an individual, it may be rendered more vigorous and luxuriant when subjected to the discipline of reason and good sense, what account (it may be asked) shall we give of those figurative strains of oratory which have been quoted from the harangues of American Indians; and of those relics of the poetry of rude nations, which it is the pride of human genius, in its state of greatest refinement, to study and to imitate? |