Pours out her births unknown. With fixed gaze
He marks the rising phantoms. Now compares
Their different forms; now blends them, now divides,
Enlarges, and extenuates by turns;
393
Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands,

And infinitely varies.

Hither now,

Now thither fluctuates his inconstant-aim,

Result from airy motion; and from shape
The lovely phantoms of sublime and fair.
By what fine ties hath God connected things
When present in the mind, which in themselves
Have no connection? Sure the rising Sun
O'er the cerulean convex of the sea,
With equal brightness and with equal warmth

Thus feel her frame expanded, and her powers
Exulting in the splendour she beholds;

460

469

With endless choice perplex'd. At length his plan Might roll his fiery orb; nor yet the soul
Begins to open. Lucid order dawns;
And as from Chaos old the jarring seeds
Of Nature at the voice divine repair'd
Each to its place, till rosy Earth unveil'd
Her fragrant bosom, and the joyful Sun
Sprung up the blue serene; by swift degrees
Thus disentangled, his entire design
Emerges. Colours mingle, features join,
And lines converge: the fainter parts retire;
The fairer eminent in light advance;
And every image on its neighbour smiles.
Awhile he stands, and with a father's joy
Contemplates. Then with Promethean art,
Into its proper vehicle he breathes

400 Like a young conqueror moving through the pomp
Of some triumphal day. When join'd at eve,
Soft-murmuring streams and gales of gentlest breath
Melodious Philomela's wakeful strain
Attemper, could not man's discerning ear
Through all its tones the sympathy pursue;

Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy

Steal through his veins, and fan the awaken'd heart,
Mild as the breeze, yet rapturous as the song.
But were not Nature still endow'd at large
410 With all which life requires, though unadorn'd 480
With such enchantment: wherefore then her form
So exquisitely fair? her breath perfum'd
With such ethereal sweetness? whence her voice
Inform'd at will to raise or to depress

420

The fair conception; which, embodied thus,
And permanent, becomes to eyes or ears
An object ascertain'd: while thus inform'd,
The various organs of his mimic skill,
The consonance of sounds, the featur'd rock,
The shadowy picture and impassion'd verse,
Beyond their proper powers attract the soul
By that expressive semblance, while in sight
Of Nature's great original we scan
The lively child of Art; while line by line,
And feature after feature we refer
To that sublime exemplar whence it stole
Those animating charms. Thus beauty's palm
Betwixt them wavering hangs: applauding love
Doubts where to choose; and mortal man aspires
To tempt creative praise. As when a cloud
Of gathering hail, with limpid crusts of ice
Enclos'd and obvious to the beaming Sun,
Collects his large effulgence; straight the Heavens
With equal flames present on either hand
The radiant visage: Persia stands at gaze,
Appall'd; and on the brink of Ganges doubts
The snowy-vested seer, in Mithra's name,
To which the fragrance of the south shall burn,
To which his warbled orisons ascend.

431

440

Such various bliss the well-tun'd heart enjoys,
Favour'd of Heaven! while, plung'd in sordid cares,
The unfeeling vulgar mocks the boon divine:
And harsh Austerity, from whose rebuke
Young Love and smiling Wonder shrink away
Abash'd and chill of heart, with sager frowns
Condemns the fair enchantment. On my strain,
Perhaps even now, some cold, fastidious judge
Casts a disdainful eye; and calls my toil,
And calls the love and beauty which I sing,
The dream of folly. Thou, grave censor! say,
Is Beauty then a dream, because the glooms
Of dulness hang too heavy on thy sense,
To let her shine upon thee? So the man
Whose eye ne'er open'd on the light of Heaven,
Might smile with scorn while raptur'd vision tells
Of the gay colour'd radiance flushing bright
O'er all creation. From the wise be far
Such gross unhallow'd pride; nor needs my song
Descend so low; but rather now unfold,
If human thought could reach, or words unfold,
By what mysterious fabric of the mind,
The deep-felt joys and harmony of sound

450

The impassion'd soul? and whence the robesof light
Which thus invest her with more lovely pomp
Than fancy can describe! Whence but from thee,
O source divine of ever-flowing love,

