imagination which arise from the actual view and moment with something that is new. We are survey of outward objects: and these, I think, all quickly tired with looking upon hills and valleys, proceed from the sight of what is great, uncommon, where every thing continues fixed and settled in the or beautiful. There may, indeed, be something so same place and posture, but find our thoughts a terrible or offensive, that the horror or loathsome-little agitated and relieved at the sight of such obness of an object may overbear the pleasure which jects as are ever in motion, and sliding away from results from its greatness, novelty, or beauty; but beneath the eye of the beholder. still there will be such a mixture of delight in the very disgust it gives us, as any of these three qualifications are most conspicuous and prevailing. But there is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction and complacency through By greatness, I do not only mean the bulk of any the imagination, and gives a finishing to any thing single object, but the largness of a whole view, con- that is great or uncommon. The very first discovery sidered as one entire piece. Such are the prospects of it strikes the mind with an inward joy, and of an open champaign country, a vast uncultivated spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its desert, of huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and faculties. There is not perhaps any real beauty or precipices, or a wide expanse of waters, where we deformity more in one piece of matter than another, are not struck with the novelty or beauty of the because we might have been so made, that whatso sight, but with that rude kind of magnificence which ever now appears loathsome to us might have shown appears in many of these stupendous works of na- itself agreeable; but we find by experience that ture. Our imagination loves to be filled with an there are several modifications of matter, which the object, or to grasp at any thing that is too big for mind, without any previous consideration, proits capacity. We are flung into a pleasing astonish-nounces at first sight beautiful or deformed. Thus ment at such unbounded views, and feel a delightful we see that every different species of sensible creastillness and amazement in the soul at the appre-tures has its different notions of beauty, and that heusion of them. The mind of man naturally hates each of them is most affected with the beauties of every thing that looks like a restraint upon it, and its own kind. This is no where more remarkable is apt to faucy itself under a sort of confinement, than in birds of the same shape and proportion, when the sight is pent up in a narrow compass, and where we often see the male determined in his shortened on every side by the neighbourhood of courtship by the single grain or tincture of a feather, walls or mountains. On the contrary, a spacious and never discovering any charms but in the colour horizon is an image of liberty, where the eye has of its species. room to range abroad, to expatiate at large on the immensity of its views, and to lose itself amidst the variety of objects that offer themselves to its observation. Such wide and undetermined prospects are as pleasing to the fancy as the speculations of eternity or infinitude are to the understanding. But if there be a beauty or uncommon ness joined with this grandeur, as in a troubled ocean, a heaven adorned with stars and meteors, or a spacious landscape cut out into rivers, woods, rocks, and meadows, the pleasure still grows upon us, as it arises from more than a single principle. Scit thalamo servare fidem, sanctasque veretur Every thing that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed. We are indeed so often conversant with one set of objects, and tired out with so many repeated shows of the same things, that whatever is new or uncommon contributes a little to vary human life, and to divert our minds for a while with the strangeness of its appearance. It serves us for a kind of refreshment, and takes off from that satiety we are apt to complain of, in our usual and ordinary entertainments. It is this that bestows charms on a monster, and makes even the imperfections of nature please us. It is this that recommends variety, where the mind is every instant called off to something new, and the attention not suffered to dwell too long, and waste itself on any particular object. It is this, likewise, that improves what is great or beautiful, and makes it afford the mind a double entertainment. Groves, fields, and meadows, are at any season of the year pleasant to look upon, but never so much as in the opening of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the eye. For this reason there is nothing that more enlivens a prospect than rivers, jetteaus, or fails of water, where the scene is perIt would seem, from his manner of introducing them, that, petually shifting, and entertaining the sight every Mr. Addison was himself the author of these fine verses, The feather'd husband, to his partner true, either in the gaiety or variety of colours, in the symmetry and proportion of parts, in the arrangement and disposition of bodies, or in a just mixture and concurrence of all together. Among these several kinds of beauty the eye takes most delight in colours. We no where meet with a more glorious or pleasing show in nature, than what appears in the heavens at the rising and setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different stains of light that show themselves in clouds of a different situation. For this reason we find the poets, who are always addressing themselves to the imagination, borrowing more of their epithets from colours, than from any other topic. occasion of admiring the goodness and wisdom of the first Contriver. One of the final causes of our delight in any thing that is great may be this. The Supreme Author of our being has so formed the soul of man, that nothing but Himself can be its last, adequate, and proper happiness. Because, therefore, a great part of our happiness must arise from the contemplation of his being, that he might give our souls a just relish for such a contemplation, he has made them naturally delight in the apprehension of what is great or unlimited. Our admiration, which is a very pleasing motion of the mind, immediately