this work, but died before he had completed his design. The reformed work as he left it, and the additions which he had made, are very properly retained in the late collection. He seems to have somewhat contracted his diffusion; but I know not whether he has gained in closeness what he has lost in splendour. In the additional book, the Tale of Solon is too long. One great defect of his poem is very properly censured by Mr. Walker, unless it may be said, in his defence, that what he has omitted was not properly in his plan. "His picture of man is grand and beautiful, but unfinished. The immortality of the soul, which is the natural consequence of the appetites and powers she is invested with, is scarcely once hinted throughout the poem. This deficiency is amply supplied by the masterly pencil of Dr. Young; who, like a good philosopher, has invincibly proved the immortality of man, from the grandeur of his conceptions, and the meanness and misery of his state; for this reason, a few passages are selected from the Night Thoughts, which, with those from Akenside, seem to form a complete view of the powers, situation, and end of man." Exercises for Improvement in Elocution, p. 66. His other poems are now to be considered; but a short consideration will dispatch them. It is not easy to guess why he addicted himself so diligently to lyric poetry, having neither the ease and airiness of the lighter, nor the vehemence and elevation of the grander ode. When he lays his ill-fated hand upon his harp, his former powers seem to desert him; he has no longer his luxuriance of expression, nor variety of images. His thoughts are cold, and his words inelegant. Yet such was his love of lyrics, that having written with great vigour and poignancy his Epistle to Curio, he transformed it afterwards into an ode disgraceful only to its author. Of his odes nothing favourable can be said; the sentiments commonly want force, nature, or novelty; the diction is sometimes harsh and uncouth; the stanzas ill-constructed and unpleasant, and the rhymes dissonant, or unskilfully disposed, too distant from each other, or arranged with too little regard to established use, and therefore perplexing to the ear, which in a short composition has not time to grow familiar with an innovation. To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they have doubtless brighter and darker parts: but, when they are once found to be generally dull, all further labour may be spared; for to what use can the work be criticised that will not be read ? ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1772. THIS volume contains a complete collection of the poems of the late Dr. Akenside, either reprinted from the original editions, or faithfully published from copies which had been prepared by himself for publication. That the principal poem should appear in so disadvantageous a state, may require some explanation. ` The first publication of it was at a very early part of the author's life. That it wanted revision and correction, he was sufficiently sensible; but so quick was the demand for several successive republications, that in any of the intervals to have completed the whole of his corrections was utterly impossible; and yet to have gone on from time to time making further improvements in every new edition, would (he thought) have had the appearance at least of abusing the favour of the public. He chose therefore to continue for some time reprinting it without alteration, and to forbear publishing any corrections or improvements until he should be able at once to give them to the public complete. And with this view he went on for several years to review and correct the poem at his leisure; till at length he found the task grow so much upon his hands, that, despairing of ever being able to execute it sufficiently to his own satisfaction, he abandoned the purpose of correcting, and resolved to write the poem over a-new upon a somewhat different and an enlarged plan. And in the execution of this design he had made a considerable progress. What reason there may be to regret that he did not live to execute the whole of it, will best appear from the perusal of the plan itself, as stated in the general argument, and of the parts which he had executed, and which are here published. For the person', to whom he intrusted the disposal of his papers, would have thought himself wanting as well to the service of the public, as to the fame of his friend, if he had not produced as much of the work as appeared to have been prepared for publication. In this light he considered the entire first and second books, of which a few copies had been printed for the use only of the author and certain friends: also a very considerable part of the third book, which had been transcribed in order to its being printed in the same manner: and to these is added the introduction to a subsequent book, which in the manuscript is called the fourth, and which appears to have been composed at the time when the author intended to comprise the whole in four books; but which, as he bad afterwards determined to distribute the poem into more books, might perhaps more properly be called the last book. And this is all that is executed of the new work, which, although it appeared to the editor too valuable, even in its imperfect state, to be withholden from the public, yet (he conceives) takes in by much too small a part of the original poem to supply its place, and to supersede the re-publication of it. For which reason both the poems are inserted in this collection. Of odes the author had designed to make up two books, consisting of twenty odes each, including the several odes which he had before published at different times. 1 The right honourable Jeremiah Dyson; by whom this advertisement was written. The Hymn to the Naiads is reprinted from the sixth volume of Dodsley's Miscellanies, with a few corrections and the addition of some notes. To the inscriptions taken from the same volume three new inscriptions are added; the last of which is the only instance wherein liberty has been taken of inserting any thing in this collection, which did not appear to have been intended by the author for publication2; among whose papers no copy of this was found, but it is printed from a copy, which he had many years since given to the editor. The author of these poems was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, on the 9th day of November, 1721. He was educated at the grammar school at Newcastle, and at the universities of Edinburgh and Leyden, at the latter of which he took his degree of doctor in physic. He was afterwards admitted by mandamus to the degree of doctor in physic in the university of Cambridge; elected a fellow of the royal college of physicians, and one of the physicians of St. Thomas's Hospital: and upon the establishment of the queen's household, appointed one of the physicians to her majesty. He died of a putrid fever, on the 23d day of June, 1770, and is buried in the parish church of St. James's Westminster. * In the present edition, a few pieces are added, which are known to be genuine, and which certainly are no discredit to their author. But these are all placed at the end of the volume. THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION. A POEM. IN THREE BOOKS. Ασεθες μέν ἔσιν ἀνθρωπε τὰς παρὰ τὸ θεα χάρθας PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR M.DCC.XLIV. THE DESIGN. THERE are certain powers in human nature which seem to hold a middle place between the organs of bodily sense and the faculties of moral perception: they have been called by a very general name, | The Powers of Imagination. Like the external senses, they relate to matter and motion; and at the same time, give the mind ideas analogous to those of moral approbation and dislike. Yet, as their intention was only to express the objects of imagination, and as they still abound chiefly in ideas of that class, they of course retain their original character; and all the different pleasures which they excite, are termed, in general, Pleasures of Imagination. The design of the following poem is to give a view of these in the largest acceptation of the term; so that whatever our imagination feels from the agreeable appearances of nature, and all the various entertainment we meet with either in poetry, painting, music, or any of the elegant arts, might be deducible from one or other of those principles in the constitution of the human mind, which are here established and explained. In executing this general plan, it was necessary first of all to distinguish the imagination from our other faculties; and in the next place to characterize those original forms or properties of being, about which it is conversant, and which are by Nature adapted to it as light is to the eyes, or truth to the understanding. These properties Mr. Addison had reduced to the three general classes of greatness, novelty, and beauty; and into these As they we may analyse every object, however complex, which, properly speaking, is delightful to the imagination. But such an object may also include many other sources of pleasure; and its beauty, or novelty, or grandeur, will make a stronger impression by reason of this concurrence. Besides which, the imitative arts, especially poetry, owe much of their effect to a similar exhibition of properties quite foreign to the imagination, insomuch that in every line of the most applauded poems, we meet with either ideas drawn from the external senses, or truths discovered to the understanding, or illustrations of contrivance and final causes, or above all the rest, with circumstances proper to awaken and engage the passions. It was therefore necessary to enumerate and exemplify these different species of pleasure; especially that from the passions, which, as it is supreme in the noblest work of human genius, so being in some particulars not a little surprising, gave an oppor are the inlets of some of the most exquisite pleasures with which we are acquainted, it has naturally happened, that men of warm and sensible tempers have sought means to recall the delightful perceptions which they afford, independent of the object which originally produced them. This rave rise to the imitative or designing arts; some of which, as, painting and sculpture, directly copy he external appearances which were admired in rature; others, as music and poetry, bring them ack to remembrance by signs universally estadished and understood. But these arts, as they grew more correct and leliberate, were of course led to extend their imiation beyond the peculiar objects of the imaginaive powers: especially poetry, which, making se of language as the instrument by which it mitates, it consequently becomes an unlimited epresentative of every species and mode of being. tunity to enliven the didactic turn of the poem, by introducing an allegory to account for the ap pearance. After these parts of the subject which hold chiefly of admiration, or naturally warm and interest the mind, a pleasure of a very different nature, that which arises from ridicule, came next to be considered. As this is the foundation of the comic manner in all the arts, and has been but very imperfectly treated by moral writers, it was thought proper to give it a particular illustration, and to distinguish the general sources from which the ridicule of characters is derived. Here too a change of style became necessary; such a one as might yet be consistent, if possible, with the general taste of composition in the serious parts of the subject: nor is it an easy task to give any tolerable force to images of this kind, without running either into the gigantic expressions of the mock heroic, or the familiar and poetical raillery of professed satire; neither of which would have been proper here. The materials of all imitation being thus laid open, nothing now remained but to illustrate some particular pleasures, which arise either from the relations of different objects one to another, or from the nature of imitation itself. Of the first kind is that various and complicated resemblance existing between several parts of the material and immaterial worlds, which is the foundation of metaphor and wit. As it seems in a great measure to depend on the early association of our ideas, and as this habit of associating is the source of many pleasures and pains in life, and on that account bears a great share in the influence of poetry and the other arts, it is therefore mentioned here, and its effects described. Then follows a general account of the production of these elegant arts, and of the secondary pleasure, as it is called, arising from the resemblance of their imitations to the original appearances of Nature. After which, the work concludes with some reflections on the general conduct of the powers of imagination, and on their natural and moral usefulness in life. civil life. It is on this account that he is so careful to point out the benevolent intention of the Author of Nature in every principle of the human constitution here insisted on; and also to unite the moral excellencies of life in the same point of view with the mere external objects of good taste; thus recommending them in common to our natural propensity for admiring what is beautiful and lovely. The same views have also led him to introduce some sentiments which may perhaps be looked upon as not quite direct to the subject; but, since they bear an obvious relation to it, the authority of Virgil, the faultless model of didactic poetry, will best support him in this particular. For the sentiments themselves, he makes no apology. THE PLEASURES OF IMAGINATION. THE ARGUMENT. The subject proposed. Difficulty of treating it poetically. The ideas of the divine mind, the origin of every quality pleasing to the imagination. The natural variety of constitution in the minds of men; with its final cause. The idea of a fine imagination, and the state of the mind in the enjoyment of those pleasures which it affords. All the primary pleasures of the imagination result from the perception of greatness, or wonderfulness, or beauty in objects. The pleasure from greatness, with its final cause. Pleasure from novelty or wonderfulness, with its final cause. Pleasure from beauty, with its final cause. The connection of beauty with truth and good, applied to the conduct of life. Invitation to the study of moral philosophy. The different degrees of beauty in different species, of objects: colour; shape; natural concretes;! vegetables; animals; the mind. The sublime, the fair, the wonderful of the mind. The con nection of the imagination and the moral faculty Conclusion. Concerning the manner or turn of composition WITH what attractive charms this goodly frame Your gifts, your honours, dance around my strain |