490

And thy unmeasur'd goodness? Not content
With every food of life to nourish man,
By kind illusions of the wondering sense
Thou mak'st all nature beauty to his eye,
Or music to his ear: well pleas'd he scans
The goodly prospect; and with inward smiles
Treads the gay verdure of the painted plain;
Beholds the azure canopy of Heaven,
And living lamps that over-arch his head
With more than regal splendour; bends his ears
To the full choir of water, air, and earth;

Nor heeds the pleasing errour of his thought, 500
Nor doubts the painted green or azure arch,
Nor questions more the music's mingling sounds
Than space, or motion, or eternal time;
So sweet he feels their influence to attract
The fixed soul; to brighten the dull glooms
Of care, and make the destin'd road of life
Delightful to his feet. So fables tell,
The adventurous hero, bound on hard exploits,
Beholds with glad surprise, by secret spells
Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,
A visionary paradise disclos'd

510

Amid the dubious wild: with streams, and shades,
And airy songs, the enchanted landscape smiles,
Cheers his long labours, and renews his frame.

What then is taste, but these internal powers
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deform'd, or disarrang'd, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold, 520
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But God alone when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of Heaven,
Reveals the charms of Nature. Ask the swain
Who journies homeward from a summer day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold

the Rhine, the Danube, and, much more than all, the Ocean, &c." Dionys. Longin. de Sublim. § xxiv.

Ver. 202. The empyreal waste.] "Ne se peut-il point qu'il y a un grand espace au dela de la region des etoiles? Que se soit le ciel empyrée, ou non, toujours cet espace immense qui environne toute cette region, pourra etre rempli de bonheur et de gloire. Il pourra etre concu comme l'ocean, où se rendent les fleuves de toutes les creatures bienheureuses, quand elles seront venues à leur perfection dans le systeme des etoiles." Leibnitz dans la Theodicée, part. i. §. 19.

Ver. 204. Whose unfading light, &c.] It was a notion of the great Mr. Huygens, that there may be fixed stars at such a distance from our solar system, as that their light should not have had time to reach us, even from the creation of the world to this day.

Ver. 234.

the neglect

Of all familiar prospects, &c.] It is here said, that in consequence of the love of novelty, objects, which at first were highly delightful to the mind, lose that effect by repeated attention to them. But the instance of habit is opposed to this observation; for there, objects at first distasteful are in time rendered entirely agreeable by repeated attention.

even where the mind is not affected with the least
degree of wonder: whereas wonder indeed always
implies novelty, being never excited by common or
well-known appearances. But the pleasure in both
cases is explicable, from the same final cause, the
acquisition of knowledge and enlargement of our
views of nature: on this account, it is natural to
treat of them together.
Ver. 374.
truth and good are one,

And beauty dwells in them, &c.] “Do you imagine," says Socrates to Aristippus, "that what is good is not beautiful? Have you not observed that these appearances always coincide? Virtue, for instance, in the same respect as to which we call it good, is ever acknowledged to be beautiful also. In the characters of men we always' join the two denominations together. The beauty of human bodies corresponds, in like manner, with that economy of parts which constitutes them good; and in every circumstance of life, the same object is constantly accounted both beautiful and good, inasmuch as it answers the purposes for which it was designed." Xenophont. Memorab. Socrat. I. iii. c. 8.

This excellent observation has been illustrated and extended by the noble restorer of ancient philosophy; (see the Characteristics, vol. ii. p. 359 and 422, and vol. iii. p. 181.) And another ingeThe difficulty in this case will be removed, if we nious author has particularly shown, that it holds consider, that when objects, at first agreeable, lose in the general laws of Nature, in the works of art, that influence by frequently recurring, the mind is and the conduct of the sciences; (Inquiry into the wholly passive, and the perception involuntary; but Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, Treat. habit, on the other hand, generally supposes choicei. § 8.) As to the connection between beauty and and activity accompanying it: so that the pleasure arises here not from the object, but from the mind's conscious determination of its own activity; and, consequently, increases in proportion to the frequency of that determination.