rises at the consideration of any object that takes up a great deal of room in the fancy, and, by consequence, will improve into the highest pitch of astonishment and devotion when we contemplate his nature, that is neither circumscribed by time nor place, nor to be comprehended by the largest capacity of a created being. As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more pleased the more it finds of these perfections in the same object, so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction by the assistance of another sense. Thus, any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of water, awakens every moment the mind of the be- He has annexed a secret pleasure to the idea of holder, and makes him more attentive to the several any thing that is new or uncommon, that he might beauties of the place that lie before him. Thus, if encourage us in the pursuit after knowledge, and there arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they engage us to search into the wonders of his creaheighten the pleasures of the imagination, and make tion; for every new idea brings such a pleasure with even the colours and verdure of the landscape ap-it, as rewards any pains we have taken in its acquipear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses sition, and consequently serves as a motive to put recommend each other, and are pleasanter together us upon fresh discoveries. than when they enter the mind separately: as the He has made every thing that is beautiful in our different colours of a picture, when they are well own species pleasant, that all creatures might be disposed, set off one another, and receive an ad-tempted to multiply their kind, and fill the world ditional beauty from the advantage of their situation.-O. No. 413.] TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1712. PAPER III ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. CONTENTS. Why the necessary cause of our being pleased with what is great, new, or beautiful, unknown. Why the final cause more known and more useful. The final cause of our being pleased with what is great. The final cause of our being pleased with what is new. The final cause of our being pleased with what is beautiful in our own species. The final cause of our being pleased with what is beautiful in general. with inhabitants; for it is very remarkable, that wherever nature is crossed in the production of a monster (the result of any unnatural mixture), the breed is incapable of propagating its likeness, and of founding a new order of creatures: so that, unless all animals were allured by the beauty of their own species, generation would be at an end, and the earth unpeopled. In the last place, he has made every thing that is beautiful in all other objects pleasant, or rather has made render the whole creation more gay and delightful. so many objects appear beautiful, that he might He has given almost every thing about us the power of raising an agreeable idea in the imagination: so that it is impossible for us to behold his works with coldness or indifference, and to survey so many beauties without a secret satisfaction and complacency. Things would make but a poor appearance to the eye, if we saw them only in their proper figures and motions: and what reason can we assign for their exciting in us many of those ideas which are different from any thing that exists in the objects themselves (for such are light and colours), were it not to add supernumerary ornaments to the universe, and make it more agreeable to the imagination ? We are every where entertained with pleasing shows and apparitions: we discover imaginary glories in the heavens and in the earth, and see some of this visionary beauty poured out upon the whole creation: but what a rough unsightly sketch of nature should we be entertained with, did all her colouring disappear, and the several distinctions of light and shade vanish? In short, our souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion, and we walk about like the enchanted hero of a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and Final causes lie more bare and open to our ob-meadows; and, at the same time, hears the warbling sérvation, as there are often a greater variety that of birds, and the purling of streams; but upon belong to the same effect; and these, though they the finishing of some secret spell the fantastic scene are not altogether so satisfactory, are generally breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds him on more useful than the other, as they give us greater a barren heath, or in a solitary desert. It is not -Causa latet, vis est notissima- OVID, Met. ix. 207. The cause is secret, but the effect is known.-ADDISON THOUGH in yesterday's paper we considered how every thing that is great, new, or beautiful is apt to affect the imagination with pleasure, we must own that it is impossible for us to assign the necessary cause of this pleasure, because we know neither the nature of an idea, nor the substance of a human soul, which might help us to discover the conformity or disagreeableness of the one to the other; and therefore, for want of such a light, all that we can do in speculations of this kind, is to reflect on those operations of the soul that are most agreeable, and to range, under their proper heads, what is pleasing or displeasing to the mind, without being able to trace out the several necessary and efficient causes from whence the pleasure or displeasure arises. improbable that something like this may be the state | gives me hopes of your favour to it, and that is what of the soul after its first separation, in respect of Tully advises, to yit, that the benefit is made as the images it will receive from matter; though in- diffusive as possible. Every one that has half a deed the ideas of colours are so pleasing and beau-guinea is put into the possibility, from that small tiful in the imagination, that it is possible the soul will not be deprived of them, but perhaps find them excited by some other occasional cause, as they are at present by the different impressions of the subtle matter on the organ of sight. sum, to raise himself an easy fortune: when these little parcels of wealth are, as it were, thus thrown back into the redonation of Providence, we are to expect that some who live under hardships or obscurity may be produced to the world in the figure I have here supposed that my reader is acquainted they deserve by this means. I doubt not but this with that great modern discovery, which is at pre-last argument will have force with you; and I cansent universally acknowledged by all the inquirers not add another to it, but what your severity will, I into natural philosophy: namely, that light and fear, very little regard, which is, that I am, colours, as apprehended by the imagination, are only Sir, your greatest Admirer, ideas in the mind, and not qualities that have any RICHARD STELLE," existence in matter. As this is a truth which has been proved incontestably by many modern philosophers, and is indeed one of the finest speculations in that science, if the English reader would see the notion explained at large, he may find it in the eighth chapter of the second book of Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding.