ANALYSIS

OF THE

FIRST PART.

THE Poem begins with the description of an

obfcure village, and of the pleafing melancholy which it excites on being revifited after a long abfence. This mixed fenfation is an effect of the Memory. From an effect we naturally afcend to

the caufe; and the fubject propofed is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty.

B

It is evident that there is a continued fucceffion

of ideas in the mind, and that they introduce each other with a certain degree of regularity. Their complexion depends greatly on the different perceptions of pleasure and pain which we receive through the medium of fenfe; and, in return, they have a confiderable influence on the animal

œconomy.

They are fometimes excited by fenfible objects, and fometimes by an internal operation of the mind. Of the former fpecies is moft probably the memory of brutes; and its many fources of pleafure to them, as well as to ourselves, are confidered in the firft part. The latter is the most perfect degree of memory, and forms the fubject of the fecond.