It will still be urged, perhaps, that a familiarity with disagreeable objects renders them at length acceptable, even when there is no room for the mind to resolve or act at all. In this case, the ap- | pearance must be accounted for, one of these ways. The pleasure from habit may be merely negative. The object at first gave uneasiness: this uneasiness gradually wears off, as the object grows familiar and the mind, finding it at last entirely removed, reckons its situation really pleasurable, compared with what it had experienced before.

The dislike conceived of the object at first, might be owing to prejudice or want of attention. Consequently the mind, being necessitated to review it often, may at length perceive its own mistake, and be reconciled to what it had looked on with aversion. In which case, a sort of instinctive justice naturally leads it to make amends for the injury, by running toward the other extreme of fondness and attachment.

Or, lastly, though the object itself should always continue disagreeable, yet circumstances of pleasure or good fortune may occur along with it. Thus an association may arise in the mind, and the object never be remembered without those pleasing circumstances attending it; by which means the disagreeable impression which it at first occasioned will in time be quite obliterated. Ver. 240.

..........

this desire Of objects new and strange. -] These two ideas are often confounded, though it is evident the mere novelty of an object makes it agreeable,

truth, there are two opinions concerning it. Some philosophers assert an independent and invariable law in Nature, in consequence of which "all rational beings must alike perceive beauty in some certain proportions, and deformity in the contrary." And this necessity being supposed the same with that which commands the assent or dissent of the understanding, it follows of course that beauty is founded on the universal and unchangeable law of truth.

But others there are, who believe beauty to be merely a relative and arbitrary thing; that indeed it was a benevolent provision in Nature to annex so delightful a sensation to those objects which are best and most perfect in themselves, that so we might be engaged to the choice of them at once, and without staying to infer their usefulness from their structure and effects; but that it is not impossible, in a physical sense, that two beings, of equal capacities for truth, should perceive, one of them beauty and the other deformity, in the same proportions. And upon this supposition, by that truth which is always connected with beauty, nothing more can be meant than the conformity of any object to those proportions upon which, after careful examination, the beauty of that species is found to depend. Polycletus, for instance, a famous ancient sculptor, from an accurate mensuration of the several parts of the most perfect human bodies, deduced a canon or system of proportions, which was the rule of all succeeding artists. Suppose a statue modelled according to this: a man of mere natural taste, upon looking at it, without entering into its proportions, confesses and admires its

This the Athenians did in a particular manner, by the word καλοκαγαθὸς, καλοκαγαθία.

beauty; whereas a professor of the art applies his measures to the head, the neck, or the hand, and, without attending to its beauty, pronounces the workmanship to be just and true.

says another excelleut writer, "cannot easily bring himself to like so austere and ungainly a form: so greatly is it changed from what was once the delight of the finest gentlemen of antiquity, and their recreation after the hurry of public affairs!" From this condition it cannot be recovered but by uniting

Ver. 492. As when Brutus, &c.] Cicero himself describes this fact-Cæsare interfecto- statim cruentum altè extollens M. Brutus pugionem, Ci-it once more with the works of imagination; and ceronem nominatim exclamavit, atque ei recupetam libertatem est gratulatus. Cic. Philipp. ii.

12.

Ver. 548. Where Virtue, rising from the awful depth

Of Truth's mysterious bosom, &c.] According to the opinion of those, who assert moral obligation to be founded on an immutable and universal law; and that which is usually called the moral sense, to be determined by the peculiar temper of the imagination and the earliest associations of ideas.

Ver. 591. Lycéum.] The school of Aristotle,
Ver. 592. Academus.] The school of Plato.
Ver. 594. Ilyssus.] One of the rivers on which
Athens was situated. Plato, in some of his finest
dialogues, lays the scene of the conversation with
Socrates on its banks.

NOTES ON BOOK II,

we have had the pleasure of observing a very great progress made towards their union in England within these few years. It is hardly possible to conceive them at a greater distance from each other than at the Revolution, when Locke stood at the head of one party, and Dryden of the other. But the general spirit of liberty, which has ever since been growing, naturally invited our men of wit and genius to improve that influence which the arts of persuasion gave them with the people, by applying them to subjects of importance to society. Thus poetry and eloquence became considerable; and philosophy is now of course obliged to borrow of their embellishments, in order even to gain audience with the public.