-O. No. 414.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 1712. PAPER IV. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION, The following letter of Steele to Addison is reprinted The works of nature more pleasant to the imagination than here from the original edition of the Spectator in folio. "MR. SPECTATOR, a June 24, 1712. I would not divert the course of your discourses, when you seem bent upon obliging the world with a train of thinking, which, rightly attended to, may render the life of every one that reads it more easy and happy for the future. The pleasures of the imagination are what bewilder life, when reason and judgment do not interpose; it is therefore a worthy action in you to look carefully into the powers of fancy, that other men, from the knowledge of them, may improve their joys, and allay their griefs, by just use of that faculty. I say, Sir, I would not interrupt you in the progress of this discourse; but if you will do me the favour of inserting this letter in your next paper, you will do some service to the public, though not in so noble a way of obliging, as that of improving their minds. Allow me, Sir, to acquaint you with a design (of which I am partly author), though it tends to no greater a gond than that of getting money. I should not hope for the favour of a philosopher in this matter, if it were not attempted under the restrictions which you sages put upon private acquisitions. The first purpose which every good man is to propose to himself, is the service of his prince and country: after that is done, he cannot add to himself, but he must also be beneficial to them. This scheme of gain is not only consistent with that end, but has its very being in subordination to it; for no man can be a gainer here but at the same time he himself, or some other, must succeed in their dealings with the government. It is called The Multiplication Table,' and is so far calculated for the immediate service of her majesty, that the same person who is fortunate in the lottery of the state may receive yet further advantage in this table. And I am sure nothing can be more pleasing to her gracious temper than to find out additional methods of increasing their good fortune who adventure any thing in her service, or laying occasions for others to become capable of serving their country who are at present in too low circumstances to exert themselves. The manner of executing the design is by giving out receipts for half guineas received, which shall entitle the fortunate bearer to certain sums in the table, as is set forth at large in the proposals printed the 23rd instant. There is another circumstance in this design which those of art. The works of nature still more pleasant, the more they resenible those of art. The works of art mere pleasant, the more they resemble those of nature. Our kaguish plantations and gardens considered in the foregoing light. -Alterius sic Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. Hos. Ars Poet. v. 410 But mutually they need each other's help-RoscosMON. If we consider the works of nature and art as they are qualified to entertain the imagination, we shail and the last very defective, in comparison of the beautiful or strange, they can have nothing in them former; for though they may sometimes appear as of that vastness and immensity, which afford so great an entertainment to the mind of the beholder. he one may be as polite and delicate as the other, but can never show herself so august and magnificent in the design. There is something more boid than in the nice touches and embellishments of art. and masterly in the rough careless strokes of nature, The beauties of the most stately garden or palace lie in a narrow compass; the imagination inimedigratify her; but in the wide fields of nature, the ately runs them over, and requires something else to sight wanders up and down without confinement, and is fed with an infinite variety of images, without any certain stint or number. For this reason we always find the poet in love with the country life, where mishes out all those scenes that are most apt to denature appears in the greatest perfection, and furlight the imagination. Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus, et fugit urbes. -To grottos and to groves we run, Here easy quiet, a secure retreat, VIRG. Georg. l. 457. A harmless life that knows not how to cheat, And, after toilsome days, a sweet repose at night.-DET But though there are several of those wild scenes that are more delightful than any artificial shows, yet we find the works of nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art: for in this case our pleasure rises from a double principle; from the agreeableness of the objects to the eye, and from their similitude to other objects. We are pleased as well with comparing their beauties, as with surveying them, and can represent them to our minds, either as copies or originals. Hence it is that we take delight in a prospect which is well laid out, and diversified with fields and meadows, woods and rivers; in those accidental landscapes of trees, clouds, and cities, that are sometimes found in the veins of marble; in the curious fret-work of rocks and grottos; and, in a word, in any thing that hath such a variety or regularity as may seem the effect of design in what we call the works of chance. Writers who have given us an account of