other, which can arise from nothing else but the greatness of the manner in the one, and the meanness in the other.

I have seen an observation upon this subject in a French author which very much pleased me. It is in Monsieur Freart's parallel of the ancient and modern architecture." I shall give it the reader with the same terms of art which he has made use of. "I am observing (says he) a thing which, in my opinion, is very curious, whence it proceeds, that in the same quantity of superficies, the one manner seems great and magnificent, and the other poor and trifling; the reason is fine and uncommon. I say then, that' to introduce into architecture this grandeur of manner, we ought so to proceed, that 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 modillions or dentelli, make a noble show by their graceful projections; if 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 intermingled 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 appear solemn and great; as, on the contrary, that it will have but a poor and mean effect, where there is a redundancy of those

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smaller ornaments which divide and scatter the angles of the sight into such a multitude of rays, so pressed together that the whole will appear but a confusion.'

Among all the figures of architecture, there are none that have a greater air than the concave and the convex; and we find in all the ancient and modern architecture, as well in the remote parts of China 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 outside of a dome, your eye half surrounds it: look

the inside, and at one glance you have all the prospect of it; the entire concavity falls into your eye at once, the sight being as the centre that collects and gathers into it the lines of the whole circumference: in a square pillar, the sight often takes in but a fourth part of the surface: and in a square concave, must move up and down to the different sides, before it is master of all the inward surface. For this reason, the fancy is infinitely more struck with the view of the open air, and skies, that passes through an arch, than what comes through a square or any other figure. The figure of the rainbow does not contribute less to its magnificence than the colours to its beanty, as it is very poetically described by the son of Sirach:

• Look upon the rainbow, and praise Him that made it: very beautiful it is in its brightness; it encompasses the heavens with a glorious circle, and the hands of the Most High have bended it.'

Having thus spoken of that greatness which affects the mind 'in architecture, I might next show the pleasure that rises in the imagination from what appears new and beautiful in this art; but as every beholder has naturally a greater taste of these two perfections in every building which offers itself to his view, than of that which I have hitherto considered, I shall not trouble my readers with any

reflections upon it. It is sufficient for my present purpose to observe, that there is nothing in this whole art which pleases the imagination, but as it is great, uncommon, or beautiful.

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ADDISON.

No. 416. FRIDAY, JUNE 27.

PAPER VI.

ON T&E PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.

CONTENTS.

The secondary pleasures of the imagination. The several

sources of these pleasures (statuary, painting, description, and music,) compared together. The final cause of our receiving pleasure from these several sources. of descriptions in particular. The power of words over the imagination. Why one reader more pleased with descriptions than another.

Quatenùs hoc simile est oculis, quod mente videmus.

LUCR.

-Objects still appear the same
To mind and eye, in colour and in frame. CREECK.

I at first divided the pleasures of the imagination into such as arise from objects that are actually before our eyes, or that once entered in at our eyes, and are afterwards called

up into the mind, either barely by its own operations, or on occasion of something without us, as statues or descriptions. We have already considered the first division, and shall therefore enter on the other, which, for'distinction's sake, I have called the secondary pleasures of the imagination. When I

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the ideas we receive from statues, descriptions, or such like occasions, are the same that were once actually in our view, it must not be understood that we had once seen the very place, action, or person which are carv.

ed or described. It is sufficient that we have seen places, persons, or actions, in general, which bear a resemblance, or at least some remote analogy, with what we find represented; since it is in the power of the imagination, when it is once stocked with particular ideas, to enlarge, compound, and vary them at her own pleasure.

Among the different kinds of representation, statuary is the most natural, and shows us something likest the object that is represented. To make use of a common instance, let one who is born blind take an image in his hands, and trace out with his fingers, the different furrows and impressions of the chisel, and he will easily conceive how the shape of a man or beast may

be represented by it; but should he draw his hand over a picture, where all is smooth and uniform, he would never be able to imagine how the several prominences and depressions of a human body could be shown on a plain piece of canvas, that has in it no unevenness or irregularity. Description runs yet farther from the thing it represents than painting; for a picture bears a real resemblance to its original, which letters and syllables are wholly void of. Colours speak all languages, but words are understood only by such a people or nation. For this reason, though men's necessities quickly put them on finding out speech, writing is probably of a later invention than painting; particularly we are told, that in America, when the Spaniards first arrived there, expresses were sent to the emperor of Mexico in paint, and the news of his country delineated by the strokes of a pencil, which was a more natural way than that of writing, though at the same time

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