Ver. 167. From Passion's poteer alone, &c.] This very mysterious kind of pleasure, which is often found in the exercise of passions generally counted painful, has been taken notice of by several authors. Lucretius resolves it into self-love:

Suave Mari magno, &c. lib. ii. 1.

As if a man was never pleased in being moved at the distress of a tragedy, without a cool reflection that though these fictitious personages were so unhappy, yet he himself was perfectly at ease and in

Ver. 19. At last the Muses rose, &c.] About the age of Hugh Capet, founder of the third race of French kings, the poets of Provence were in high reputation; a sort of strolling bards or rhapsodists, who went about the courts of princes and noble-safety. The ingenious author of the Reflections men, entertaining them at festivals with music and poetry. They attempted both the epic, ode, and satire; and abounded in a wild and fantastic vein of fable, partly allegorical, and partly founded on traditionary legends of the Saracen wars. These were the rudiments of Italian poetry. But their taste and composition must have been extremely barbarous, as we may judge by those who followed the turn of their fable in much politer times; such as Bojardo, Bernardo, Tasso, Ariosto, &c.

Ver. 21. Falclusa.] The famous retreat of Francisco Petrarcha, the father of Italian poetry, and his mistress Laura, a lady of Avignon.

Ver. 22. Arno.] The river which runs by rence, the birth-place of Dante and Boccacio. Ver. 23. Parthenope.] Or Naples, the birth-place of Sannazaro. The great Torquato Tasso was born at Sorrento, in the kingdom of Naples. Ibid. ..... the rage

critiques sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, accounts for it by the general delight which the mind takes in its own activity, and the abhorrence it feels of an indolent and inattentive state: and this, joined with the moral approbation of its own temper, which attends these emotions when natural and just, is certainly the true foundation of the pleasure, which, as it is the origin and basis of tragedy and epic, deserved a very particular consideration in this poem.

Ver. 304. Inhabitant of earth, &c.] The account of the economy of Providence here introduced, as the most proper to calm and satisfy the mind Flo-when under the compunction of private evils, seems to have come originally from the Pythagorean school: but of the ancient philosophers, Piato has most largely insisted upon it, has established it with all the strength of his capacious understanding, and ennobled it with all the magnificence of his divine imagination. He has one passage so full and clear on this head, that I am persuaded the reader will be pleased to see it here, though somewhat long. Addressing himself to such as are not satisfied concerning Divine Providence: "The Being who presides over the whole," says he, “has disposed and complicated all things for the happiness and virtue of the whole, every part of which, according to the extent of its influence, does and suffers what is fit and proper. One of these parts is yours, O unhappy man, which though in itself most inconsiderable and minute, yet being connected with the universe, ever seeks to co-operate with that supreme order. You, in the mean time, are ignorant of the very end for which all particular natures are brought into existence, that the

Of dire ambition, &c.] This relates to the cruel wars among the republics of Italy, and abominable politics of its little princes, about the fif- | teenth century. These at last, in conjunction with the papal power, entirely extinguished the spirit of liberty in that country, and established that abuse of the fine arts which has been since propagated over all Europe.

Ver. 50. Thus from their guardians torn, the tender arts, &c.] Nor were they only losers by the,eparation. For philosophy itself, to use the words of a noble philosopher, "being thus severed by the sprightly arts and sciences, must consequently grow dronish, insipid, pedantic, useless, and directly opposite to the real knowledge and practice of the world." Insomuch that "a gentleman,"

Ver. 18.

NOTES ON BOOK III.

..........

where the powers

Of Fancy, &c.] The influence of the imagination on the conduct of life, is one of the most important points in moral philosophy. It were easy by an induction of facts to prove that the imagination directs almost all the passions, and mixes with almost every circumstance of action or pleasure. Let any man, even of the coldest head and soberest industry, analyse the idea of what he calls his interest; he will find that it consists chiefly of certain degrees of decency, beauty, and order, variously combined into one system, the and self-denial. It is on this account of the last consequence to regulate these images by the standard of nature and the general good; otherwise the imagination, by heightening some objects beyond their real excellence and beauty, or by representing others in a more odious or terrible shape than they deserve, may of course engage us in pursuits utterly inconsistent with the moral order of things.