China, tell us the inhabitants of that country laugh at the plantations of our Europeans, which are laid out by the rule and line; because, they say, any person may place trees in equal rows and uniform figures. They choose rather to show a genius in works of this nature, and therefore always conceal the art by which they direct themselves. They have a word, it seems, in their language, by which they express the particular beauty of a plantation that thus strikes the imagination at first sight, without discovering what it is that has so agreeable an effect. Our British gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissars upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but for my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre. But, as our great modellers of gardens have their magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very natural for them to tear up all the beautiful plantations of fruit-trees, and contrive a plan that may most turn to their own profit, in taking off their evergreens, and the like moveable plants, with which their shops are plentifully If the products of nature rise in value according as they more or less resemble those of art, we inay be sure that artificial works receive a greater advantage from their resemblance of such as are natural; because here the similitude is not only pleasant, but the pattern more perfect. The prettiest landscape I ever saw, was one drawn on the walls of a dark room, which stood opposite on one side to a navigable river, and on the other to a park. The experiment is very common in optics. Here you might discover the waves and fluctuations of the water in strong and proper colours, with the picture of a ship entering at one end, and sailing by degrees through the whole piece. On another there ap-stocked.-O. peared the green shadows of trees, waving to and fro with the wind, and herds of deer among them in miniature, leaping about upon the wall. I must confess the novelty of such a sight may be one occasion of its pleasantness to the imagination; but certainly its chief reason is its nearest resemblance to nature, as it does not only, like other pictures, give the colour and figure, but the motion of the of architecture, as it affects the imagination. Greatness in things it represents. No. 415.] THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1712. PAPER V. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. architecture relates either to the bulk or to the ammer. Greatness of bulk in the ancient oriental buildings. The ancient accounts of these buildings confirmed, 1. From the advantages for raising such works, in the first ages of the world, and in eastern climates; 2. From several of them which are still extant. Instances how greatness of manner affects the imagination. A French author's observations on this subject. Why concave and convex figures give a greatness of manner to works of architecture. Every thing that pleases the imagination in architecture, is either great, beautiful, or new We have before observed, that there is generally in nature something more grand and august than what we meet with in the curiosities of art. When, therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it gives us a nobler and more exalted kind of pleasure than what we receive from the nicer and more accurate productions of art. On this account our English gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as those in France and Italy, where we see a large exAdde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem. tent of ground covered over with an agreeable inixVIRG. Georg. ii. 155, ture of garden and forest, which represent every Witness our cities of illustrious name, where an artificial rudeness, much more charming Their costly labour, and stupendous frame.-DRYDEN. than that neatness and elegancy which we meet with in those of our own country. It might indeed HAVING already shown how the fancy is affected be of ill consequence to the public, as well as un- by the works of nature, and afterwards considered profitable to private persons, to alienate so much in general both the works of nature and of art, how ground from pasturage and the plough, in many they mutually assist and complete each other in parts of a country that is so well peopled, and culti-forming such scenes and prospects as are most apt vated to a far greater advantage. But why may not a whole estate be thrown into a kind of garden by frequent plantations, that may turn as much to the profit as the pleasure of the owner? A marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain shaded with oaks, are not only more beautiful, but more beneficial, than when they lie bare and unadorned. Fields of corn make a pleasant prospect; and if the walks were a little taken care of that lie between them, if the natural embroidery of the meadows were helped and improved by some small additions of art, and the several rows of hedges set off by trees and flowers that the soil was capable of receiving, a man might make a pretty landscape of his own possessions. to delight the mind of the beholder, I shall in this paper throw together some reflections on that particular art, which has more immediate tendency, than any other, to produce those primary pleasures of the imagination which have hitherto been the subject of this discourse. The art I mean is that of architecture, which I shall consider only with regard to the light in which the foregoing speculations have placed it, without entering into those rules and maxims which the great masters of architecture have laid down, and explained at large in number less treatises upon that subject. Greatness in the works of architecture may be considered as relating to the bulk and body of struc ture, or to the manner in which it is built. As for the first, we find the ancients, especially among the eastern nations of the world, infinitely superior to the moderns. of manner in architecture, which has such force upon the imagination, that a small building, where it appears, shall give the mind nobler ideas than one of twenty times the bulk, where the manuer is or dinary or little. Thus, perhaps, a man would have been more astonished with the majestic air that appeared in one of Lysippus's statues of Alexander, though no bigger than the life, than he might have been with mount Athos, had it been cut into the figure of the hero, according to the proposal of Phidias, with a river in one hand, and a city in the other. * Let any one reflect on the disposition of mind he finds in himself at his first entrance into the Pantheon at Rome, and how his imagination is filled with something great and amazing; and, at the same time, consider how little, in proportion, he is affected with the inside of a Gothic cathedral, though it be five times larger than the other; which can arise from nothing else but the greatness of the manner in the one, and the meanness in the other. Not to mention the tower of Babel, of which an old author says, there were the foundations to be seen in his time, which looked like a spacious mountain; what could be more noble than the walls of Babylon, its hanging gardens, and its temple to Jupiter Belus, that rose a mile high by eight several stories, each story a furlong in height, and on the top of which was the Babylonian observatory? I might here, likewise, take notice of the huge rock that was cut into the figure of Semiramis, with the smaller rocks that lay by it in the shape of tributary kings; the prodigious basin, or artificial lake, which took in the whole Euphrates, till such time as a new canal was formed for its reception, with the several trenches through which that river was conveyed. I know there are persons who look upon some of these wonders of art as fabulous; but I cannot find any grounds for such a suspicion; unless it be that we have no such works among us at present. There I have seen an observation upon this subject in a were, indeed, many greater advantages for building French author, which very much pleased me. It in those times, and in that part of the world, than is in Monsieur Freart's Parallel of the ancient and have been met with ever since. The earth was ex- modern Architecture. I shall give it the reader tremely fruitful; men lived generally on pasturage, with the same terms of art which he has made use which requires a much smaller number of hands of. "I am observing," says he, a thing which, than agriculture. There were few trades to employ in my opinion, is very curious, whence it proceeds, the busy part of mankind, aud fewer arts and sciences that in the same quantity of superficies, the one to give work to men of speculative tempers; and, manner seems great and magnificent, and the other what is more than all the rest, the prince was abso-poor and trifling; the reason is fine and uncommnon. lute; so that, when he went to war, he put himself say, then, that to introduce into architecture this at the head of the whole people; as we find Semi-grandeur of manner, we ought so to proceed, that ramis leading her three millions to the field, and yet overpowered by the number of her enemies. It is no wonder, therefore, when she was at peace, and turned her thoughts on building, that she could accomplish such great works, with such a prodigious multitude of labourers: besides that in her climate there was small interruption of frosts and winters, which make the northern workmen lie half a year idle. I might mention, too, among the benefits of the climate, what historians say of the earth, that it sweated out a bitumen, or natural kind of mortar, which is doubtless the same with that mentioned in the holy writ, as contributing to the structure of Babel: "Slime they used instead of mortar." In Egypt we still see their pyramids, which answer to the descriptions that have been made of then; and I question not but a traveller might find out some remains of the labyrinth that covered a whole province, and had a hundred temples disposed among its several quarters and divisions. the division of the principal members of the order may consist but of few parts, that they be all great, and of a bold and ample relievo, and swelling; and that the eye beholding nothing little and mean, the imagination may be more vigorously touched and affected with the work that stands before it. For example: in a cornice, if the gola or cymatium of the corona, the coping, the mouillions or dentilli, make a noble show by their graceful projections, i we see none of that ordinary confusion which is the result of those little cavities, quarter rounds of the astragal, and I know not how many other inter mingled particulars, which produce no effect in great and massy works, and which very unprofitably take up place to the prejudice of the principal member, it is most certain that this manner will ap pear solemn and great; as, on the contrary, that it will have but a poor and mean effect, where there is a redundancy of those smaller ornaments, which divide and scatter the angles of the sight into such multitude of rays, so pressed together that the whole will appear but a confusion." a The wall of China is one of these eastern pieces of magnificence, which makes a figure even in the map of the world, although an accout of it would Among all the figures in architecture, there are have been thought fabulous, were not the wall itself none that have a greater air than the concave and still extant. the convex; and we find in the ancient and modera We are obliged to devotion for the noblest build-architecture, as well in the remote parts of China, ings that have adorned the several countries of the world. It is this which has set men at work on temples and public places of worship, not only that they might, by the magnificence of the building, invite the Deity to reside within it, but that such stupendous works might, at the same time, open the mind to vast conceptions, and fit it to converse with the divinity of the place. For every thing that is majestic imprints an awfulness and reverence on the mind of the beholder, and strikes in with the natural greatness of the soul. In the second place we are to consider greatness as in countries nearer home, that round pillars and vaulted roofs make a great part of those buildings which are designed for pomp and magnificence. The reason I take to be, because in these figures we generally see more of the body than in those of other kinds. There are, indeed, figures of bodies, where the eye may take in two-thirds of the surface; but, as in such bodies, the sight must split upon several angles, it does not take in one uniform idea, but several ideas of the same kind. Look upon the * Dinocrates |