all-comprehending nature of the whole may be perfect and happy; existing as it does, not for your sake, but the cause and reason of your existence, which, as in the symmetry of every artificial work, must of necessity concur with the general design of the artist, and be subservient to the whole of which it is a part. Your complaint therefore is ignorant and groundless; since, according to the various energy of creation, and the common laws of Nature, there is a constant provision of that which is best at the same time for you and for the whole. For the governing intelligence, clearly beholding all the actions of animated and self-moving creatures, and that mixture of good and evil which diversifies them, considered first of all by what dis-idol which he seeks to enjoy by labour, hazard, position of things, and by what situation of each individual in the general system, vice might be depressed and subdued, and virtue made secure of victory and happiness, with the greatest facility, and in the highest degree possible: in this manner he ordered, through the entire circle of being, the internal constitution of every mind, where should be its station in the universal fabric, and through what variety of circumstances it should proceed in the whole tenour of its existence." He goes on in his sublime manner to assert a future state of retribution," as well for those who, by the exercise of good dispositions being harmonized and assimilated into the divine virtue, are consequently removed to a place of unblemished sanctity and hap-swered, that though no man is born ambitious or a piness; as of those who by the most flagitious arts have risen from contemptible beginnings to the greatest affluence and power, and whom you therefore look upon as unanswerable instances of negligence in the gods, because you are ignorant of the purposes to which they are subservient, and in what manner they contribute to that supreme intention of good to the whole." Plato de Leg. x. 16.

One order, &c.] See the Meditations of Antoninus, and the Characteristics, passim.

Ver. 335. The best and fairest, &c.] This opinion is so old, that Timæus Locrus calls the Supreme Being injurys TW BENTiovos, "the artificer of that which is best ;" and represents him as resolving in the beginning to produce the most excellent work, and as copying the world most exactly from his own intelligible and essential idea; "so that it yet remains, as it was at first, perfect in beauty, and will never stand in need of any correction or improvement." There can be no room for a caution here, to understand the expressions, not of any particular circumstances of human life separately considered, but of the sum or universal system of life and being. See also the vision at the end of the Theodicée of Leibnitz.

Ver. 350. As flame ascends, &c.] This opinion, though not held by Plato nor any of the ancients, is yet a very natural consequence of his principles. But the disquisition is too complex and extensive to be entered upon here.

Ver. 755. Philip.] The Macedonian.

If it be objected, that this account of things supposes the passions to be merely accidental, whereas there appears in some a natural and hereditary disposition to certain passions prior to all circumstances of education or fortune; it may be an

miser, yet he may inherit from his parents a peculiar temper or complection of mind, which shall render his imagination more liable to be struck with some particular objects, consequently dispose him to form opinions of good and ill, and entertain passions of a particular turn. Some men, for instance, by the original frame of their minds, are more delighted with the vast and magnificent; others, on the contrary, with the elegant and gentle aspects of nature. And it is very remarkable, that the disposition of the moral powers is always similar to this of the imagination; that those who are most inclined to admire prodigious and sublime objects in the physical world, are also most inclined to applaud examples of fortitude and heroic virtue in the moral. While those who are charmed rather with the delicacy and sweetness of colours, and forms, and sounds, never fail in like manner to yield the preference to the softer scenes of virtue and the sympathies of a domestic life. And this is sufficient to account for the objection.

Among the ancient philosophers, though we have several hints concerning this influence of the imagination upon morals among the remains of the Socratic school, yet the Stoics were the first who paid it a due attention. Zeno, their founder, thought it impossible to preserve any tolerable regularity in life, without frequently inspecting those pictures or appearances of things, which the imagination offers to the mind (Diog. Laërt. I. vii.) The meditations of M. Aurelius, and the discourses of Epictetus, are full of the same sentiment; insomuch that the latter makes the Xos ola, dei pavy, or "right management of the fancies," the only thing for which we are accountable to Providence, and without which a man is no other than stupid or frantic. (Arrian. 1. i. c. 12. et l. ii. c. 22.) See also the Characteristics, vol. i. from p. 313 to 321, where this stoical doctrine is embellished with all the elegance and graces of Plato.